( for a long moment there is nothing but a long stretch of strained silence after the furious raps at the door to makoto's quarters. then, to the keen ears of a demon, the creaking of wood furniture. soft, slow footsteps. there's a groan in the floor just on the other side of the door, and then the lock unlatches and the door opens two or three inches to reveal the impassive face of of the young demon's retainer — a man who J certainly would have seen and spoken with on several occasions. tall (though certainly not as tall as the demon), severe, and listing towards middle age, one could probably look between the man that makoto had chosen to attend to him and his demon master and possibly make some wild assumptions about him (some of which might well be true). kivander keeps his short, blond hair neatly swept back, and his eyes — one brown and one blue — are impassive and watchful as they study the demon. the achamite has a smart, efficient way of moving and speaking, left-over from many years of service in the military that were cut short by a wound to his left arm that had prevented him from properly holding a weapon.
he pauses, then speaks in his measured, austere tones, )Master J. My apologies, the young Master Aion is presently indis—
( his attention is momentarily distracted from a sound within the chambers, and then makoto's voice some distance away: ) Let him in.
( the words die in the retainer's mouth; he pauses, then nods, taking a sweeping step back to pull the door the rest of the way open to allow the demon entry. as he does, makoto provides the further order, ) And leave us for now, Kivander.
As you say. Send for me if you have need of me.
( he collects some effects from a small table at the side of the room where he had been attending and leaves, closing the door carefully behind him. )
J.
( the room is dimly lit, but he almost feels as though he could see the man's figure cut through darkness as black as pitch. makoto is propped up in bed; it seems that he might have been sleeping just a few moments ago, but he's hauled himself up enough that he can rest against a veritable curtain wall of pillows assembled behind him. his hair is undone, falling into dark waves wild and messy from sleep, and the shirt he wears is unbuttoned enough to reveal a weave of bandages beneath, encircling practically his entire torso. they are presently unmarred by blood — the first thing he had done upon stumbling to his chambers from the Regent's throne room was summon kivander and get his wounds cleaned and sewn so they could begin to mend — but he has been trying to be cautious not to move so much that they were further aggravated while in the slow process of healing.
as such, he doesn't pull himself out of bed to run across the length of the room and throw himself into J's arms, despite how that always seems to be the first impulse that comes through his head when he sees him after any period of time that they've been apart.
instead, ) Come here, ( said as he reaches out to him, wanting to have his hands on him, to feel that he's truly here and that nothing had managed to befall him, as soon as he could. )
[ On better days, running into Makoto's retainer makes for quite the amusing experience. J had caught onto the reasoning behind his choice upon their first encounter with the ease of looking through a pane of glass. No matter how others may perceive his protégé as some incomprehensible fiend that can never be puzzled out, comprised of opaque smoke and mirrors that reflect nothing but deception, the owner of this lair is practically transparent to him. Why wouldn't he be, when J was the one who had taken Makoto by the hand and led him every step of the way to becoming who he is today?
As J's entry is momentarily barred, it's not the first time he weighs the pros and cons of helping Vandy instantly shed some extra weight, by evicting his thick skull from its body. In a moment hedged by questions unanswered and contact severed days ago, the demon is hardly in a magnanimous enough mood to tolerate being restricted access to his own ward. An aggravation worsened by someone who cannot suffer speaking through more than a crack in the door. The fact Makoto is cognizant of the tension and calls off his guard dog possibly spares the interior a quick redecoration.
Crisis averted, J slips into the room without paying his fill-in much ado and instead zeros in on the one he'd been combing the streets of Venera for, to no avail. ]
There you are. [ His master affords Makoto a long leash, with the latter dictating the terms by which J can reach out. Whether it's done out of sportsmanship or for the sake of humoring a child's game, J has refrained from using Communion when it trespasses upon an intimate sense of self his ward balks at inviting him into. So, in playing along, he's been kept in the dark as to the lion's share of what happened to him since they parted ways.
There's no need to ask about Makoto's well-being when his ward's sedate and bandaged state, eerily too bedridden for his traditional greeting, tells J that it resides at the cross streets of wounded and mending. A victory in itself when the traitors and captives from this recent venture may not escape it quite so unscathed. And it's with that thought that an unrealized knot gradually comes loose in some distant corner of J's mind. His exasperated concern is swept under the rug, in favor of a more typical and breezy response. ]
I'd say you're a sight for sore eyes, but- [ With a sweep of his open hand to indicate the noticeable gloom they've been cast within, J points out why that's an ill-suited greeting. ] The whole Ominous Gothic Deathbed mood you've got going on here kind of spoils the chipper sentiment.
[ The benefit of J's extremities is that they don't disrupt whatever atmosphere of quiet respite Makoto has set up for himself. (His mouth, however...) There's no jarring scuff of shoes or heavy thud of boots that might stomp about if any with the Archduke's size were to traipse through the space. All that sounds is the shuffle of feathers. Their rustle announces him with a softer alert than footfalls when J is apt to prowl; weaving liquid-like through the darkness. ]
Yes, what is it? [ J purposefully slots himself in the space where outstretched hands reach for him. Slender fingertips brush by the fabric of his shirt but don't manage to successfully grasp what eludes them; so close yet still so far. With the right of his hands grasping the headboard, J uses it to loom over the bed Makoto's small frame barely fills. It's more than apparent what Makoto wants, but J's conditions for fulfilling his requests have rarely deviated from their original pattern. If Makoto desires something from J, he should know better than to utter anything vague or indirect. Or maybe he's simply being decisively petty in retaliation for the last few days, now that J believes his little troublemaker is safe. ]
( it's probably for the best that at the time his retainer answered the door for J, makoto had been fumbling through the loose gossamer folds of half-sleep, vaguely aware of the sounds at the door but feeling the pressure and weight of exhaustion trying to sink him back down once more. it had been the name "J" that had given him enough of a jolt of adrenaline to shake the worst of the drowsiness away — and, again, for the best of all of them, given that if kivander had continued to prevent J entry, he likely would have suffered greatly for it. the man was likely well aware of that fact, but he had been given the strict order to turn away visitors at the door, and makoto had neglected to make his one exception clear. achamites are no cowards when it comes to taking great risks for the sake of principle, and their soldiers perhaps even more so. it would have been a shame to lose such a useful man in such a way, but... well, fortunately it doesn't come to that.
simply a minor thing to have momentarily slipped his mind, given how in a hurry he'd been to collapse into bed. it wouldn't happen again.
physical injury is a temporary setback for makoto; he might have gotten used to this song and dance routine by now, but it still seems to unsettle J, who might have otherwise been lulled into a sense of security in hell given that the boy would not have the ability to die so long as he still commanded power over his name. in horos, that power dynamic was altogether shifted, and the brazenness that makoto came by naturally and which alternatingly manifested as foolhardy, bullheaded, or stunningly brave (depending on the situation and the lens it was viewed through) now actually ran the risk of landing him into genuine trouble. he doesn't seem to see the problem, either blind or willfully ignorant to the danger. it's always been in his nature, having so little naturally and having to grasp and steal whatever he might need to get by, to endeavor enormously. his unnatural tenacity is the only ability of his that is inherent and innate. given their circumstances, he doesn't think this is the place or the time for half-measures, and so he has often thrown himself into the teeth of conflicts perhaps outside of his ken — it's stupid luck that he hasn't faced more serious consequences for it yet. regardless, his situation doesn't seem to affect his demeanor; he's just as bratty and impetuous with his demonic master as ever.
his expression twists into a pout, nose wrinkling and eyes squeezing closed beneath a furrowed brow, and he grouses, ) I was sleeping,( as if that explained everything away. at this time of day, it's not really the prime hour for sleeping, but... well, in the hours between his reappearance in the Regent's throne room and the other Aions beginning to return back from venera and godsblood, he's been keeping a rather eclectic sleeping schedule.
when his eyes open, J is there, having approached with all the subtlety of a summer breeze. makoto's eyes go wide; there's something about seeing the man after any time they spend apart that feels like seeing him for the first time again, or like seeing him after three long years. it causes something wild and untamable and impossible to define to swell and billow within his chest, gently tugging the threads of his common sense (and common decency) even further loose than they already are. if J thinks that merely looming just out of reach is going to inhibit him in any way, he's dead wrong. it takes a few moments, but his expression once more contorts in irritation, and he sits up and leans forward to wrap his arms around the demon and try to drag him down into the bed with him, desires made more plain with his actions and his words. )
I said, come here.
