barcode, part vi, doumeki/watanuki, hard r
fandom: xxxHOLiC
story: barcode
summary: like anyone else who does not have a soul, you cannot stand anyone who has too much of one [doumeki, watanuki, violence, creepiness, weirdness]
notes/warnings: there are so many mentions of sex in here that border almost-on-explicit-but-not-quite that I felt there should be a warning. Also, abuse (what? NO. WAY. Not in this fic), language, weird shifty prose, and this is the very first piece clicking into place of the puzzle that is this fic.
part one
part two
part three
part four
part five
Shizuka wraps the sunflower AI’s arm with cotton and gives her a sling. It still shorts out, sparks turning the white cloth black in spots, but least this way it won’t get any worse.
“Does it hurt?”
She shakes her head. “My pain sensors are shot,” she tells him. “All down my left side.”
Oh.
She watches him. Tips her head. “What are you supposed to be doing right now?”
“Fucking,” he says. He glances at her. Her eyes are teal-colored, but there’s a light in them that doesn’t exist in the eyes of humans.
Raises her eyebrows. “We can do that, you know. I am fully functioning, except for my arm.”
“’d rather not,” he says. Doesn’t know why he says that; he supposed to be welcoming to sex most of the time. But -
“Why not?” the sunflower AI asks. “Everyone likes sex.”
“I don’t-“ he remembers Ichi-Kimihiro-his hands scraping his scalp, mouth open and panting against his throat, unable to keep his eyes open, the smells of sex and lube and sweat and Kimihiro’s shampoo and hips against his, shoving into him, the sound of Kimihiro when he comes-
The memories are terrifying and not quite arousing.
He looks at the sunflower AI and she’s watching him, eyes bright, pupils not quite round. The wind blows her hair and he sees a scrape under her ear, glinting in the light, copper wires still intact across the silvery metal plate.
“I just-I can’t forget,” he says, which is perhaps troubling. The memories are not difficult to call up, even though they are weeks, months, even years old, but his memories, they don’t last that long in his mind, not constantly. He nods to the scrape. “We should bandage that as well.” He takes out a gauze pad and tape. “Hold your hair back.”
She smiles, part comforting, part gently, and takes back her hair.
--
The king goes through a hundred AIs a year; they break or function poorly or rebel anything and they’re good enough and human enough that someone has a safe house for AIs in the red-light district. The sunflower AI stays there, and she shows Shizuka where it is before he leaves.
He jerks off quick and fast against an alley wall and cleans up well, so it seems like he might have actually found someone to fuck. He can smell the sunflower AI on him a little, a girl-smell, and it’s not the smell of girl-sex, it’s close enough that Kyle will be fooled if he decides to look too far into the matter.
He returns to the lab and stands at the door of Kimihiro’s cell, waiting for his next order from Kyle, who must be working with D or on some other project, ‘cause he’s not here.
He’s surprised when he opens the door of the cell and comes out.
Don’t look in, don’t seem curious-
He hears It snarling, but it’s almost sad, like a sob. Hears Kimihiro panting from pain.
“Did you have fun, Ni-C?” Kyle asks.
Nod.
“You wanna talk to Ichi?”
Don’t meet his eyes. Nod.
“You know the drill,” Kyle says. He has dirt on his impeccable coat and pants, around the knees. He goes to the sink and washes grime off his hands.
Weapons. Coat, hat, gloves. In shirt and loose pants, he’s allowed in. Kyle shuts the door but doesn’t lock it.
Kimihiro shies away until he realizes who it is.
“Hey.”
Nod. “Okay?”
He shakes, from cold and something else. “Think so.”
“You bleeding?”
Shakes his head.
Shizuka kneels, looks over the bare chest. Usual scrapes and bruises, but nothing more serious. Something white and viscous running down his chin, a handprint on his face, nothing more-
But Shizuka knows just as well as Kimihiro that Kyle expects every last drop of come to be swallowed, cause otherwise it's a big mess, and Kyle hates messes, and he'd do nothing if he could cause sex is a big mess but sometimes he has to and he doesn't want to get his hands dirty. That's how it is.
Nothing new, at any rate.
“And It?”
Kimihiro’s eye goes wide. “It-It understands things,” he breathes. “K-kyle was…was telling It things, and It-It knew-“
It growls, lifts Its head to reveal Its one gold eye, hair stringy and tangled hiding the rest of Its face. It looks at them, and that eye comprehends.
