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Title: Scars
Author: DragonSapphire and Mary-chan
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Original characters belong to DragonSapphire and Mary-chan respectively. Do not use without either of our permission.
Summary: Part II of "Tainted Innocence." Haru is kidnapped, yet again, by one of his own kind and returned to his former - and very sadistic – master, Kahoku, where he struggles to survive the wolf’s unimaginable cruelty…and his own destiny.
Warnings: Violence, language, Alternate Universe (AU), angst, sex, and slash. If you are underage, are uncomfortable with any of these subjects, or just not a fan of male/male relationships, please do not continue.
The kami looked to the cold orbs and sighed.
"Simian...did you find the bootie I left for you? That is how you tracked me. I was worried you would think I had left you..."
Simian head seemed to throb as devastatingly as his heart. His thick, heavy eyebrows that Haru had onced loved furrowed with pain and confusion at the other's words. Why did this person continue to torment him so cruelly? Didn't he see that Simian just wanted to be left alone, the failure that he was, and dissolve into misery...like the wretch he was that couldn't protect the one that meant everything to him?
"J-Just...go..." Simian muffled a sob behind his hands, his nails digging painfully, uncaringly, into his creased forehead.
The kami's face appeared, then, to look sad. "Look at me, Simian. You don't recognize me? Not even a small amount? Here," he said, turning his head so the full moonlight played over familiar scarring on his neck. "This is the wound you gave me, the one I cherish now as your mark." The violet eyes looked deeply into his.
"You, who were once human, cannot accept the possibility of transformation?" The kami’s voice became very low, almost despairing. Considering what he had given up to love the deer/tiger, it was not surprising. "You say we are soul mates, and yet you cannot find me, even when my true soul is revealed..."
Simian's breaths became ragged through the spaces of his tense fingers over his face, besieged by his dementia and loss, struggling against the desperate hope that would break him if it were false...the knowing that coursed through him, warring with his common sense.
"...I just want my bunny back," he whispered brokenly, his eyes finally raising up to the face that strangely sent the same echo of emotion through him, the same he felt for the Haru-chan he knew...and loved so much.
Simian appeared to be calming and that was good, but he persisted in not believing what was right before his eyes.
The kami carried Simian over beside the pool of water and carefully lay him down on a bed of moss, cradling his head in his lap. The kami’s gloved hands seemed to produce a luminous cloth from thin air, and this he dipped into the waters. Very gently he pressed the cool compress to Simian’s forehead. Wherever his hand went, the wounds instantly closed and the cloth washed the blood away.
"Your 'bunny'," he said soothingly, "is another form of mine. We are the same person; I am Haru, I am Hikari. We are the same, and we love you, Simian."
Simian lay compliant under the kami's healing touch, his eyes locked to the other's serene, beautiful face as he quietly tried to absorb the other's words. This Hikari...he resembled Haru so much it hurt to look at him, but seemed more matured...as if this was what his lover would look like if Haru actually looked his age instead of a child barely into his teens.
Simian inanely felt one of his fangs poke against his bottom lip a little, a shadow of a smile pulling unerringly at his mouth at the memory of his brief worry that Haru wasn't the "legal" age of consent yet because he looked so young. But the moment faded and his face became still once more, wanting more than anything to believe that this creature could be Haru, that he wasn’t...dead.
"I...don't understand..." Simian's gaze remained connected to the creature, his tone immensely saddened, but with a tentative openness that was willing to accept...or at least have something to hold on to again.
"This form, the one presently before you, is what Kahoku has been tormenting me to find. It is a Legend that has spread among the populace springing from the accounts of those who have seen me walk in this transformed state. The legend says that the white usagi youkai grants wishes. The wolf lord covets my power. I did not tell you this when we met; I did not want you to want me based upon the legend that has caused me suffering. I wanted you to love me based only upon what I could give you in my weak, constant form."
"...I don't believe in luck...or wishes..." Simian muttered, even though the light weight of the purple rabbits' foot that he'd carried with him since his human days and supposedly signified good luck was a continual presence around his neck. Perhaps that legend that had caused Haru so much suffering was the reason Sapphire had him steal the usagi youkai...but somehow, he didn't believe that either.