( one of his arms wraps around J's back, hand splayed open over his shoulder, and the other encircles his waist, fingers finding their way into the nest of soft, downy feathers that cover the place where his wings conjoin to the small of his back. heedless of J's size and weight — he doesn't care if every wound he sustained rips itself open in tandem in the process (though that was rather unlikely). if he's in a mood to give makoto what he wants, this is what he wants: to hold him in his arms and be held in return, to feel and to smell the warmth of his skin, to lay his head against his chest and to hear the mechanics of life whirring within (thinking about what they must look like when removed from the privacy of their interiority, opened up to his eyes and his hands and his teeth—). )
Just rest with me a while.
( makoto hadn't lied to him when he had said that every minute he spent apart from him was a minute he'd spent thinking about him. when together, it only seems to get worse — an ensorcellment he couldn't unravel even if he wanted to, a fever that never seemed to break, a drug that had become a chemical dependency. when forced beneath a torrent of pain, despair, loss, hopelessness, and malaise, it had taken everything he had not to fall apart and dissolve into much the same. but he had kept himself together by force, and one of the things that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about was him. something more powerful and more pervasive than merely being the object of his quest for revenge. he still doesn't really understand it, and he might not for a while still. )
[ At Makoto's insistence, J releases his hold upon the headboard without a single word of complaint, as if it had never been important ground to defend anyway. Maybe the key all along to waving that white flag and surrendering to his ward's demands had been the clutch of arms locked possessively around him. Like the whole of his body that slides into Makoto's demanding grasp, it's one more thing that he'd wanted to give up from the start.
The matress dips with every additional limb, first with the press of a patient knee, eased slowly into the mattress somewhere around his ward's lower legs, then a second is thrown into the mix on the opposite side. J eases himself into a wide straddle that doesn't disturb injuries he observes with the lingering study of his center-most eye. And he makes certain to find support on the mattress itself and not accidentally land on the body underneath him in the process.
There's a creek of the bed someplace along its joints, given with the effort of taking on both of them, while springs underneath suffer the impact of his paws thumping down for extra balance. The catlike configuration of his legs offer added support, but J is sure to strategically position both hands atop the small mountain of pillows and on either side of Makoto's head just in case.
In times when J's intent isn't to instill fear, discipline or impart some painful lesson as part of Makoto's demonic curriculum, J is strangely gentle with the person who had suffered his worst as well. Passive even. Going as far as to let Makoto dictate how far and fast these sparse moments of intimacy span.
As he's manhandled, J's laughter ripples between the press of two bodies, rolling out of him and shaking through limbs like a delighted shiver. There's an undeniable thrill at being pawed at so eagerly, and forced to submit to Makoto's demanding nature. It's immediacy sweeps even a monster like himself up into something of a thrall.
A little push upon Pillow Mountain eases his torso back a bit. Done in part to better align their bodies into a face-to-face configuration, but not without the urge to arch up into Makoto's touch, where the outline of possessive hands act as brands to burn their heat past the cotton of his shirt and into skin. A foot or so of retreat rearranges them so that he's no longer facing the plush, down-stuffed valley supporting his ward, but the man himself. Like this, the demon can look down upon all that makes up the exact constellation of Makoto's face: an expressive brow, a mouth so inclined to snarl or pout, and watchful eyes that hold all of J's attention. ]
Oh? Now that you're without any leads, are you finally trying to dig up the skeletons in my closet at their source?
[ With his elbow propped up on the bed, J's right hand can return the contact Makoto so effortlessly lavishes. It's only the line of his knuckles that touch him, but somehow the act is all the more tender like this, as he strokes the contour of one cheek. Still rounded and soft with the impression of eternal youth, no matter how long he may survive here. ]
I won't promise you any answers, but go ahead. [ Alone and close enough to let their breaths intermingle, warm and tinged with only the faintest sense of something medicinal, likely used to tend to Makoto's wounds, J's voice hovers at a level worthy of secrecy or sweet-talk. Every word coils out in a low whisper, turning the worst taunts into provocations or suggestions Makoto is welcome to take. ] Ask away.
( even with J moving with a measured and cautious acquiesce, the placement of each bend of a limb made with the forethought not to jolt or otherwise unduly place pressure upon the injured body beneath him, makoto feels it regardless. it has nothing to do with the physicality of his body, but then again, it has everything to do with it — his proximity after all of their games of give and take, hot and cold, cat and mouse, seems to rest upon his chest like a leaden weight. the air that he draws into his lungs doesn't feel enough to allow him to catch his breath, and his heart hammers with increasing excitement and anticipation against the restraint of his ribs. there is a small part of him, something internal and reflexive, which interprets such painstaking premeditation as something to be wary of. J's sphinxlike mien and careful ministrations just as often ended in tearing, bloody dismemberment for makoto as they did in something that fell into the textbook definition of "affection." and yet makoto had asked, and J had agreed with ease, and he finds himself half-expecting a trick. had he done enough to deserve this? is there something that J knew or expected, which would soon suddenly cause the low and growing thrill spiking his blood to run ice cold?
ah, but does it matter? love and hate, pain and pleasure — the distinction can seem so blurry, and it's only gotten less distinct for him with time. all he can seem to think, especially when with J, is that he wants his attention, all of it, and no matter what it was, good or bad. even when he was enforcing in him some sort of grim lesson, molding him into the monster he saw he could be even when he had been human and mewling, he can't help but later regard those memories with a feeling of conflict in his heart. at least his attention was on me, he would think, addled, obsessed, his eyes were on me, and nothing else.
J gets so close, his face looming only inches away from makoto's own, waves of pale, beautiful hair cascading on either side of them. just as much as he can hear the man's chuckle, he can also feel it reverberating through his chest, just beneath his hands; it causes makoto's breath to catch (embarrassingly), and his fingers curl into the downy feathers in his back, nails just barely scratching at the faint protrusions of the spine just beneath. what was it that he had wanted to speak to him about again? why was it that he cared about the paltry state of this body of his? as fickle as the wind and as changeable as the tide, makoto's mind shifts, thoughts slowly coloring with desire — he thinks of reaching further still to the base of his leonine tail, of trying to force him to draw their hips together, of sinking his teeth into the soft and vital flesh of his neck and seeing just how far his good graces might extend for his foolish, wayward ward —
J shifts, and his thoughts go with him; he retrieves the arm that he'd had around his back and on his shoulders to better allow him to sit up a bit, though he seems far too reluctant to let him go entirely. he reaches up to curl his fingers around the back of the demon's neck, hanging off of him just as he hangs off of every word that falls from his lips, watching them move with a rapt and pointed attention.
he blinks, owlish, and then starts, jostling ever-so-slightly beneath J's body as meaning filters in a full second or two after the words enter his ears. ) That — ( he bites the words off, lightly fuming, feeling annoyed that he was apparently so easy to see through. how much does he even need to say with J? sometimes it feels like the man can just peer inside his head and see whatever thoughts might be in there; hell, more than half of them he'd put in there himself.
he puts himself back together piece-by-piece, trying to regain his composure. it's one effort completely in vain, because the second J's knuckles graze past his cheek, he finds himself moving again, half startled by and half craving for more of that simple, affectionate touch. he turns his head in towards his master's hand by just a few degrees, staring at him with wide eyes, and then he steels himself in to speak. )
Your name. I want your name.
( where before their words were alternating through the motions of playful sparring and good-natured bickering, these now cut like steel, vibrant and raw. he almost feels like he can feel his chest trembling with the feeling of it. ) Any clue I might have been able to dig up from some dusty record hidden in the slums of Hell is gone now. All of it, gone. ( it's not that he cared that it was, but he cared that he had been so close.) I don't want to trick it out of you, J. ( he could have. it would have been easy, to simply ask the young demon he'd once been, so guarded and yet so guileless. he would have had no idea what it was worth to the young man who asked. ) I want you to give it to me. I want you to look at me and see that I'm someone who has met your expectations, who has surpassed them, I — I want you to give it to me because you feel like I deserve it.
( to be given his name wasn't the same as taking it on to speak it to him. even unbound by those laws, makoto... would want to earn that as well. but just to know it, and the affirmation he would receive in knowing that J had been the one to make that decision... the thought of it makes him begin to tremble.
and he does, just a bit, but also because tension begins to seize up his arm. ) And if you won't allow me that, ( he continues, tone dropping and becoming more dangerous; his hand forms a claw, and its blunt nails begin to dig into the skin at the nape of J's neck. as he finishes his point, his lips draw back from teeth that have changed to suit the creature he's slowly becoming: somewhat pointed, the canines long and curved, a similar image to those he would have eventually given himself should their history have been allowed to continue it course, ) Then I will simply have to tear it out of you by force.
