Nighttime Visitor

ZOMG I can't believe I actually finished this!! Really, it was all thanks to the amazing people who reviewed so positively; positive feedback really does make such a difference! So yeah, thanks to all y'all who made me feel it was worth it to keep going, no matter how tired I got!

Here you go, the last chapter! So sad...
Anyway...

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Demon world, I soon realized, was almost total chaos. But there was a structure to it, although I couldn’t quite tell exactly what it was at first. I followed Yoko silently, head bowed, but scanning the tumultuous streets curiously. I was so taken aback by the sheer number of different sizes and colors and shapes; I had yet to see two that looked even remotely the same. I got some lascivious leers from many of them, but once they glanced up and saw whom I was with, their eyes skipped away.

Karasu went his own way with a minimum of fuss, and Yoko, Kuronue and I kept walking. It was like a scene from an old movie, only with demons instead of people; dusty dirt roads swarming with demons on foot, on the backs of enormous horses with glowing green eyes or any number of large animal from ostrich-like to giant tigers, or in carts pulled by electric blue oxen. Fights broke out everywhere I looked, and with no police around to break them up they sometimes turned ugly. Minotaurs, centaurs, ogres, and all other manner of mythical beings roamed freely through the streets and I found it hard not to stare. I was so preoccupied with my surroundings that I almost missed it when Yoko and Kuronue turned abruptly into a restaurant.

Once inside, my attention was refocused on what they were saying. Yoko was trying to imprint on Kuronue the immense distrust humans had of same-sex relationships. “Kuronue, Suichi’s mother basically turned him away once Suichi told her the story,” he said. My heart jolted; even after three months that still bothered me.

Kuronue’s eyes went wide. “Wait…wha—his mother!? But that’s—“

“I know,” Yoko whispered. “Here, mothers count their blessings after each day that goes by with her child still alive and in here care,” he said. I knew he was speaking indirectly to me. “But there…I suppose their stringent laws and police control have virtually eliminated crime, at least compared to here.”

“I lost a sister to slavers,” Kuronue said gravely, “and a brother to a wild bear. Humans have neither of those problems…”

I understood now why Yoko had been so blown away by Mother’s reaction. From what I can tell demons have little in the ways of civilization. There don’t seem to be many laws other than those governing human world traffic, and I certainly haven’t seen anything resembling a police force. It also seems like this entire place, at least, is ordered much like a large wolf pack, with each demon having it’s own rank and status and only a select few with actual power. I already knew slavery was accepted behaviour, and I suppose those slaves had to come from somewhere. I no longer needed to concentrate on my behaviour in public; three months shifting into “pet” mode whenever Karasu walked through the door had ingrained it into me, although I still always felt degraded and humiliated whenever I did. I was kneeling on the floor besides Yoko’s chair now, sitting back on my heels, and I rested my cheek against the fox’s thigh. Yoko’s hand descended on my head absently and I closed my eyes, enjoying the physical contact.

----

Suichi’s meekness always made me hate myself for what I kept making him do; I could always feel his humiliation no matter how well he hid it from everyone else. I felt like such a monster, making him sit on the floor when there was a perfectly good chair right there, but I had no choice. Suichi’s death was not worth the relief I’d get from letting him sit at the table.

Our lunch arrived, and I handed Suichi his plate. He took it with a grateful little smile that wrenched at my heart. I got an odd look from a few other people and I knew it was because I allowed Suichi to eat with proper utensils; most owners made their pets use their hands. But that was one too many degrading things to ask of my sweet Suichi, risk or no.

Kuronue and I ate in silence; neither of us was very big on talking while we ate. Suichi’s eyes flashed around constantly while he ate, taking in everything, his expression never faltering. I was anxious to get home so I could drop this silly act and treat him like a person again. Not only did Suichi’s humiliation rankle me, but also I also really loathed myself for making him do this. Also it was just so hard to have to ignore him as he shuffled behind me when I wanted to spend every possible minute looking at that beautiful face before it began to wither and die.

Finally we reached home, my boring little house in the middle of the woods, surrounded by my home-grown guards. They reached out as I passed by, welcoming me home, tendrils finding Suichi and exploring him, storing his energy and scent away for later dates once he was identified as a friend. Safe behind closed doors at long last, I turned and pulled Suichi into my arms. Suichi buried himself in my chest, smiling, and I could sense the questions he’d been building up for the past few hours bubbling to the surface. He fired them at me, one by one, and I answered as best I could.

After four straight minutes I had to stop him. “Suichi, your curiosity is great and I’m glad you’re actively interested in demons, but please, no more questions…”

Suichi laughed, his musical voice ringing through my ears. Now that we were back home, the fact of how little time I actually had with this gem was glaring me in the face again. I felt myself trembling with emotion, and Suichi’s eyes widened.

“Yoko, what’s wrong?” he asked, facing me.