The kami smiled, his arms reaching down to clean the place where Kahoku had opened his side. "You will have to tell me this when I have returned to the Haru you remember, for I remember nothing of what goes on when I am in this form. Yet everything that Haru knows, I know. Everything that Haru feels I also feel..."
The kami's extraordinarily serene face tipped over Simian’s and descended, touching his lips to those of his poor, bewildered lover.
Simian gasped against the other's mouth, a sensation that was nearly identical to the intensity caused when Simian touched Haru's scars rippling through him at the contact. He whimpered as the spirit's soft lips stroked his, shivering urgently as one of his hands clutched at the kami, but without the intention of escaping. The stubborn, frustrating side of Simian shifted a little in his mind, but his heart had been nearly destroyed when he thought Haru was gone forever and it wouldn't allow him to lose him – if by some miracle it really was him - again.
Two long, soft usagi ears, laden with heavy gold hoops, made soft clinks as they slid to the ground on either side of Simian's cheeks as the kami's kiss deepened. The energy rippling through his mouth was intoxicating as it sped to every cell in the hybrid’s body, wrapping him in the unmistakably sweet aura of honeysuckles.
Simian's entire being trembled as he took in the golden energy filling him, his own spilling out into the other as he took and gave more, feeling his equilibrium balance...but change. The senses seemed to overwhelm him. His nose breathed in deeply the smell of Haru that recollected the bunny when he’d been playing zealously in one of his favorite spots; his mouth tasted like warm sweet light that coated every part of him, and his touch...Simian felt like he could shatter, and become whole again, under that gentle touch.
Strength returned as the kami's spirit supported Simian's own considerable reconstructive abilities. When he pulled away, his pink tongue disengaging from Simian's mouth, his eyes were soft.
"Fate has derailed us, Simian, but I could no more stop loving you than you could end your immortal existence. And I would wish for neither. If we must be adrift, let us be adrift together." His gloved hand stroked the stripes of the deer/tiger's cheeks reverently.
The kami's words rung in Simian's ears as if it were their downfall in a way...or perhaps, a birth of something new.
Then we’ll fall together... Simian's breathing hitched as his torn and bloodied outfit seemed to melt from his body, becoming part of the earth beneath him, and gently destroying the clothing that had borne his remaining mercenary facade.
Simian's head was laying on the grass now, instead of the kami’s lap. But before the loss could be registered, the elegant figure was leaning over him, a glove hand on either side. The long, braided forelocks adorned with golden hoops rested on Simian's chest as the kami scrutinized his face.
"Do you know me now, Simian? Do you see the one you love?"
Simian seemed to grow hot under the calm, but intense gaze, his face flushed but reflecting back nearly the same intensity. His hand carefully lifted from where it had been clutching at the kami's clothing, deferentially touching the other's pale cheek with his fingertips. He closed his eyes and just breathed for a moment, feeling his soul being drawn in and received tenderly.
His love for Haru - all of Haru - washed over him and he opened his eyes again to more than what he could just visibly see. "...Yes," he whispered, and relinquished everything he had to the one he loved.
The kami sighed and smiled benignly in the moonlight. "Simian..." the rich tenor spoke softly, leaning down to kiss his lover's neck gently. His white hair, soft and glimmering in the pale light, brushed Simian's cheek. Underneath his mouth, the creature's heart thumped powerfully. The kami drew that spot in with his lips, sucking on it lightly.
Simian mewled piteously as the usagi's lips seemed to brand him, but rather with pleasure than the searing pain Haru had been submitted to. His body cried out, longing for more, while his heart seemed to expand greater than he could possibly handle, not knowing if he would be able to receive the passionate love of a god without being destroyed himself.
"H-Hikari..." he whimpered, implored...
"I have missed you, Simian," the kami’s incredible voice whispered in a velvety ear while a hand slid under him. Effortlessly he arched Simian's back, pulling a nipple to his lips to suckle while the other hand slid down the tight stomach, relishing in the very soft, almost imperceptible fur there.