[ As the crescent shape of Makoto's blunt nails rake over a small inch of spine, flicking over nerves huddled in bunches that alight under his grip upon fragile white plumes, J's bottom lip catches itself under the bite of curved teeth. Hardly his first experience under someone's hands, those that stray over the meager barrier of flimsy cloth encasing his back are unlike any other. None have been so kindred, in ways Hell-born demons or mortal men have never measured up. Makoto, a halfling of both worlds, who reflects slivers of both and a side of something J has tried to bury alive in the depths of a still-beating heart. A child full of so much yearning, and capable of indescribable harm. He reflects everything J has been, and all he could hope to lay him down into the arms of oblivion, as no other had dared before.
Both twining thoughts spur a thrum of exhilaration through his veins, and leave his gaze to sink into a half-shuttered state as J daydreams about what precisely his ward could do with not just his hands upon his skin, but the fangs bared in unmistakable warning. So full of promise to inflict more than a showy display, given the chance.
And then, without expecting the turn towards sentimental, Makoto draws the warmth of an arm above broad shoulders. His weight solid where his ward clings like an offshoot, as if their bodies have grown so close they intertwine together, in ways impossible to separate.
As his ward studies the shape J's lips that weave an opening to an interrogation long-awaited, the demon pinned beneath such intense scrutiny returns the favor in full. J traces the infinitesimal flux of every shift in his ward's expression, pullingeach thought that reads clear as day across Makoto's face into his possession. Even when met with pale irises of gleaming moonlight, cast to float within the morass of dark sclera, that frightful gaze fails to detract from the candidness in those eyes. A sense of vulnerability that eases oft-creased features to leave them open and soft, inexplicably earnest when worn on a creature that's been taught to cleave away his own human nature like bits of gristle scraped off good meat.
It shatters with the shift in a voice running through the mood like a hidden knife. Swift and accurate, Makoto's demands land like a killing blow. Only, their severity is met with a spike in adrenaline that has nothing to do with fear. The threat that builds like a violent, surging storm sets a gleam in J's eyes that echos Makoto's earlier desires. Impassioned as opposed to frightened, J's mouth splits wide with a pull of lips; mirroring his protégé's reveal with his own set of gleaming teeth. ] And where do you think you'll find this answer?
Will you search for it under my flesh, in the wet-hot viscera of my insides, or squeeze it from this beating heart of mine? [ Where knuckles have traced the planes of Makoto's face, fingers replace them to slide beyond his jawline and into the depths of dark hair. Gathering a handful within a closed fist that pulls with a sudden force that's meant to haul him back against the pillows amassed upon his bed. There's an abruptness in the way things take a sudden turn. The old, familiar slant J harbors towards violence rears its head as Makoto is rearranged to J's specifications. ]
Show me exactly what you can do- Mako, my dear. [ When J sinks further down into the bed atop his ward, he can feel the warmth radiating off more than the limbs still cast around him. The heat and every mouth-watering shiver that thrums into him, built up either from a tumultuous mood or Makoto's stint baking under the nest of covers comprising his sick bed, only amplifies when J presses in closer. They're not quite arranged hip to exquisitely inviting hip, but close as the difference in their statures will permit. ]
I want to see just how you plan to rip this secret out of me.
[ Fingers work a clenched jaw he pries open to fill in the next shaky, over-eager breath. Hot as the tight space it enters, his tongue pushes past lips and into an awaiting mouth claimed in full. Once inside, he lavishes attention in lapping over the ridges of a stolen tongue, the crease run through it's middle and across the canines which loom over in a constant threat. J tastes of mint and liquor, his cleansed palate spoiled by the flavor of a stiff drink that speaks of concerns he may never fully express. And then, in the span it takes to press one more delicious tremble of Makoto's frame into his own, absorbing those tremors like a beast with something shaken by death rattles or ecstasy in his grip, there comes a wash of rust. A tongue savaged by the teeth it greedily strokes over drips blood into the cocktail of flavors poured into Makoto's mouth. ]
( in another world and another life, makoto would spend a hundred years and more to come across a realization that might have changed everything should he have come to it far sooner: that as much as he blinds himself with his ferocious and ravening desire for revenge, the quickest and ugliest balm to the rankling indignation he feels at how J has mistreated him in the past, it was really recognition that he wanted from the man. bone-deep, to the very cracked core of his once-human soul, he wanted J to look at him with the wholeness of affirmation in his eyes. "I love you," are pretty words, and easily warped, easily misconstrued... but "I see you"? not just as the pathetic slip of a child he'd been or the half-feral, wild thing he'd become — as everything he'd been, he was, and what he held the potential to one day transform himself into under nothing but the force of his own will.
acknowledgement. it's been so long denied him from anyone he might have viewed with love or reverence that he's not even aware how deeply he craves it.
he might not realize this about his innermost desires, but they boil to the surface here and now, glazing over his words alongside youthful earnestness and faint desperation — words that are all-too-easily swept by the wayside as he hastily supplants them with the harsh promises of his contingency plan; the venomous threat of violence that he had sworn like an oath had only been meant if J decided to deny what he so plainly asks for, and so when his master immediately begins to reorient around it, attention encircling like the coils of some immense snake, something begins to curdle within his stomach. it feels like a denial. is it so easily dismissed, that he would ever amount to J's expectations — that he would never earn the right to the mere knowledge of his name by his own merit, without resorting to violence that had been the terms and conditions of his contract but not necessarily the ink with which they'd been written?
something fragile that he doesn't even entirely understand begins to fragment inside of him, made suddenly accessible and vulnerable by the honesty of his plea. because of this he's powerless, he's very nearly paralyzed as J's hands maneuver to tangle thickly in his hair, near the root, but even in this delicate and transitory moment he's in, he can't help a small, sharp sound of pain from dislodging from the back of his throat as he's forced back down onto the assembly of pillows on the bed, his chest rising and falling rapidly and bright, hot tears beginning to bite into the corners of his eyes.
he squeezes them shut against the pain. it isn't just his hair, or the dull ache of permanent trauma encircling his neck, or the winding coil of barely-healed lacerations beneath the bandaging layered thickly across his torso. as had been one of his first and most important lessons learned in hell: physical violence is a language of power second only to the rule of names, and physical pain is cheap in its fleeting nature. it's the injury he sustains to the soft, susceptible substance of his soul that pains him far greater, which torments him day and night without end. in nearly any other creature it would ferment into a fine vintage of despair — delicious in its own right, but ultimately dull. one-note. inert.
makoto is anything but inert.
he tries to resist, but there's a precious thin amount of resistance he can actually put up to the force of nature that is J; his mouth opens with a small gasp of breath which is summarily swallowed up as he kisses him, pouring a confusion of accelerant over the riot of emotion that saturates makoto in this moment — the sharp, jagged edges of confusion still resonating with something that still manages to feel like pain and betrayal (as if he hadn't learned by this point to stop opening himself up to such fresh torments), but which more and more begins to fill with the twin heat and pressure of white-hot fury. that might have been all there was if it weren't for the goading movement of J's tongue against his own, in frank acknowledgement of what he'd sewn into that very place himself, but as it is, it complicates further. pained, irascible, and miserable, his veins burn with the added liquid fire of desperate want, either completely untethered from all the other ways he feels in this moment or tied up into them in ways that his formerly-human brain can't even begin to comprehend as he is now. this, however, he doesn't resist. after a moment of stillness, makoto begins to kiss J back with characteristic rancor and fury, the engine in the pit of his stomach converting his bleak hopelessness into anger and drive. J did not need to chum the not-so-metaphorical waters by being far too liberal with the movement of his tongue across makoto's newly-sharpened teeth — with a low, short growl, he nips at the invasive flat of his tongue — he extricates his hands from wherever they are to reach up and wrap them around the bases of J's horns, where they arc upwards and forwards — and as he finally erupts into a flurry of movement and conviction, he gives a final bite to the round of J's bottom lip before he separates from him and bodily yanks his head to the side using his horns as leverage, physical strength bolstered supernaturally by physical pain and even deeper anguish.
he doesn't care how much it hurts his battered and bloodied body. it doesn't matter. with time, it would pull itself back together, whether he liked it or not. but in this moment he wrestles their positions into a sudden exchange, forcing J beneath him on the bed, his knees denting the mattress where they bracket his thin waist, the rest of his body lifted up to press all of that feeble weight and pressure onto the demon's horns, keeping him trapped below onto the increasingly-messy field of pillows.
where just moments before it had been shaking and rattling within his chest like the last leaf of fall, now his breath comes in short and violent bursts. intent lost somewhere between lust and violence burns on the pale surfaces of makoto's coin-like irises as he stares into his master's face — he manages to find his voice again, faintly hoarse with fire and venom, ) Don't you dare promise me what you can't give, J, ( and as he speaks there's a strange shift in the space behind him as his wings protrude from beneath bandages and clothing, draping over the bed on either side of him — but for the right, which moves forward just enough so that one talon could place its lethally-sharp point on the soft skin right beneath the notch of J's clavicle. as he continues, his tone evens out somewhat, but his words are still strident with barely-restrained mania, ) Tell me. If I carved you open right now — if I broke open your ribs with my bare hands and made an absolute mess of you, how long could you hold on, how long could you stand it before you finally gave out? ( and now that brief moment of control is gone; his voice shakes, his hands shake, his shoulders shake, the point of the talon begins to sink into J's skin and draw blood, ) Before you disappeared and retreated into your shard and left me all alone?!