“You’re so beautiful, Suichi,” I whispered. “I love you with all my heart, but…” I paused, trying to phrase this in a way that wouldn’t hurt him. “Suichi, you are the poster child of absolute perfection, beauty in its truest form; the fact that I only have a mere decade or so until that begins to become flawed with the signs of age…” I couldn’t continue, burying my face in his hair. “If only there were some way I could immortalize you as you are now…” I stopped, an idea suddenly striking me. It was risky, and I wasn’t certain Suichi would agree to it, and it certainly wasn’t something I was too wild about either, but I was desperate. “Maybe there is a way…” Suddenly I let go and picked up the phone, dialing Kuronue’s house phone impatiently.

“Jesus, Yoko, we’ve been separated for less than ten minutes and already you’re calling!?”

“Kuronue, I need to talk to you. I just thought of something… can you come here? Like, now?”

There was an exaggerated sigh on the other end of the phone. “Fine, but only because you’re my best friend and because you sound deathly serious, fox.” Yoko heard a click. He turned to Suichi, who looked extremely confused.

“I thought of a way that could not only keep you looking just as you are for the rest of your life, but it would also extend your life to as long as I live,” I told him breathlessly. Suichi’s eyes widened. “I just need to ask Kuronue…”

“What’s he got to do with it?” Suichi asked.

I smiled. “Everything.” My ears caught his approach. “Here he is now, in fact.” Suichi looked incredulous again and I kissed his forehead. “We move much faster than you do when we’re not encumbered by slow humans,” I teased. Suichi scowled.

Kuronue walked through the door. “This better be good, fox,” he growled.

I led him into the other room so we could talk in private. “Kuronue, I need you to do me a favor,” I asked. He cocked his head silently, and I continued. “I can’t bear to watch Suichi age. It would break my heart and the only way I can think of to prevent it is—“ I hesitated. “Is if you bound me and then I in turn bound him.”

Kuronue stared at me. “You—you would go that far…?” he whispered. “You would let me take possession of you just to keep Suichi young?” His voice was trembling.

I nodded. “He’s—he’s everything to me, Kuronue, and I have such a short period of time left with him—humans only live to eighty or so, Kuronue! And you know how badly foxes respond to heartbreak…"

“Yoko, I’d do anything for you, you know that,” Kuronue whispered. “You’re my best friend, the only person I’ve ever really met who doesn’t care that I’m a vampire. If I did this now and you came to regret it, I would never forgive myself, fox. Are—are you sure this is what you want?” He met my eyes seriously. “You do realize the control I’d have over you, right? You would be bound as my scion for eternity and forever compelled to do exactly as I said without question…”

I hadn’t known that, and I wasn’t thrilled to hear it—being anybody’s bitch, even Kuronue’s, just went against my nature—but Suichi’s face flickered across my mind and I knew it would be worth it. I trusted Kuronue not to abuse his power over me, anyway. I smiled at him. “I’m certain, Kuronue. I can’t think of any other way, and I trust you to not abuse that control. Just let me go ask Suichi first; I wanted to confirm it with you before I took it up with him…”

“Wait, Yoko…” Kuronue said, looking skeptical again. “You do know how I bind you, right?” When I shook my head, he sighed. “There has to be—we have to…have sex,” he said, looking awkward.

I hesitated, but once more the thought of my dear Suichi made me make up my mind. “Whatever, Kuronue. Like I said, I’ll do whatever it takes.” I didn’t miss the hastily suppressed joy that flared in Kuronue’s lavender gaze. I turned and left to find Suichi.


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Yoko looked grave when he finally opened the door, and my curiosity spiked. What could make him so sober? He sat down on the couch with a huff and I curled up in his lap. “Yoko, what’s going on?” I whispered.

The fox launched into his explanation, confessing his inability to cope with how fast humans aged and the solution he had thought of, and I realized the tremendous sacrifice he was committed to making on my behalf. Despite myself, I felt tears in my eyes.

“Suichi…what’s wrong?” Yoko’s voice sounded panicked.

I looked up at him, smiling through my tears. “Nothing’s wrong, Yoko. I just—the amount you’re willing to sacrifice for me…I just—I love you so much and it feels so good knowing you’d really give up so much just to have more time with me…”

“Will you do it?” Yoko asked, sounding tense.

I kissed him. “Of course I will, fox,” I whispered. “How could I say no when you’ve just told me how far you’ll go for my sake? And besides, it would be worth it to belong to you even more solidly than I do now if it could mean avoiding watching you suffer and knowing I was the reason why…” Truthfully I didn’t want to get older anymore than Yoko wanted me to, because he had confessed he wouldn’t want me once I was old and the thought of never feeling his hands running over me wrenched at my heart.

Yoko grinned in relief, but I could see he was nervous about the daunting task that now lay ahead. “Well, better now than later,” he said, getting up. “Thank you, love,” he purred in my ear. “You have no idea how happy this makes me…”


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I went back to Kuronue slowly, relishing the last few moments of freedom before I willingly made myself his bitch, unwilling to let either of them know just how hard this was for me. I was a fox, and we weren’t made to be tied down so perpetually to one person; every one of my instincts was telling me to stop this stupidity, but I ignored them, thinking only of Suichi. He wants this too; I’m doing it for him as well as myself. I can’t let us both down…

Kuronue saw right through my act and laid a hand on my shoulder as I stopped to close the door. “Are you sure you want to—“

“Stop asking, Kuronue, and let’s just do this before I let my fox side convince me otherwise,” I sighed. He looked so hurt that I winced.