Simian's healing body writhed beneath his lover's transformed touch, suddenly unable to stand not reaffirming his own affection for the other either. He stroked the impossibly soft, pristine fur of his lover's ears, crying out when the kami's tongue brushed his peaked nipple, his hands shaking as he threaded them through the other's gossamer hair.
The kami took one last longing lick before releasing Simian. He leaned up, slowly removing the violet outer robe, his eyes never leaving Simian. Carefully he rolled the silken garment, lifting his lover's head to place it beneath him as a cushion. The white robe remaining seemed to collect all of the moonlight and starlight in the heavens.
His form was dazzling with ethereal power as he settled between Simian's legs, sliding a silvery hand along his inner thigh possessively. "I love you, Simian."
Simian gently grasped the kami's slender wrist when the other's hand pulled back after settling the robe kindly under his head. He nuzzled his cheek against the gloved palm for a moment, his heart thrumming at the familiarity of the soft texture. He turned his head a little and pressed his lips tenderly to each tip of the kami's slender fingers, worshiping one of the hands that brought so much marvel with its touch.
When he felt the other hand's mate stroke him gently, intimately, he cried out and clutched at the hand he had coveted, although his thighs spread obediently with the guidance of his lover.
The kami let Simian have his hand. It was simple to stretch over his exposed body, feeling his lover's growing excitement pressing against him while he reached around under the small of his back so he could have the little well of Simian's navel for himself. This tangible reminder of birth received very special attention as the Hikari no Kami's tongue lathed the outside rim before dipping within to taste its depths.
The feeling of the kami's warm, wet tongue gently probing the indent of Simian's belly threatened to unhinge the deer/tiger, not knowing how he could possibly withstand anything more without losing his mind and everything within him, a complete slave to the kami's love.
The hand he gripped with an almost impossible gentleness, considering the circumstances, returned to his mouth again, pulling one of the covered fingers past his panting lips until he had drawn in the length of the digit up to the last joint, stroking his tongue along the soft material of the white glove.
At that the kami graced Simian with a low moan, his free hand pulling even more succulent flesh to his lips as the slow and leisurely pace seemed to pick up, reflecting the spirit's growing need.
His mouth trailed to the nest of pink curls and he felt the stomach muscles tighten in anticipation. The evidence of Simian's desire was straining near his lips. The kami breathed his warm air over the tip.
"Nnnhhh!!" Simian keened around the finger, his hips pulling away slightly in anxious nerves, in a way like a person's fear of a syringe needle, but feeling a pre-high rush of adrenaline at knowing the most sublime sensations would follow after that first plunge. He sucked insistently around the kami's finger, pulling it back out slightly as he widened his mouth and drew in another to the hilt, his saliva and tongue working over both fingers.
"Ahh, Simian," the voice crooned. The kami opened his mouth and took Simian inside deeply, mimicking the actions of his lover's mouth on his fingers. His tongue slipped underneath the sensitive head drawing everything up with tight lips before descending again.
Simian nearly choked on the kami's fingers as he was swallowed, his entire body going completely stiff and still except for the minute trembling that jolted beneath the surface of his brown, striped skin and gathered to the point where the kami's mouth was connected with his body's funneling desire. He whimpered as his need to move, but the inability to do anything more basic than just to keep breathing, tormented him, his taut muscles straining to keep from tearing apart.
The kami bathed Simian's erection with his mouth, coaxing the pleasure from the poor, traumatized deer/tiger. His free hand massaged the trembling sack beneath his lips while his tongue savored the flavor, pulling harder with each ragged breath that Simian drew.
Simian's body couldn't take the locked tension any longer. He suddenly collapsed in a heavy rush of air from his lungs, only to have his back contort into a bent arc and his breath hissing back down his throat and out again as labored pants and cries. He barely thought to release the kami's fingers entrapped in his mouth before his teeth clenched together at a particularly stimulating stroke of the other's tongue, saliva from his mouth trailing in a clear gossamer string to the kami's suckled fingertips.
The kami released Simian's member to gaze upon the lovely picture of his panting captive under the moonlight.
"Simian," he whispered huskily, still kneading the sensitive sacs, "let me have you...now...let me give this to you..."