("J's a swindler to his core. that's just the kind of guy he is."
sometimes, makoto is stupid enough to trust in him. to believe him. he wants to — he wants to so badly.
but the blood hasn't even dried on the wound J had just a moment ago cut into his ego; he's not going to allow himself to be misled again so soon and so easily. )
[ What is the true value of praise from one of Hell's most revered entities; flattery from a being seven centuries old, whose status none could rival? Priceless to the one holding a longstanding torch and a love soured by the bitterness of rejection. Worthless to the fledgling demon who burned himself to ash and bone at the idea of anything less than standing on level ground with his master, seeing eye to eye, and then toppling from his high perch the man he called both messiah and maker.
Makoto is a raging storm that doesn't cede with time or placation. A few kind words are a pittance when scattered into the gale of his all-consuming hatred; swallowed whole without quenching an instant of his fury or undoing years of mistreatment. The worst memories are easiest to recall. Hard lessons inscribed on more than the skin around a skull that J had shorn from his body three times in as many years. All so that these teachings would be the first thing to come to mind in J's presence. Evoking a pavlovian dread to ensure he would never be doomed to repeat the mistakes that led to them.
It's shame that the greatest tradeoff is that they vastly overshadowed smaller, more sincere moments. Submerged like a man pitched from his rig and drawn into the brackish depths to be lost to time. So too had been the fate of rare sincerity, where J beamed over Makoto's certain destiny or reassured that there lay no looming doubt of his ward's talent.
"I'm quite looking forward to it, you know. Seeing how you manage to claw your way up to me"
Perhaps it's impossible to see beyond the haze of white-hot fury that blinds Makoto so deeply. Time and again, it seems he mistakes ardent appreciation, J's forthright boasting of his page's achievements, as ways to dismiss and ridicule his efforts. Because J had, with all the sincerity in his heart, offered what Makoto craved most. In small microdoses, neatly folded and tucked like love letters between the waking horrors of the frequent suffering that consumed his short life. And that could be why these efforts often miss their mark when they're a drop in the ocean compared to the pain.
Each time approval colored his mood enough to commend his ward's achievements and a great many things that lay in store for him, Makoto's irascible and enigmatic master had cleared all else in those moments from the forefront of his mind. A monster bent over backward to exalt someone whose origins were no rarer than those of the most ordinary schoolboy. But to him, Makoto had exceeded every expectation and beaten impossible odds. In the simplest words, J spoke as if able to peel back the layer of his body to comb over the construction of his innermost soul and come back with only words of awe, dripping with satisfaction each time he took a peek.
"That's amazing. You let your hate fuel you, empower you. But you don't succumb to it so much that it consumes you. That's good. It makes me happy to see that."
There's a truth left just beyond the veil knit together by the culmination of a hundred misunderstandings and past cruelties that hung in the way. Things obscuring the fact that his greatest desire, the white whale he'd madly been in pursuit of beneath his lust for vengeance, had been littered throughout every stage of Makoto's journey.
"You really have outstanding talent. (...) The human world is too small for you, Mako-chan."
Upon his ward's first unwilling encounter with the demon he'd soon befriend, J regaled his tenacity under such duress. More so, his words painted a picture that saw beyond the fearlessness it took to endure that encounter, then rise above it enough to stand at equal stride with his own assaulter. J saw someone who had been confined by the stifling outlines of a world that didn't deserve him. Makoto had outgrown the place of his birth. A homeland that had constricted and smothered him. And without an inkling of a doubt, his master had sworn to him that his future was certain.
"You really are a formidable kid. (...) I guarantee that you will become a demon."
The very first of humankind to make the metamorphosis. With Datenshou's odd exception, Makoto is the lone survivor among a thousand souls and the only one to champion the impossible challenge a life in Hell presented. Whereas all others had slipped free of their sanity and dissipated in the unsettling dark; mad, forgotten, and alone.
"I'm proud of you for making it this far. You even met my brother. I didn't expect that!"
All these things now feel like they happened a lifetime ago. J wouldn't be surprised if they sank farther into the deep recesses of a mind already cluttered with knives aimed his way. The bones left to rot of what had been his master's way of raising him up and recognizing each step forward Makoto made in his journey.
Not that any of it came for free. One immutable stipulation in their relationship is that it remains a painfully contractual one. The laws of Hell are those bound by achievements filled and stipulations met. To shirk those for the very person who had benefited most from their schooling would go against everything he's practiced and preached so far. Simply putting into Makoto's hands one of the most important possessions anyone could have, in J's very name, wasn't in the cards.
While J operates on a strict give-and-take, the fact he concedes to unlock the mystery behind it and offer up all that his name held, should reveal once more how much J recognizes Makoto's potential. To J, he's more than the foundling child who only knew the ice-cold sense of dreaded rejection from his peers, loathing from his flesh and blood, and the offer of a grim future from a world that would never embrace who or what he was. And all he's been given in Hell, from position to title, prostitute to one of the initialed elite, fit what his master envisioned for him.
He doesn't perceive Makoto as the first of mankind's ilk to successfully slough off his mortality nor see him as simply a rising star, propelled at lightning speed through the ranks of Hell to rival dukes and marquise alike. Whole and unadulterated in his view, Makoto has been his successor from the start. The one soul to stand not on equal footing but to soar above him, and pull him down into oblivion.
And though it still demands the illusion of a quid pro quo, his agreement in exchange for just a taste of that future Makoto has sworn to him, to be devoured and destroyed, isn't too much to ask in exchange for the reward of his true name.
Then and now, the thought of burning through his last moments with Makoto at the helm, dictating the closing chapter of J's almost never-ending story, sends a pang singing through his veins. It feels like want and yearning, to crest near to that blissful end. And tonight all he asks for is a facsimile of what's to come. Even if his death will be a falsehood; temporary and untrue, the taste of that momentary reprieve from the waking world won't be any less sweet.
Wreathed in deep shadows, Makoto looms like the last flash of claws and wings seen when death swoops down from above. It's only a matter of time before one comes for him with a flash of movement and a noise wrenched free, full of muffled shock and delight. That solid claw sinks in past the first layer of skin, puncturing the barrier between J's innermost workings and the world outside that blood-soaked heat. But the wound isn't stoppered by its assailant's strike. Where a dark hooked fang of a talon nestles snug in the dip below his clavicle, evidence blooms in the streams of blood that trickle from the scene of the crime. Tiny beads in strikingly vibrant red tumble away with every certainty to stain the sheets below, and leave a smattering of Rorschach prints of this collision of two bodies spelled out in spilled blood and tears.
Once bitten, J's mouth isn't afforded the blessing of an encore. Not that either the shape of his tongue or the rounded bottom of his lip requires excess antagonism. They readily weep blood the moment wolfish canines rend into the flesh they've caught. He tries to usher away the gouts of free-flowing blood by swallowing each mouthful behind teeth tinged with red. But with all his attention devoted there, a punctured lip lies ignored. Only when a ticklish sensation catches his attention does a thumb draw near to swipe away the wet tendrils streaking down his chin. ]
I'm willing to lay it all out for you, and you're still not satisfied? [ A pale hand reaches between them, placing the freshly wet and glistening pad of his thumb upon the soft skin of Makoto's lower lip. It digs in slightly, pressing where his ward had sunk teeth into him moments ago. And with a stroke that moves with purposeful intent, J paints half his mouth in vibrant rouge. ] There has to be some limit to your appetite, Makoto.
And if that's what you have in mind, then you'll probably have only a few minutes of playtime. Now, should you avoid cracking me open to dig around my guts right off the bat... I'd wager I'm good for an hour, maybe more.
[ He senses what's to come like blood in the turbulent waters stirred up between them, thick as the heavy tang of copper that lingers long after J swallows down what weeps from his savaged tongue. In the throes of impassioned feeling, with violence withheld and barred back by a thread's width of restraint, Makoto doesn't look like a man drowning in his own sorrows to the demon who had tempered him with this fire before. To him, it's the struggle to break free from a chrysalis of his ward's own making. The self-made shackles of regrets and fears hold him prisoner and deny him what Makoto has always been destined to do. Sworn in ardent oaths, and spat at his master with all the vitriolic loathing that foams to the surface now. ]
Either way, you're going to watch me die, sooner or later. [ As if moving in a synchronized dance to match Makoto's, pristine and white wings unfurl in full. They sweep up to crest over the fortress of scales littering every joint and bone of the draconic threat above and dance whispers of contact across the thin membrane stretched between. But in their slow and careful arrangement, it's easy to miss how they configure themselves into the shape of a trap's open maw closing in. ]
It's about time you got used to the idea. What better way to do that than with a little practice?