“I don’t want to do this if you’ll only resent me for it,” Kuronue whispered.

“I’m sorry, Kuro,” I said. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s not you I’m opposed to; its just all my natural instincts are ganging up on me.” I met his eyes. “You’re the only one I would ever even consider trusting enough for something like this…”

Kuronue pulled me towards him so suddenly I nearly fell, but I was braced against him, and he was trembling. I let him hold me, even wrapping my arms around his waist in return. “Fox…” he whispered. I’d never heard such emotion in his voice. He didn’t say anything for a long time, his chin resting on my shoulder. Finally, he sighed and pulled away. “Should we get this over with?”

I nodded. “Can we not…mess around?” I said. “If we really must have sex for this to work, can we just get it over with? It’s not that I—it’s not you, Kuronue,” I added hurriedly. “I just—my pride doesn’t like the idea of bottoming much…”

Kuronue looked disappointed, and for a moment I almost reconsidered that decision, but he only sighed again and nodded. “I know this is hard for you, and I’ll try to make it as easy as possible, fox,” he said.

Somehow, he had me on the bed in the next few seconds, and biting back my instinct to flee, I let him kiss me, discovering with a jolt that Kuronue’s tongue was pointed, and very long. My breath hitched as his hand untied my sash before falling to linger on the waist of my pants. I heard the clink of metal as he undid his belt with the other hand and a second later his wraparound slithered to the bed besides me.

Kuronue released my mouth to attack my throat, sending adrenaline coursing through me, but he did not bite me, not yet. His hands wandered down to my pants again and a moment later I felt them pulled down to my knees.
A general feeling of wrong-ness swept over me as he suckled appetizingly on my throat. It only increased when his hand ran down the length of the inside of my thigh, and I shivered, feeling revolted without knowing why. When Suichi once more entered my mind it became clear.

“No!” I heard myself cry as his hand brushed my cock. Kuronue froze and pulled away from me, looking concerned. I shook my head and apologized. “You did nothing wrong, Kuronue,” I said. “It’s just my body’s reaction from having someone other than Suichi become so intimate.”

He stared at me. “Wait…I thought you only make him act like a pet,” he said slowly.

I shook my head. “No, he really is my pet. Why?”

Kuronue was quiet for a while, just staring at me, until slowly he began to laugh. I stared as he had to roll onto the bed next to me once he was laughing so hard he couldn’t support himself anymore. “Y-Yoko, you idiot,” he finally gasped. “If Suichi really is your pet then—“ he had to stop to hold back more laughter. “Then already he’s been immortalized as he was the day you finalized it!”

I stared at him, feeling like an idiot. “So…he won’t age…?”

“No, you moron, and he won’t die until you do unless someone actually kills him!”

Relief washed through me: relief that Suichi was safe from aging, relief that I didn’t have to let Kuronue bind me, and mostly relief that we had figured this out before it was too late to stop. “Oh…” I said weakly. Now that the bat’s initial amusement had died away, sadness was replacing it. I pulled my pants back up. “Kuronue…thank you for telling me that,” I said quietly. “You could have easily ignored it and just gone through with this, and you didn’t.”

The bat met my eyes glumly. “I couldn’t do that to you, Yoko. You weren’t making those sacrifices for my sake; you were doing it for Suichi. And as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t deceive you like that. I’d hate myself for it…”

After a brief hesitation, I leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thanks, Kuronue,” I whispered. “You’re all I could ever ask for in a best friend…” Things would be awkward between us for a long time and it was highly possible our relationship would never recover. Up until now we had both behaved as if Kuronue’s love for me did not even exist, but today he had finally acknowledged his emotions while I was around, and even if neither of us had actively spoken of them, Kuronue was making no effort to conceal his disappointment. But there was nothing more I could do for him.


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Yoko emerged sooner than I expected, looking far more cheerful than I had expected. He nearly skipped over to me and swept me into his arms. Laughing, I kissed his collarbone, wondering if they had gone through with it.
“Suichi, we don’t need to do this,” Yoko said happily. “Apparently when I sealed your status as mine, it was essentially what happens with vampires and you’re immortalized as you are now, and you won’t age and you won’t die until I do!”

That was very relieving to hear and I let the fox scoop me up in his arms. The only one who was not happy with this arrangement, I soon realized, was Kuronue, who slunk out of the bedroom, met Yoko’s eyes briefly, and left without a word.

“Will…will you two be okay?” I asked. I really liked Kuronue and I would have hated for this to force them apart.

“I can only hope so, Suichi,” Yoko said, his voice sad. “But I have you, and finally, finally I can sleep soundly at night knowing I’ll always wake up to your beautiful face.”

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THE SEQUAL IS UP!! It's called, "Yoko's 'Protection," Suichi, Suffering. Thanks to those who sent in title suggestions. I warn you now it is MUCH darker than this one. Like, MUCH.