Simian swallowed hard with much difficulty. For a moment he was taken aback by the primal need in the kami's velvet voice. He hadn't thought the other creature was nearly as affected as Simian was by all the almost painfully erotic attention the god had been lavishing on his unworthy body. It clenched his heart and stomach, as it always did, being wanted, being desired so intensely...
Simian knew he wouldn't be able to voice anything intelligible then, so his mind assented plaintively with unbound need, his misting eyes glistening naked and vulnerable as the rest of him.
The kami's own eyes closed for a moment, as if listening to the mind of his willing partner, or to his own heart. And then the radiant head slowly descended, passed his straining erection, down further.
A warm wetness at his opening sent a shock of thrilling pleasure up Simian's spine so intense that it threatened to bring him over the edge right then. But this was just the beginning. A pressure, very light, slipped in through his barrier, relaxing his muscles just with its mere presence.
Simian smothered a sob as his entire body seemed to melt entirely with that one touch. "H-Haru! ...Hi...kari..." he moaned hoarsely, bearing himself entirely for the other's desire that reflected and catapulted his own, much like their first kiss had, but coalescing even greater passion.
Simian was a virgin there, and even though he could think of nothing else than his lover buried into that channel so deep and hard, he knew that - from own Haru's responses - the more care that was taken beforehand, the greater potential for unleashed passion without getting injured badly.
The warm pressure moved slowly inside, gently, and wherever it was, his body responded automatically; opening, inviting, as if Simian's very cells were calling for the union.
When it left him, the bereavement was as intense as the pleasure had been.
The kami’s face reappeared, his white robe coming undone by unseen hands as he stretched across the smaller creature's body. His face was radiant, eyes that could be stern, commanding with only a look, were soft and almost vulnerable against the passionate expression it was beholding.
"With me, there will be no pain, Simian," he whispered, gently brushing pink hair out of the face that now looked on him with resplendent adoration.
"There will only be light, and warmth, and my love. Do not be afraid..."
No pain... that was a concept that Simian had a difficult time conceiving. But with the spirit's purple eyes locked onto his own eyes that couldn't decide what shade to settle on and shifted as often as every other racing heartbeat, he believed entirely in this remarkable being. Even if there was pain, Simian would gladly cherish and submit himself entirely to it. Anything given by this creature ...his lover... would only be painful for as long as it was withheld.
"Please..." Simian beseeched the god, "...love me..."
Simian felt his body hitched up in hands that seemed strong enough to break him in half. Carefully the kami lifted a leg, opening Simian further.
And then Simian felt it. The pressure at his opening, smooth and sleek, as it began to enter him. His lover's eyes never left his as the Hikari no Kami pulled their bodies together, fully impaling the deer/tiger on what felt like a solid shaft of pulsing energy. The sigh and moan from the kami's lips indicated that he was receiving as much pleasure as his ethereal body was giving.
Simian's body trembled in the kami's hands, twisting and then stilling as if unable to decide how to receive his lover the best way. "Ohh ggghhh..." he groaned, placated by a gentle motion from the kami's hips that decided for him that any way was the best way.
Simian's arms went around the kami's neck, molding as much of himself as he could to the supple flesh of the other's body, burying his face next to the soft, familiar scarring of his lover's throat and sobbing with the amount of sheer energy that pulsed through him.
The kami turned his head, kissing a sweating brow softly, repeatedly, so much like the kisses his Haru insisted on covering him with when they made love. The energy thrummed, retreated for but a second and then returned with greater force and more intensity.
"I will touch your soul with mine, Simian...it is the closest we can be to becoming one..."
Simian was so enraptured by everything that he didn't even spare a fleeting thought to consider if even the briefest merging of their souls could be potentially dangerous, especially since the soul making love to his belonged to that of a god.
"Mmmn..." Simian whimpered softly, clenching around and holding onto the kami so tightly as if they would be torn apart if he didn't.
The kami reached over and pulled Simian's other leg over his shoulder to match its mate, and a small gasp escaped his lips as he finally buried himself fully in the needy body beneath him. As he did, Simian's body felt an indescribable connection. A jolt of energy so intense that it arched his back, his jaw going slack.