[ All of this is a lesson. Painful and agonizing at that. But aren't growing pains always this way? A soul aches as it stretches beyond the confines of its former self, to abandon the childish notions that have been outgrown by every new understanding, the same as a body is left sore as it's stretched out and upward.
Progress hurts. In Hell, one must adapt or die. Demons bury their emotions alive to avoid the risk of being rattled by some mutinous uprising of feeling. But here there are greater risks than a heart left shaken and more weapons to fear than mere words. For Makoto, to stagnate over any loss and wallow as the world at large goes to war is to risk death over a man who never intended to live here long.
As before, J leads Makoto further down the path he's paved in words and actions. J breathes life into the newborn embers of tonight's wrath, all to see a spark kindled that will set off something he doubts needs more than a nudge. Quick to anger and quicker still to eerie calm, he won't hush away these worries and risk Makoto holding fast to this fear of abandonment when it's inevitable anyway. ]
But, I'll give it to you. Everything you want from me, right before the grand finale. The only question is— [ There's the presence of a hand upon Makoto's abdomen, sliding down to nest above the crossroads where an undergarment suddenly divides bare and covered skin. There, where the bandages crisscross a tale of agony written upon hidden skin, fingertips gradually begin to push with incremental pressure.
They both know the damage J could inflict with no greater weaponry than five long nails. But their touch doesn't bite or slice. Small crescents are all that form where fingers curl into claws that drag with a languid upward scratch. ] Can you keep from getting too hot n' bothered, and last long enough for it?
[ J now owns the lion's share of the blood held in the thickening air between them. Fortunately for the trajectory of the evening, J's flesh will heal at a quicker pace than normal— Inhumanly fast, though not nearly at the speed he'd been capable of prior to his life on Horos. But Makoto's wounds, secreted away and of a severity that had left him holed up in recuperation, risk suffering greater injury as a result of the violence promised here. The stress of a frenzy could do more than unravel all the good done by Vandy's careful ministrations and spoil the fun by eventually distracting him from the task at hand. ]
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for J | shortly after the soviseri event
he pauses, then speaks in his measured, austere tones, ) Master J. My apologies, the young Master Aion is presently indis—
( his attention is momentarily distracted from a sound within the chambers, and then makoto's voice some distance away: ) Let him in.
( the words die in the retainer's mouth; he pauses, then nods, taking a sweeping step back to pull the door the rest of the way open to allow the demon entry. as he does, makoto provides the further order, ) And leave us for now, Kivander.
As you say. Send for me if you have need of me.
( he collects some effects from a small table at the side of the room where he had been attending and leaves, closing the door carefully behind him. )
J.
( the room is dimly lit, but he almost feels as though he could see the man's figure cut through darkness as black as pitch. makoto is propped up in bed; it seems that he might have been sleeping just a few moments ago, but he's hauled himself up enough that he can rest against a veritable curtain wall of pillows assembled behind him. his hair is undone, falling into dark waves wild and messy from sleep, and the shirt he wears is unbuttoned enough to reveal a weave of bandages beneath, encircling practically his entire torso. they are presently unmarred by blood — the first thing he had done upon stumbling to his chambers from the Regent's throne room was summon kivander and get his wounds cleaned and sewn so they could begin to mend — but he has been trying to be cautious not to move so much that they were further aggravated while in the slow process of healing.
as such, he doesn't pull himself out of bed to run across the length of the room and throw himself into J's arms, despite how that always seems to be the first impulse that comes through his head when he sees him after any period of time that they've been apart.
instead, ) Come here, ( said as he reaches out to him, wanting to have his hands on him, to feel that he's truly here and that nothing had managed to befall him, as soon as he could. )
cw: fantasized decapitation, violence and blood
As J's entry is momentarily barred, it's not the first time he weighs the pros and cons of helping Vandy instantly shed some extra weight, by evicting his thick skull from its body. In a moment hedged by questions unanswered and contact severed days ago, the demon is hardly in a magnanimous enough mood to tolerate being restricted access to his own ward. An aggravation worsened by someone who cannot suffer speaking through more than a crack in the door. The fact Makoto is cognizant of the tension and calls off his guard dog possibly spares the interior a quick redecoration.
Crisis averted, J slips into the room without paying his fill-in much ado and instead zeros in on the one he'd been combing the streets of Venera for, to no avail. ]
There you are. [ His master affords Makoto a long leash, with the latter dictating the terms by which J can reach out. Whether it's done out of sportsmanship or for the sake of humoring a child's game, J has refrained from using Communion when it trespasses upon an intimate sense of self his ward balks at inviting him into. So, in playing along, he's been kept in the dark as to the lion's share of what happened to him since they parted ways.
There's no need to ask about Makoto's well-being when his ward's sedate and bandaged state, eerily too bedridden for his traditional greeting, tells J that it resides at the cross streets of wounded and mending. A victory in itself when the traitors and captives from this recent venture may not escape it quite so unscathed. And it's with that thought that an unrealized knot gradually comes loose in some distant corner of J's mind. His exasperated concern is swept under the rug, in favor of a more typical and breezy response. ]
I'd say you're a sight for sore eyes, but- [ With a sweep of his open hand to indicate the noticeable gloom they've been cast within, J points out why that's an ill-suited greeting. ] The whole Ominous Gothic Deathbed mood you've got going on here kind of spoils the chipper sentiment.
[ The benefit of J's extremities is that they don't disrupt whatever atmosphere of quiet respite Makoto has set up for himself. (His mouth, however...) There's no jarring scuff of shoes or heavy thud of boots that might stomp about if any with the Archduke's size were to traipse through the space. All that sounds is the shuffle of feathers. Their rustle announces him with a softer alert than footfalls when J is apt to prowl; weaving liquid-like through the darkness. ]
Yes, what is it? [ J purposefully slots himself in the space where outstretched hands reach for him. Slender fingertips brush by the fabric of his shirt but don't manage to successfully grasp what eludes them; so close yet still so far. With the right of his hands grasping the headboard, J uses it to loom over the bed Makoto's small frame barely fills. It's more than apparent what Makoto wants, but J's conditions for fulfilling his requests have rarely deviated from their original pattern. If Makoto desires something from J, he should know better than to utter anything vague or indirect. Or maybe he's simply being decisively petty in retaliation for the last few days, now that J believes his little troublemaker is safe. ]
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simply a minor thing to have momentarily slipped his mind, given how in a hurry he'd been to collapse into bed. it wouldn't happen again.
physical injury is a temporary setback for makoto; he might have gotten used to this song and dance routine by now, but it still seems to unsettle J, who might have otherwise been lulled into a sense of security in hell given that the boy would not have the ability to die so long as he still commanded power over his name. in horos, that power dynamic was altogether shifted, and the brazenness that makoto came by naturally and which alternatingly manifested as foolhardy, bullheaded, or stunningly brave (depending on the situation and the lens it was viewed through) now actually ran the risk of landing him into genuine trouble. he doesn't seem to see the problem, either blind or willfully ignorant to the danger. it's always been in his nature, having so little naturally and having to grasp and steal whatever he might need to get by, to endeavor enormously. his unnatural tenacity is the only ability of his that is inherent and innate. given their circumstances, he doesn't think this is the place or the time for half-measures, and so he has often thrown himself into the teeth of conflicts perhaps outside of his ken — it's stupid luck that he hasn't faced more serious consequences for it yet. regardless, his situation doesn't seem to affect his demeanor; he's just as bratty and impetuous with his demonic master as ever.
his expression twists into a pout, nose wrinkling and eyes squeezing closed beneath a furrowed brow, and he grouses, ) I was sleeping, ( as if that explained everything away. at this time of day, it's not really the prime hour for sleeping, but... well, in the hours between his reappearance in the Regent's throne room and the other Aions beginning to return back from venera and godsblood, he's been keeping a rather eclectic sleeping schedule.
when his eyes open, J is there, having approached with all the subtlety of a summer breeze. makoto's eyes go wide; there's something about seeing the man after any time they spend apart that feels like seeing him for the first time again, or like seeing him after three long years. it causes something wild and untamable and impossible to define to swell and billow within his chest, gently tugging the threads of his common sense (and common decency) even further loose than they already are. if J thinks that merely looming just out of reach is going to inhibit him in any way, he's dead wrong. it takes a few moments, but his expression once more contorts in irritation, and he sits up and leans forward to wrap his arms around the demon and try to drag him down into the bed with him, desires made more plain with his actions and his words. )
I said, come here.