What are you, Shizuka thinks.
It hisses, revealing a mouthful of hungry, sharp teeth. Kimihiro flinches back, Shizuka too-they can both remember times when they’ve been on the wrong side of those teeth, stuck in this cell for a day or two or seven as punishment, It fully healed and perfectly capable of roaming the cell-
It takes anything It can get.
Shizuka wants to tell Kimihiro, but-
Can’t talk in the cell. It’s bugged, filmed-some flunky of Kyle’s always watching and reporting and getting paid so much that no bribing or threats can get him to not-
But he and Kimihiro know each other, and even a half-dead Ichi-C can read the look in Ni-C’s eyes.
Kimhiro’s wrists are chafed and cold from the chains but he lifts his hands and pulls Shizuka to him, buries his face in his neck.
“Got plans,” Shizuka breathes, so quiet Kimihiro can barely hear him, even with his hypersensitive hearing. “With the sunflower AI.”
“’Kay,” Kimhiro breaths back, and says aloud, “I want-I-Ni-“
And Kimihiro can’t lie, not like that, and Shizuka lets him kiss him and grind into him until he gasps and comes, and It watches with a blatant hunger in his eyes that is-that is-
That is anything but physical.
It whispers something, maybe a name, but it’s still nothing more than a hiss and Shizuka goes, leaving Kimihiro to doze from hunger and satisfaction and he closes the door and lets Kyle lock it.
“Enjoyed that?”
Kyle smiles slow. Shizuka doesn't think about anything.
--
Bodyguard duty.
It used to be C, but Kimihiro’s gone, so it’s just Shizuka now.
Kyle’s busy, but he likes these fancy court things, and the king likes to show off their creations, like the curly-haired woman, who is old but looks young, like Shizuka.
At this one they present him.
“Finally,” the king says. “Kyle-sama has perfected the project he has been working on for decades: the perfect soldier, superhuman and one-hundred percent obedient. This is Ni-C.”
Applause. Shizuka doesn’t think, works hard not to. Kyle didn’t drug him this time, a test, but he wishes he had.
Don’t look at them. Don’t think-
He just has to watch Kyle. He’s fast and strong, so if Kyle’s attacked he’ll be there instantly. Has his eyes open, watching everything. Has alarms set that will tell him if something’s coming that’s not supposed to.
So all he has to do is stand and watch.
“Ni-C.”
But no one ever talks to him-
The man is taller than he is, with black hair back in a low ponytail that falls past his hips. He has a sword, and is in dress armor, but not the fancy kind. His eyes are cinnamon like the woman who runs the AI safehouse.
“Who are you?”
He bows. Just slightly.
“Yasha, lord of the Yamato lands.”
The Yamato lands-far to the north, that’s all Shizuka knows.
“What do you need? If you’re here to distract me from my duties, I can assure you that you will fail.”
He smiles. Just slightly. Like the bow. Tips his head, his voice quiet, pitched only so Shizuka can hear.
“I...have a hunch, Ni-C,” Yasha says. “That you are not nearly as perfect as Kyle says. A and B both rebelled in pairs, and for only one of C to be standing? You are not designed that way. You are two halves of a whole, hmm?”
Startled. Shizuka tries not to look it, but can’t stop the fast intake of breath.
“I’m not out to stop you,” Yasha says. “Actually…I would like to help.”
“Why is that?” Look straight ahead. Yasha’s intelligent, Shizuka can tell. If Kyle catches him talking, he understands the possible consequences. But if Shizuka is caught listening, the consequences are much higher.
“Because Kyle took someone from me, someone that I loved, and so I understand what he is doing. And…it’s evil.”
love
That word again.
Shizuka still doesn’t think he understands.
Glance over--Yasha has eyes that are stern but kind deep down.
"Love--" Shizuka says aloud. It's haunting him, that word, making him think--he doesn't really want to think, it was so much easier when he didn't, when it was just him and Kimihiro and nothing else but these words, feelings, souls that have suddenly infiltrated their lives, twisted them and made them--"I don't think I understand that."
Yasha's eyes smile.
A shock--
alarm!