An aura ignited around them, warming the air, causing the kami's white hair to flutter.
Simian's vision went dark. In its place an explosion of light and a ribbon of thoughts, emotions, and images assailed him. Small usagi children with multi-colored hair playing, laughing, holding out hands to him, warm arms, happiness...and then darkness, blood, unbearable loneliness and a vile, wolfish face. Pain, confusion, longing, and then his own face met his...
Love...love love love...hurt mixed with love, fear mixed with love, happiness and terror all with love.
Simian was overwhelmed by the rush of sensation, memories, and feelings flooding over him and becoming his own. He learned more about Haru in that brief, eternal instant than he had the entire time he'd spent by Haru's side. He’d distanced himself enough that he didn't learn anymore about Haru - even when they became lovers - than the other readily shared with him.
On the opposite side, another explosion took place but of Simian's own life experiences. The loneliness and hunger that drove an abandoned little boy to criminal means just to survive, an achingly familiar, cool expression marred by a smirk on another boy's face, pain as his body was torn apart and remade, fear and a new beginning with an incredibly eccentric, but caring prophet, another home lost, imprisonment...and then...freedom.
There were violet eyes brighter than any other memory, so beautiful and open...loving...so much love it was painful and terrifying...and so impossibly wonderful...
The euphoria shared between the two beings was so bright it was scalding. Forceful yet gentle, as if all that Simian felt he was would just blow away like ashes and that might be okay...
And then darkness descended.
-----
When Simian came back to consciousness he was covered with the kami's violet outer robe. The moon still watched over them carefully and serenely as if no time had passed, as if nothing traumatic had taken place an hour earlier. As if nothing wonderful had happened just now.
The grass was cool on parts of his body, but the other half was surprisingly warm. And then something moved beneath him.
A white gloved hand stroked Simian's face which rested carefully in the crook of the kami's pale arm. There was no way to discount the entire thing as a dream. Violet eyes peered into his from above.
Simian felt as if he were floating on a cloud of light and warmth. Nothing hurt anymore, Simian noted...and that was startling on its own considering pain was a constant in his life whether it was by his own fault or another's. The fire that should have lanced through him from the wolf demon's attacks never came, the ache in his heart when Haru was taken, and when he thought him to be gone forever was also absent. And the soreness he would have expected, his face warming as he recalled the kami's resplendent love, from such a passionate exertion was no where to be found. There were a thousand questions he wanted to ask, but the soothing presence of his lover's body and aura against his lulled him drowsily and he merely nuzzled closer.
The kami, still in his cream-colored inner robe, appeared content for a few minutes just to lie with Simian, stroking his hair, listening to the moonlight playing on the glossy surface of the pond nearby.
All too soon, however, he was stirring. There was a kind of eternity in the kami's gaze which was disconcerting to look at for too long a time. Still it was clear when he fixed his visage again on his hybrid lover that the silence had to be broken.
"My time in this form is drawing to an end. When I awaken I will be as you remember me, and my conscious thoughts from the moment I transformed until now will not be remembered... My conscious thoughts," he reiterated, as if to say, 'you have touched my entire being, Simian. Believe that.'
"At that time I will be as helpless as you have ever known me, even more so, since this transformation does not come without a cost to my physical body. But do not fear. You are very close to your home and should be safe until we reach there. Do you understand?"
Simian felt something a little sharper through his lethargic haze - a joy that he would be with his precious Haru that he had fallen in love with...and a gentle sadness that he would have to leave Hikari, another aspect of his lover who he had come to cherish just as equally in such a small allotment of time.
"I understand..." he spoke softly, not desiring to disturb their serene surroundings anymore than he had to. He seemed on the verge of voicing something else, but he fell gently into the tender gaze of his lover. Yet his mind still brushed against the other's in the faintest of whispers.
Can I...will I see you again...Hikari...
"I cannot see the future. Haru is the name I have in this life. It seems, perhaps to some, to be weak and frail, but it is a form I have chosen. Subconsciously, even my mortal form knows this...but I transformed when self-destructive thoughts possessed me, as I watched you be tortured. Self-destructive thoughts are...not who I am. I had to return the balance. There are times when I transform for other reasons..." the kami’s eyes seemed to dull for a moment, and then returned.