( one of his arms wraps around J's back, hand splayed open over his shoulder, and the other encircles his waist, fingers finding their way into the nest of soft, downy feathers that cover the place where his wings conjoin to the small of his back. heedless of J's size and weight — he doesn't care if every wound he sustained rips itself open in tandem in the process (though that was rather unlikely). if he's in a mood to give makoto what he wants, this is what he wants: to hold him in his arms and be held in return, to feel and to smell the warmth of his skin, to lay his head against his chest and to hear the mechanics of life whirring within (thinking about what they must look like when removed from the privacy of their interiority, opened up to his eyes and his hands and his teeth—). )
Just rest with me a while.
( makoto hadn't lied to him when he had said that every minute he spent apart from him was a minute he'd spent thinking about him. when together, it only seems to get worse — an ensorcellment he couldn't unravel even if he wanted to, a fever that never seemed to break, a drug that had become a chemical dependency. when forced beneath a torrent of pain, despair, loss, hopelessness, and malaise, it had taken everything he had not to fall apart and dissolve into much the same. but he had kept himself together by force, and one of the things that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about was him. something more powerful and more pervasive than merely being the object of his quest for revenge. he still doesn't really understand it, and he might not for a while still. )
I wanted to ask you about something.
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The matress dips with every additional limb, first with the press of a patient knee, eased slowly into the mattress somewhere around his ward's lower legs, then a second is thrown into the mix on the opposite side. J eases himself into a wide straddle that doesn't disturb injuries he observes with the lingering study of his center-most eye. And he makes certain to find support on the mattress itself and not accidentally land on the body underneath him in the process.
There's a creek of the bed someplace along its joints, given with the effort of taking on both of them, while springs underneath suffer the impact of his paws thumping down for extra balance. The catlike configuration of his legs offer added support, but J is sure to strategically position both hands atop the small mountain of pillows and on either side of Makoto's head just in case.
In times when J's intent isn't to instill fear, discipline or impart some painful lesson as part of Makoto's demonic curriculum, J is strangely gentle with the person who had suffered his worst as well. Passive even. Going as far as to let Makoto dictate how far and fast these sparse moments of intimacy span.
As he's manhandled, J's laughter ripples between the press of two bodies, rolling out of him and shaking through limbs like a delighted shiver. There's an undeniable thrill at being pawed at so eagerly, and forced to submit to Makoto's demanding nature. It's immediacy sweeps even a monster like himself up into something of a thrall.
A little push upon Pillow Mountain eases his torso back a bit. Done in part to better align their bodies into a face-to-face configuration, but not without the urge to arch up into Makoto's touch, where the outline of possessive hands act as brands to burn their heat past the cotton of his shirt and into skin. A foot or so of retreat rearranges them so that he's no longer facing the plush, down-stuffed valley supporting his ward, but the man himself. Like this, the demon can look down upon all that makes up the exact constellation of Makoto's face: an expressive brow, a mouth so inclined to snarl or pout, and watchful eyes that hold all of J's attention. ]
Oh? Now that you're without any leads, are you finally trying to dig up the skeletons in my closet at their source?
[ With his elbow propped up on the bed, J's right hand can return the contact Makoto so effortlessly lavishes. It's only the line of his knuckles that touch him, but somehow the act is all the more tender like this, as he strokes the contour of one cheek. Still rounded and soft with the impression of eternal youth, no matter how long he may survive here. ]
I won't promise you any answers, but go ahead. [ Alone and close enough to let their breaths intermingle, warm and tinged with only the faintest sense of something medicinal, likely used to tend to Makoto's wounds, J's voice hovers at a level worthy of secrecy or sweet-talk. Every word coils out in a low whisper, turning the worst taunts into provocations or suggestions Makoto is welcome to take. ] Ask away.
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ah, but does it matter? love and hate, pain and pleasure — the distinction can seem so blurry, and it's only gotten less distinct for him with time. all he can seem to think, especially when with J, is that he wants his attention, all of it, and no matter what it was, good or bad. even when he was enforcing in him some sort of grim lesson, molding him into the monster he saw he could be even when he had been human and mewling, he can't help but later regard those memories with a feeling of conflict in his heart. at least his attention was on me, he would think, addled, obsessed, his eyes were on me, and nothing else.
J gets so close, his face looming only inches away from makoto's own, waves of pale, beautiful hair cascading on either side of them. just as much as he can hear the man's chuckle, he can also feel it reverberating through his chest, just beneath his hands; it causes makoto's breath to catch (embarrassingly), and his fingers curl into the downy feathers in his back, nails just barely scratching at the faint protrusions of the spine just beneath. what was it that he had wanted to speak to him about again? why was it that he cared about the paltry state of this body of his? as fickle as the wind and as changeable as the tide, makoto's mind shifts, thoughts slowly coloring with desire — he thinks of reaching further still to the base of his leonine tail, of trying to force him to draw their hips together, of sinking his teeth into the soft and vital flesh of his neck and seeing just how far his good graces might extend for his foolish, wayward ward —
J shifts, and his thoughts go with him; he retrieves the arm that he'd had around his back and on his shoulders to better allow him to sit up a bit, though he seems far too reluctant to let him go entirely. he reaches up to curl his fingers around the back of the demon's neck, hanging off of him just as he hangs off of every word that falls from his lips, watching them move with a rapt and pointed attention.
he blinks, owlish, and then starts, jostling ever-so-slightly beneath J's body as meaning filters in a full second or two after the words enter his ears. ) That — ( he bites the words off, lightly fuming, feeling annoyed that he was apparently so easy to see through. how much does he even need to say with J? sometimes it feels like the man can just peer inside his head and see whatever thoughts might be in there; hell, more than half of them he'd put in there himself.
he puts himself back together piece-by-piece, trying to regain his composure. it's one effort completely in vain, because the second J's knuckles graze past his cheek, he finds himself moving again, half startled by and half craving for more of that simple, affectionate touch. he turns his head in towards his master's hand by just a few degrees, staring at him with wide eyes, and then he steels himself in to speak. )
Your name. I want your name.
( where before their words were alternating through the motions of playful sparring and good-natured bickering, these now cut like steel, vibrant and raw. he almost feels like he can feel his chest trembling with the feeling of it. ) Any clue I might have been able to dig up from some dusty record hidden in the slums of Hell is gone now. All of it, gone. ( it's not that he cared that it was, but he cared that he had been so close. ) I don't want to trick it out of you, J. ( he could have. it would have been easy, to simply ask the young demon he'd once been, so guarded and yet so guileless. he would have had no idea what it was worth to the young man who asked. ) I want you to give it to me. I want you to look at me and see that I'm someone who has met your expectations, who has surpassed them, I — I want you to give it to me because you feel like I deserve it.
( to be given his name wasn't the same as taking it on to speak it to him. even unbound by those laws, makoto... would want to earn that as well. but just to know it, and the affirmation he would receive in knowing that J had been the one to make that decision... the thought of it makes him begin to tremble.
and he does, just a bit, but also because tension begins to seize up his arm. ) And if you won't allow me that, ( he continues, tone dropping and becoming more dangerous; his hand forms a claw, and its blunt nails begin to dig into the skin at the nape of J's neck. as he finishes his point, his lips draw back from teeth that have changed to suit the creature he's slowly becoming: somewhat pointed, the canines long and curved, a similar image to those he would have eventually given himself should their history have been allowed to continue it course, ) Then I will simply have to tear it out of you by force.
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Both twining thoughts spur a thrum of exhilaration through his veins, and leave his gaze to sink into a half-shuttered state as J daydreams about what precisely his ward could do with not just his hands upon his skin, but the fangs bared in unmistakable warning. So full of promise to inflict more than a showy display, given the chance.
And then, without expecting the turn towards sentimental, Makoto draws the warmth of an arm above broad shoulders. His weight solid where his ward clings like an offshoot, as if their bodies have grown so close they intertwine together, in ways impossible to separate.
As his ward studies the shape J's lips that weave an opening to an interrogation long-awaited, the demon pinned beneath such intense scrutiny returns the favor in full. J traces the infinitesimal flux of every shift in his ward's expression, pullingeach thought that reads clear as day across Makoto's face into his possession. Even when met with pale irises of gleaming moonlight, cast to float within the morass of dark sclera, that frightful gaze fails to detract from the candidness in those eyes. A sense of vulnerability that eases oft-creased features to leave them open and soft, inexplicably earnest when worn on a creature that's been taught to cleave away his own human nature like bits of gristle scraped off good meat.
