SENGOKU BASARA and all characters/ideas/concepts/places therein are not mine, although the writing certainly is.



Title: You want so much, it makes you sorry.
Characters/Pairing(s): Koujurou & Sasuke
Rating: R
Summary: Coping strategies.
Warnings? Mentions of buttbanging.
Notes: For Bhex. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for June 11, 2008.



You want so much, it makes you sorry.


This is how it always begins: the armies of Kai and Oshu charging towards each other from opposite ends of the plain, the Tiger of Kai and the One Eyed Dragon facing off in an awesome display of skill and power, and their respective retainers finding their eyes meeting amidst the carnage and chaos, stealing one moment for themselves on the battlefield.

They are always too far from each other to exchange words, and too preoccupied with cutting down the enemies of their masters to come to blows. That single exchange that is not an exchange, however, is enough to make both of them remember their last encounter, and wonder, in a moment of weakness, when they will meet again.

This is always what follows: the evening after the battle. Koujurou sits in his study, reading through the Art of War. Sasuke steals into Oshu, undetected up until Koujurou spots his shadow lurking beyond the shoji doors leading out to the garden. He could summon the guards just a corridor away from his quarters. He could call the entire Oshu army down upon the greatest ninja in Kai’s service. Koujurou always elects to handle the threat for himself.

This is always what it boils down to: Sasuke pinned between the hard wood floor and Koujurou’s weight, with the edge of the Black Dragon resting with almost loving precision under his chin. The study is in ruins around them; the air is silent save for the communal shake of their breaths. Sasuke is thinking not of the promise of death against his neck, but of the fact that he could feel the heat radiating off of Koujurou’s skin as keenly as he can feel the older man’s knee against his crotch. His smell is an animal smell: sharp and feral and powerful. Sasuke wonders if he’ll be able to taste the blood of Kai on Koujurou’s skin.

Every part of them comes together: teeth, mouths, tongues, limbs. Koujurou leaves bites for Sasuke to study in the mirror. Sasuke lets his nails scratch across the fine plane of Koujurou’s back and the angles of his shoulder blades when the older man presses into him.
They do not know why they fuck, or perhaps they do and choose not to dishonor each other by saying it. There is shame, after all, to be found in loving one’s master and wanting him for one’s self.

Sasuke leaves in the small hours of twilight, well before dawn breaks. He lingers long in the bathhouse, to let the steam and the water take the scent of another man from his body. Koujurou, in the meantime, steps out into the garden and works through sword forms until his mind is calm and clear, like glass.