--literally, a shock, the band around his wrist shocking him in the spot that tells him the west balcony alarm's been tripped, and run run run--footsteps behind him, jump and--gotta get there, gotta fix it--
The west balcony explodes.
previous|next
story: barcode
summary: like anyone else who does not have a soul, you cannot stand anyone who has too much of one [doumeki, watanuki, violence, creepiness, weirdness]
notes/warnings: there are so many mentions of sex in here that border almost-on-explicit-but-not-quite that I felt there should be a warning. Also, abuse (what? NO. WAY. Not in this fic), language, weird shifty prose, and this is the very first piece clicking into place of the puzzle that is this fic.
part one
part two
part three
part four
part five
Shizuka wraps the sunflower AI’s arm with cotton and gives her a sling. It still shorts out, sparks turning the white cloth black in spots, but least this way it won’t get any worse.
“Does it hurt?”
She shakes her head. “My pain sensors are shot,” she tells him. “All down my left side.”
Oh.
She watches him. Tips her head. “What are you supposed to be doing right now?”
“Fucking,” he says. He glances at her. Her eyes are teal-colored, but there’s a light in them that doesn’t exist in the eyes of humans.
Raises her eyebrows. “We can do that, you know. I am fully functioning, except for my arm.”
“’d rather not,” he says. Doesn’t know why he says that; he supposed to be welcoming to sex most of the time. But -
“Why not?” the sunflower AI asks. “Everyone likes sex.”
“I don’t-“ he remembers Ichi-Kimihiro-his hands scraping his scalp, mouth open and panting against his throat, unable to keep his eyes open, the smells of sex and lube and sweat and Kimihiro’s shampoo and hips against his, shoving into him, the sound of Kimihiro when he comes-
The memories are terrifying and not quite arousing.
He looks at the sunflower AI and she’s watching him, eyes bright, pupils not quite round. The wind blows her hair and he sees a scrape under her ear, glinting in the light, copper wires still intact across the silvery metal plate.
“I just-I can’t forget,” he says, which is perhaps troubling. The memories are not difficult to call up, even though they are weeks, months, even years old, but his memories, they don’t last that long in his mind, not constantly. He nods to the scrape. “We should bandage that as well.” He takes out a gauze pad and tape. “Hold your hair back.”
She smiles, part comforting, part gently, and takes back her hair.
--
The king goes through a hundred AIs a year; they break or function poorly or rebel anything and they’re good enough and human enough that someone has a safe house for AIs in the red-light district. The sunflower AI stays there, and she shows Shizuka where it is before he leaves.
He jerks off quick and fast against an alley wall and cleans up well, so it seems like he might have actually found someone to fuck. He can smell the sunflower AI on him a little, a girl-smell, and it’s not the smell of girl-sex, it’s close enough that Kyle will be fooled if he decides to look too far into the matter.
He returns to the lab and stands at the door of Kimihiro’s cell, waiting for his next order from Kyle, who must be working with D or on some other project, ‘cause he’s not here.
He’s surprised when he opens the door of the cell and comes out.
Don’t look in, don’t seem curious-
He hears It snarling, but it’s almost sad, like a sob. Hears Kimihiro panting from pain.
“Did you have fun, Ni-C?” Kyle asks.
Nod.
“You wanna talk to Ichi?”
Don’t meet his eyes. Nod.
“You know the drill,” Kyle says. He has dirt on his impeccable coat and pants, around the knees. He goes to the sink and washes grime off his hands.
Weapons. Coat, hat, gloves. In shirt and loose pants, he’s allowed in. Kyle shuts the door but doesn’t lock it.
Kimihiro shies away until he realizes who it is.
“Hey.”
Nod. “Okay?”
He shakes, from cold and something else. “Think so.”
“You bleeding?”
Shakes his head.
Shizuka kneels, looks over the bare chest. Usual scrapes and bruises, but nothing more serious. Something white and viscous running down his chin, a handprint on his face, nothing more-
But Shizuka knows just as well as Kimihiro that Kyle expects every last drop of come to be swallowed, cause otherwise it's a big mess, and Kyle hates messes, and he'd do nothing if he could cause sex is a big mess but sometimes he has to and he doesn't want to get his hands dirty. That's how it is.
Nothing new, at any rate.
“And It?”
Kimihiro’s eye goes wide. “It-It understands things,” he breathes. “K-kyle was…was telling It things, and It-It knew-“
It growls, lifts Its head to reveal Its one gold eye, hair stringy and tangled hiding the rest of Its face. It looks at them, and that eye comprehends.