It shatters with the shift in a voice running through the mood like a hidden knife. Swift and accurate, Makoto's demands land like a killing blow. Only, their severity is met with a spike in adrenaline that has nothing to do with fear. The threat that builds like a violent, surging storm sets a gleam in J's eyes that echos Makoto's earlier desires. Impassioned as opposed to frightened, J's mouth splits wide with a pull of lips; mirroring his protégé's reveal with his own set of gleaming teeth. ] And where do you think you'll find this answer?
Will you search for it under my flesh, in the wet-hot viscera of my insides, or squeeze it from this beating heart of mine? [ Where knuckles have traced the planes of Makoto's face, fingers replace them to slide beyond his jawline and into the depths of dark hair. Gathering a handful within a closed fist that pulls with a sudden force that's meant to haul him back against the pillows amassed upon his bed. There's an abruptness in the way things take a sudden turn. The old, familiar slant J harbors towards violence rears its head as Makoto is rearranged to J's specifications. ]
Show me exactly what you can do- Mako, my dear. [ When J sinks further down into the bed atop his ward, he can feel the warmth radiating off more than the limbs still cast around him. The heat and every mouth-watering shiver that thrums into him, built up either from a tumultuous mood or Makoto's stint baking under the nest of covers comprising his sick bed, only amplifies when J presses in closer. They're not quite arranged hip to exquisitely inviting hip, but close as the difference in their statures will permit. ]
I want to see just how you plan to rip this secret out of me.
[ Fingers work a clenched jaw he pries open to fill in the next shaky, over-eager breath. Hot as the tight space it enters, his tongue pushes past lips and into an awaiting mouth claimed in full. Once inside, he lavishes attention in lapping over the ridges of a stolen tongue, the crease run through it's middle and across the canines which loom over in a constant threat. J tastes of mint and liquor, his cleansed palate spoiled by the flavor of a stiff drink that speaks of concerns he may never fully express. And then, in the span it takes to press one more delicious tremble of Makoto's frame into his own, absorbing those tremors like a beast with something shaken by death rattles or ecstasy in his grip, there comes a wash of rust. A tongue savaged by the teeth it greedily strokes over drips blood into the cocktail of flavors poured into Makoto's mouth. ]
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acknowledgement. it's been so long denied him from anyone he might have viewed with love or reverence that he's not even aware how deeply he craves it.
he might not realize this about his innermost desires, but they boil to the surface here and now, glazing over his words alongside youthful earnestness and faint desperation — words that are all-too-easily swept by the wayside as he hastily supplants them with the harsh promises of his contingency plan; the venomous threat of violence that he had sworn like an oath had only been meant if J decided to deny what he so plainly asks for, and so when his master immediately begins to reorient around it, attention encircling like the coils of some immense snake, something begins to curdle within his stomach. it feels like a denial. is it so easily dismissed, that he would ever amount to J's expectations — that he would never earn the right to the mere knowledge of his name by his own merit, without resorting to violence that had been the terms and conditions of his contract but not necessarily the ink with which they'd been written?
something fragile that he doesn't even entirely understand begins to fragment inside of him, made suddenly accessible and vulnerable by the honesty of his plea. because of this he's powerless, he's very nearly paralyzed as J's hands maneuver to tangle thickly in his hair, near the root, but even in this delicate and transitory moment he's in, he can't help a small, sharp sound of pain from dislodging from the back of his throat as he's forced back down onto the assembly of pillows on the bed, his chest rising and falling rapidly and bright, hot tears beginning to bite into the corners of his eyes.
he squeezes them shut against the pain. it isn't just his hair, or the dull ache of permanent trauma encircling his neck, or the winding coil of barely-healed lacerations beneath the bandaging layered thickly across his torso. as had been one of his first and most important lessons learned in hell: physical violence is a language of power second only to the rule of names, and physical pain is cheap in its fleeting nature. it's the injury he sustains to the soft, susceptible substance of his soul that pains him far greater, which torments him day and night without end. in nearly any other creature it would ferment into a fine vintage of despair — delicious in its own right, but ultimately dull. one-note. inert.
makoto is anything but inert.
he tries to resist, but there's a precious thin amount of resistance he can actually put up to the force of nature that is J; his mouth opens with a small gasp of breath which is summarily swallowed up as he kisses him, pouring a confusion of accelerant over the riot of emotion that saturates makoto in this moment — the sharp, jagged edges of confusion still resonating with something that still manages to feel like pain and betrayal (as if he hadn't learned by this point to stop opening himself up to such fresh torments), but which more and more begins to fill with the twin heat and pressure of white-hot fury. that might have been all there was if it weren't for the goading movement of J's tongue against his own, in frank acknowledgement of what he'd sewn into that very place himself, but as it is, it complicates further. pained, irascible, and miserable, his veins burn with the added liquid fire of desperate want, either completely untethered from all the other ways he feels in this moment or tied up into them in ways that his formerly-human brain can't even begin to comprehend as he is now. this, however, he doesn't resist. after a moment of stillness, makoto begins to kiss J back with characteristic rancor and fury, the engine in the pit of his stomach converting his bleak hopelessness into anger and drive. J did not need to chum the not-so-metaphorical waters by being far too liberal with the movement of his tongue across makoto's newly-sharpened teeth — with a low, short growl, he nips at the invasive flat of his tongue — he extricates his hands from wherever they are to reach up and wrap them around the bases of J's horns, where they arc upwards and forwards — and as he finally erupts into a flurry of movement and conviction, he gives a final bite to the round of J's bottom lip before he separates from him and bodily yanks his head to the side using his horns as leverage, physical strength bolstered supernaturally by physical pain and even deeper anguish.
he doesn't care how much it hurts his battered and bloodied body. it doesn't matter. with time, it would pull itself back together, whether he liked it or not. but in this moment he wrestles their positions into a sudden exchange, forcing J beneath him on the bed, his knees denting the mattress where they bracket his thin waist, the rest of his body lifted up to press all of that feeble weight and pressure onto the demon's horns, keeping him trapped below onto the increasingly-messy field of pillows.
where just moments before it had been shaking and rattling within his chest like the last leaf of fall, now his breath comes in short and violent bursts. intent lost somewhere between lust and violence burns on the pale surfaces of makoto's coin-like irises as he stares into his master's face — he manages to find his voice again, faintly hoarse with fire and venom, ) Don't you dare promise me what you can't give, J, ( and as he speaks there's a strange shift in the space behind him as his wings protrude from beneath bandages and clothing, draping over the bed on either side of him — but for the right, which moves forward just enough so that one talon could place its lethally-sharp point on the soft skin right beneath the notch of J's clavicle. as he continues, his tone evens out somewhat, but his words are still strident with barely-restrained mania, ) Tell me. If I carved you open right now — if I broke open your ribs with my bare hands and made an absolute mess of you, how long could you hold on, how long could you stand it before you finally gave out? ( and now that brief moment of control is gone; his voice shakes, his hands shake, his shoulders shake, the point of the talon begins to sink into J's skin and draw blood, ) Before you disappeared and retreated into your shard and left me all alone?!
( "J's a swindler to his core. that's just the kind of guy he is."
sometimes, makoto is stupid enough to trust in him. to believe him. he wants to — he wants to so badly.
but the blood hasn't even dried on the wound J had just a moment ago cut into his ego; he's not going to allow himself to be misled again so soon and so easily. )
no subject
Makoto is a raging storm that doesn't cede with time or placation. A few kind words are a pittance when scattered into the gale of his all-consuming hatred; swallowed whole without quenching an instant of his fury or undoing years of mistreatment. The worst memories are easiest to recall. Hard lessons inscribed on more than the skin around a skull that J had shorn from his body three times in as many years. All so that these teachings would be the first thing to come to mind in J's presence. Evoking a pavlovian dread to ensure he would never be doomed to repeat the mistakes that led to them.
It's shame that the greatest tradeoff is that they vastly overshadowed smaller, more sincere moments. Submerged like a man pitched from his rig and drawn into the brackish depths to be lost to time. So too had been the fate of rare sincerity, where J beamed over Makoto's certain destiny or reassured that there lay no looming doubt of his ward's talent.
"I'm quite looking forward to it, you know. Seeing how you manage to claw your way up to me"
Perhaps it's impossible to see beyond the haze of white-hot fury that blinds Makoto so deeply. Time and again, it seems he mistakes ardent appreciation, J's forthright boasting of his page's achievements, as ways to dismiss and ridicule his efforts. Because J had, with all the sincerity in his heart, offered what Makoto craved most. In small microdoses, neatly folded and tucked like love letters between the waking horrors of the frequent suffering that consumed his short life. And that could be why these efforts often miss their mark when they're a drop in the ocean compared to the pain.