"If you stay by my side always, then you will likely see me again. Moonlight," here the kami gazed at the cold orb in the sky almost sadly, "sometimes will call me out. Sometimes..."
Simian watched the other's face, quietly feeling a distant sadness echo in his own heart. It seemed a sin that such a breathtaking creature should feel anything other than the greatest contentment, that Haru should feel anything otherwise. Simian shifted carefully until he was more level with the other's pale face, reaching out to gently touch a long usagi ear with attentive care.
"I...I know that maybe I'm not the best suited to be anyone's companion...or lover...but," he stopped, a little tentative. "But I l-love Haru. All of him."
Simian looked into the kami's violet eyes, wanting him to understand that his love encompassed even the side of Haru the bunny himself didn't truly identify with. His leaned up and gently brushed his lips against the other's, wishing that he was more eloquent like the kami was, but knowing that the other could read into his heart more than Simian's faltering words.
The kami's refined, silvery face tilted to Simian's and lightly kissed him back. He didn't move immediately away though.
"There is one other thing...something that even I do not yet fully comprehend," there was a beat. "I am protecting, within my body, three souls that your love has called into life. This was not of my doing, but I have expended my life-force to keep them shielded from the traumas. There is only one other who knows..."
The kami stopped.
"Our fates are now intertwined, Simian. Your decisions are your own," the kami sighed and stretched down under the cushion of his arm.
A hand gently caught one of the kami's, pulling it up against his chest where Simian laid his cheek tenderly against the back of his hand, closing his eyes as if to draw out the moment just a little longer. He didn't understand what the kami meant by 'protecting three souls' but it seemed incredibly important, so Simian didn't immediately categorize the kami's words as another part of his mysticism.
"...Thank you," Simian finally breathed softly. For protecting his love...for protecting Simian even though the deer/tiger hadn't meant to get himself in a bad predicament where he was the one needing to be saved...and for guarding these souls that seemed to be precious to the Hikari, and possibly Haru.
"Whether they were meant to be or now, you have given me unique and wonderful experiences...and I love you..."
The kami looked at Simian one last time. And then he closed his eyes. A warm light, too bright to see through, coalesced around them. When the brightness had receded the kami had transformed back into a white usagi youkai, still half-dressed in the yukata he had been forced into when he and Zanna had been led from the den. Haru's face was that of a sleeping bunny. He sighed once, and then gravitated towards the warmth of Simian's body.
Simian's pupils were two thin lines as the pulsing flare from the kami's light began to fade. When his sight returned to its usual clarity, aided by the pale glow of the moon overhead that seemed to warm him as if it were the sun, he blinked and then looked over to where the kami had been. His pupils widened dramatically, and then seemed to expand all at once to the very edges of his irises as he gave a strange choked sound that sounded like a cross between a sob and a laugh.
He immediately pounced joyously, but gently, on his sleeping bunny, sending a silent prayer to the Heavens as he buried his face against Haru's neck, his entire body shaking as he wept tears of overwhelming relief and love.
Haru didn't open his eyes. He mumbled something, snuggled closer to the source of familiar warmth and mouthed his lover’s name sleepily. "Sim...chan."
Simian wanted nothing more than to lay here for the rest of forever with Haru, just holding him and feeling him breathing, his heart beating, and gloriously alive. He figured they should at least move where they weren't so conspicuous, but the glow of the moonlight, the warmth from Haru's body and the kami's soft violet robe that still cloaked him were just too comfortable. He felt his eyes grow heavy as he curled himself protectively, lovingly around Haru's sleeping form.
He nuzzled Haru's soft cheek with his nose, breathing him as deeply as he could, before releasing his breath and consciousness with a tender whisper against his soul mate’s fluffy white ear.
“...I love you...forever."
End Second Story Arc
To Be Continued in Part III
A/N: I want to say thank you so much for all of you that have shown an interest and stuck with this story – it means so much to both Mary-chan and I! I hope to see you guys again in part 3! The saga (and bunnysex) continues...
