Chapter 12

Why do you always seem to know what to do? Always know what to say to someone to allay their fears, to soothe their pain and to make them stop hurting? Could you teach me how to do that? Teach me to be as certain and brave as you are? Because all I do is hurt the people I love with my lies and masks and…..that’s the only thing I seem to do really well.

Kame had closed his eyes, his teeth biting into his lower lip and his face taking on the bright sheen of perspiration as he tried to fight it. Fight him. Ryo wondered why this swirling, red mist of violence sent lust careening wildly through him, when he realized this was his bondage, his binds. The fact that he didn’t want to hurt Kame but he wanted to have him, just once, even if it was going to make him detest him after all he had done. He angled his head, forcing Kame to arch beneath his onslaught, prying open his lips with his tongue in a rough demonstration of power. It was brutal and exquisite and his grip loosened around Kame’s wrists. Kame pushed against his shoulders and he knew this was the cruelest thing he could ever do to him. But he simply levered himself upwards, stare down into Kame’s eyes as his finger slowly traversed his body, before stopping at his nipple, defining the circle of an aureole. Slowly with that one finger. And the nipple hardened within the limits he had defined and Kame looked at him, unshed tears welling inside the cradle of those eyes.

“Why are you doing this?” He heard the soft quaking voice of Kame, and those eyes had gone shuttered, the lights chased away by his own very hands.

“Because this is what you want, Kame,” He said, and he knew it didn’t matter what he said. They were simply two figures swirled in a mute, violent dance and neither of them was going to go away until they got through the mystery to the answer.

“This is not….” Kame’s voice hitched as Ryo rolled his nipple between his fingers.

“It’s all the same Kame. Love and violence. Pain and happiness. They’re all the same. There can't be one without the other,” Ryo curved the palm of his hand around Kame’s cheek, and he leaned down to kiss him. This time with reverence, crossing the boundaries he had set for himself because looking at Kame trying to hold back his tears, there was only one thing he could do. He could only let his plan go to waste and cinders, to relinquish control because he wanted this to be real, he wanted Kame to remember this kiss, this slow, elemental sacred dance of a kiss that was a prelude to everything, and not an end.

 ~*~

Ryo unbuttoned his shirt, and he leaned down, until they were lying against each other, bare skin and naked hearts. He could hear his own breath, heavy and affected. Kame’s skin felt so smooth beneath him, like the liquid surface of water and he was drinking him in.

Then he heard Kame’s deep hoarse whisper.

“Finish me Ryo. Finish this.”

When had the plan to push Kame away become a benediction, a parody of his own surrender? In this moment, he could be whoever he wanted to be. Even for someone who didn’t believe in anything, at least he could choose his own illusion to forget himself.

He took off his pants gracelessly, and Kame made a pained sound, his hands pressing hard against his back, obliterating the spaces of air between them. It shocked him that it was tender, giving and desperate all at the same time, and he realized that that was Kame. Trying to heal others even though he was still mending from his own pain, thinking that he could be unaffected because he had been through this, but perhaps Kame had underestimated himself and his capacity for love. The empty space in him had yearned to be filled and somehow Kame’s heart had decided on Ryo, probably the most unsuitable candidate of all. And the worst part was that it made Ryo want to be so much better than the person he was now. And he was afraid everything was too damn late.

Kame’s hands had settled on his hips, and his fingers pressed into him, making Ryo move against him, their cocks rubbing against each other, leaving trails of wetness onto their skin. Ryo encircled Kame’s hardness in his hands, sliding that hand down before inching up again, squeezing it hard. He saw the grimace of pain-pleasure on Kame’s face and those fingers bore into his hips.

“Do you know that yesterday night after you left, this was what I did? This was what I did, and I pretended it was you raw and exposed and underneath me.” Ryo increased his rhythm, his face taking on a mask of savagery as he thought about last night, when he had emptied himself in his hands and only felt hollow afterwards. He could feel Kame shuddering beneath him, and he spread the lube onto his fingers, entering him, stretching him. He could feel Kame clenching around him, and a second later, he replaced his fingers with the head of his cock. Just hovering above Kame and he could hear Kame’s agitated cry from those earnest dried lips. And then he thrust, just allowing himself to drown in that embrace. He could feel Kame tightening around him, and he didn’t know whether he was hurting Kame. He simply captured his ankles in his hands, lifting them, as he buried himself to the hilt, slamming his body weight down onto Kame.

And he ignored his own urging need, wanting to make sure he captured that moment when that beautiful gasping look would come over Kame’s face. And he did capture that moment and etched it like a portrait onto his mind, that exact moment Kame let go, those eyes defiant and capitulating all at once, legs quivering and the profuse wetness hitting him on his stomach. And also that exact moment when he pulled out, his own fist enclosing his hardness and emptying his completion onto the bedsheets. And he slumped down onto the bed, with the spent body beside him. Then he heard the sobs, those weak gritty sobs like desiccated leaves falling onto him and there was no way to ignore them. There was no way Kame could do this unscathed, and no way Ryo could do this unmoved. They were rearranged in some way, some of the pieces inside them mended and broken all over again.

And Ryo gave in to the longing in his heart, because Kame had held him too when he was crying and it had meant the world to him that there was someone foolish and crazy enough to absorb his pain. He enfolded Kame inside his arms, sweat and cum and tears between them.

“Is that your original idea of hurting me Ryo? Did you succeed?” He heard Kame’s hushed voice against his ear. And he wanted to tell Kame it wasn’t, because he had taken one look at his face and his intentions had given way to his traitor hands, his traitor lips. And the last moment of pulling himself away, he didn’t know why. But it scared him, because sex was no longer just sex, and he needed to just keep that small part of him intact. But Kame wouldn’t understand, because him holding back was a betrayal, a strike straight to the heart, and in the end, the outcome was still the same.

He hurt Kame, even though he didn’t want to, he had pushed him away, even if part of him was crying for him to stay, he had fallen in love with Kame, even if every part of him had been against it from the get-go.

Could you teach me how to do that? Teach me to be as certain and brave as you are? Teach me to not be the kind of person who hurts everyone within my reach? And if you could, Kame, teach yourself too.

Teach yourself to stop crying for people like me.