What are you, Shizuka thinks.
It hisses, revealing a mouthful of hungry, sharp teeth. Kimihiro flinches back, Shizuka too-they can both remember times when they’ve been on the wrong side of those teeth, stuck in this cell for a day or two or seven as punishment, It fully healed and perfectly capable of roaming the cell-
It takes anything It can get.
Shizuka wants to tell Kimihiro, but-
Can’t talk in the cell. It’s bugged, filmed-some flunky of Kyle’s always watching and reporting and getting paid so much that no bribing or threats can get him to not-
But he and Kimihiro know each other, and even a half-dead Ichi-C can read the look in Ni-C’s eyes.
Kimhiro’s wrists are chafed and cold from the chains but he lifts his hands and pulls Shizuka to him, buries his face in his neck.
“Got plans,” Shizuka breathes, so quiet Kimihiro can barely hear him, even with his hypersensitive hearing. “With the sunflower AI.”
“’Kay,” Kimhiro breaths back, and says aloud, “I want-I-Ni-“
And Kimihiro can’t lie, not like that, and Shizuka lets him kiss him and grind into him until he gasps and comes, and It watches with a blatant hunger in his eyes that is-that is-
That is anything but physical.
It whispers something, maybe a name, but it’s still nothing more than a hiss and Shizuka goes, leaving Kimihiro to doze from hunger and satisfaction and he closes the door and lets Kyle lock it.
“Enjoyed that?”
Kyle smiles slow. Shizuka doesn't think about anything.
--
Bodyguard duty.
It used to be C, but Kimihiro’s gone, so it’s just Shizuka now.
Kyle’s busy, but he likes these fancy court things, and the king likes to show off their creations, like the curly-haired woman, who is old but looks young, like Shizuka.
At this one they present him.
“Finally,” the king says. “Kyle-sama has perfected the project he has been working on for decades: the perfect soldier, superhuman and one-hundred percent obedient. This is Ni-C.”
Applause. Shizuka doesn’t think, works hard not to. Kyle didn’t drug him this time, a test, but he wishes he had.
Don’t look at them. Don’t think-
He just has to watch Kyle. He’s fast and strong, so if Kyle’s attacked he’ll be there instantly. Has his eyes open, watching everything. Has alarms set that will tell him if something’s coming that’s not supposed to.
So all he has to do is stand and watch.
“Ni-C.”
But no one ever talks to him-
The man is taller than he is, with black hair back in a low ponytail that falls past his hips. He has a sword, and is in dress armor, but not the fancy kind. His eyes are cinnamon like the woman who runs the AI safehouse.
“Who are you?”
He bows. Just slightly.
“Yasha, lord of the Yamato lands.”
The Yamato lands-far to the north, that’s all Shizuka knows.
“What do you need? If you’re here to distract me from my duties, I can assure you that you will fail.”
He smiles. Just slightly. Like the bow. Tips his head, his voice quiet, pitched only so Shizuka can hear.
“I...have a hunch, Ni-C,” Yasha says. “That you are not nearly as perfect as Kyle says. A and B both rebelled in pairs, and for only one of C to be standing? You are not designed that way. You are two halves of a whole, hmm?”
Startled. Shizuka tries not to look it, but can’t stop the fast intake of breath.
“I’m not out to stop you,” Yasha says. “Actually…I would like to help.”
“Why is that?” Look straight ahead. Yasha’s intelligent, Shizuka can tell. If Kyle catches him talking, he understands the possible consequences. But if Shizuka is caught listening, the consequences are much higher.
“Because Kyle took someone from me, someone that I loved, and so I understand what he is doing. And…it’s evil.”
love
That word again.
Shizuka still doesn’t think he understands.
Glance over--Yasha has eyes that are stern but kind deep down.
"Love--" Shizuka says aloud. It's haunting him, that word, making him think--he doesn't really want to think, it was so much easier when he didn't, when it was just him and Kimihiro and nothing else but these words, feelings, souls that have suddenly infiltrated their lives, twisted them and made them--"I don't think I understand that."
Yasha's eyes smile.
A shock--
alarm!
--literally, a shock, the band around his wrist shocking him in the spot that tells him the west balcony alarm's been tripped, and run run run--footsteps behind him, jump and--gotta get there, gotta fix it--
The west balcony explodes.
previous|next