Each time approval colored his mood enough to commend his ward's achievements and a great many things that lay in store for him, Makoto's irascible and enigmatic master had cleared all else in those moments from the forefront of his mind. A monster bent over backward to exalt someone whose origins were no rarer than those of the most ordinary schoolboy. But to him, Makoto had exceeded every expectation and beaten impossible odds. In the simplest words, J spoke as if able to peel back the layer of his body to comb over the construction of his innermost soul and come back with only words of awe, dripping with satisfaction each time he took a peek.
"That's amazing. You let your hate fuel you, empower you. But you don't succumb to it so much that it consumes you. That's good. It makes me happy to see that."
There's a truth left just beyond the veil knit together by the culmination of a hundred misunderstandings and past cruelties that hung in the way. Things obscuring the fact that his greatest desire, the white whale he'd madly been in pursuit of beneath his lust for vengeance, had been littered throughout every stage of Makoto's journey.
"You really have outstanding talent. (...) The human world is too small for you, Mako-chan."
Upon his ward's first unwilling encounter with the demon he'd soon befriend, J regaled his tenacity under such duress. More so, his words painted a picture that saw beyond the fearlessness it took to endure that encounter, then rise above it enough to stand at equal stride with his own assaulter. J saw someone who had been confined by the stifling outlines of a world that didn't deserve him. Makoto had outgrown the place of his birth. A homeland that had constricted and smothered him. And without an inkling of a doubt, his master had sworn to him that his future was certain.
"You really are a formidable kid. (...) I guarantee that you will become a demon."
The very first of humankind to make the metamorphosis. With Datenshou's odd exception, Makoto is the lone survivor among a thousand souls and the only one to champion the impossible challenge a life in Hell presented. Whereas all others had slipped free of their sanity and dissipated in the unsettling dark; mad, forgotten, and alone.
"I'm proud of you for making it this far. You even met my brother. I didn't expect that!"
All these things now feel like they happened a lifetime ago. J wouldn't be surprised if they sank farther into the deep recesses of a mind already cluttered with knives aimed his way. The bones left to rot of what had been his master's way of raising him up and recognizing each step forward Makoto made in his journey.
Not that any of it came for free. One immutable stipulation in their relationship is that it remains a painfully contractual one. The laws of Hell are those bound by achievements filled and stipulations met. To shirk those for the very person who had benefited most from their schooling would go against everything he's practiced and preached so far. Simply putting into Makoto's hands one of the most important possessions anyone could have, in J's very name, wasn't in the cards.
While J operates on a strict give-and-take, the fact he concedes to unlock the mystery behind it and offer up all that his name held, should reveal once more how much J recognizes Makoto's potential. To J, he's more than the foundling child who only knew the ice-cold sense of dreaded rejection from his peers, loathing from his flesh and blood, and the offer of a grim future from a world that would never embrace who or what he was. And all he's been given in Hell, from position to title, prostitute to one of the initialed elite, fit what his master envisioned for him.
He doesn't perceive Makoto as the first of mankind's ilk to successfully slough off his mortality nor see him as simply a rising star, propelled at lightning speed through the ranks of Hell to rival dukes and marquise alike. Whole and unadulterated in his view, Makoto has been his successor from the start. The one soul to stand not on equal footing but to soar above him, and pull him down into oblivion.
And though it still demands the illusion of a quid pro quo, his agreement in exchange for just a taste of that future Makoto has sworn to him, to be devoured and destroyed, isn't too much to ask in exchange for the reward of his true name.
Then and now, the thought of burning through his last moments with Makoto at the helm, dictating the closing chapter of J's almost never-ending story, sends a pang singing through his veins. It feels like want and yearning, to crest near to that blissful end. And tonight all he asks for is a facsimile of what's to come. Even if his death will be a falsehood; temporary and untrue, the taste of that momentary reprieve from the waking world won't be any less sweet.
Wreathed in deep shadows, Makoto looms like the last flash of claws and wings seen when death swoops down from above. It's only a matter of time before one comes for him with a flash of movement and a noise wrenched free, full of muffled shock and delight. That solid claw sinks in past the first layer of skin, puncturing the barrier between J's innermost workings and the world outside that blood-soaked heat. But the wound isn't stoppered by its assailant's strike. Where a dark hooked fang of a talon nestles snug in the dip below his clavicle, evidence blooms in the streams of blood that trickle from the scene of the crime. Tiny beads in strikingly vibrant red tumble away with every certainty to stain the sheets below, and leave a smattering of Rorschach prints of this collision of two bodies spelled out in spilled blood and tears.
Once bitten, J's mouth isn't afforded the blessing of an encore. Not that either the shape of his tongue or the rounded bottom of his lip requires excess antagonism. They readily weep blood the moment wolfish canines rend into the flesh they've caught. He tries to usher away the gouts of free-flowing blood by swallowing each mouthful behind teeth tinged with red. But with all his attention devoted there, a punctured lip lies ignored. Only when a ticklish sensation catches his attention does a thumb draw near to swipe away the wet tendrils streaking down his chin. ]
I'm willing to lay it all out for you, and you're still not satisfied? [ A pale hand reaches between them, placing the freshly wet and glistening pad of his thumb upon the soft skin of Makoto's lower lip. It digs in slightly, pressing where his ward had sunk teeth into him moments ago. And with a stroke that moves with purposeful intent, J paints half his mouth in vibrant rouge. ] There has to be some limit to your appetite, Makoto.
And if that's what you have in mind, then you'll probably have only a few minutes of playtime. Now, should you avoid cracking me open to dig around my guts right off the bat... I'd wager I'm good for an hour, maybe more.
[ He senses what's to come like blood in the turbulent waters stirred up between them, thick as the heavy tang of copper that lingers long after J swallows down what weeps from his savaged tongue. In the throes of impassioned feeling, with violence withheld and barred back by a thread's width of restraint, Makoto doesn't look like a man drowning in his own sorrows to the demon who had tempered him with this fire before. To him, it's the struggle to break free from a chrysalis of his ward's own making. The self-made shackles of regrets and fears hold him prisoner and deny him what Makoto has always been destined to do. Sworn in ardent oaths, and spat at his master with all the vitriolic loathing that foams to the surface now. ]
Either way, you're going to watch me die, sooner or later. [ As if moving in a synchronized dance to match Makoto's, pristine and white wings unfurl in full. They sweep up to crest over the fortress of scales littering every joint and bone of the draconic threat above and dance whispers of contact across the thin membrane stretched between. But in their slow and careful arrangement, it's easy to miss how they configure themselves into the shape of a trap's open maw closing in. ]
It's about time you got used to the idea. What better way to do that than with a little practice?
[ All of this is a lesson. Painful and agonizing at that. But aren't growing pains always this way? A soul aches as it stretches beyond the confines of its former self, to abandon the childish notions that have been outgrown by every new understanding, the same as a body is left sore as it's stretched out and upward.
Progress hurts. In Hell, one must adapt or die. Demons bury their emotions alive to avoid the risk of being rattled by some mutinous uprising of feeling. But here there are greater risks than a heart left shaken and more weapons to fear than mere words. For Makoto, to stagnate over any loss and wallow as the world at large goes to war is to risk death over a man who never intended to live here long.
As before, J leads Makoto further down the path he's paved in words and actions. J breathes life into the newborn embers of tonight's wrath, all to see a spark kindled that will set off something he doubts needs more than a nudge. Quick to anger and quicker still to eerie calm, he won't hush away these worries and risk Makoto holding fast to this fear of abandonment when it's inevitable anyway. ]
But, I'll give it to you. Everything you want from me, right before the grand finale. The only question is— [ There's the presence of a hand upon Makoto's abdomen, sliding down to nest above the crossroads where an undergarment suddenly divides bare and covered skin. There, where the bandages crisscross a tale of agony written upon hidden skin, fingertips gradually begin to push with incremental pressure.
They both know the damage J could inflict with no greater weaponry than five long nails. But their touch doesn't bite or slice. Small crescents are all that form where fingers curl into claws that drag with a languid upward scratch. ] Can you keep from getting too hot n' bothered, and last long enough for it?
[ J now owns the lion's share of the blood held in the thickening air between them. Fortunately for the trajectory of the evening, J's flesh will heal at a quicker pace than normal— Inhumanly fast, though not nearly at the speed he'd been capable of prior to his life on Horos. But Makoto's wounds, secreted away and of a severity that had left him holed up in recuperation, risk suffering greater injury as a result of the violence promised here. The stress of a frenzy could do more than unravel all the good done by Vandy's careful ministrations and spoil the fun by eventually distracting him from the task at hand. ]