on your knees (again)
Title: on your knees (again)
Characters/Pairing: Koyama/Massu
Rating: NC-17
Words: 2,155
Warnings: Blasphemy and irreverence. Really. Don't read if you are religion-sensitive, specifically Catholic/Christian. Irregular/non-linear timeline. AU.
Summary: "His fingers slip along the beads as he recites the Sorrowful Mysteries, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he tries to scrub the night's dreams from his mind. At the end he adds prayers for purity, and when he finally rises, he has to grip the edge of the bed tight to keep from gasping at the pain in his knees."
Notes: For beltenebra for her donation to help_japan. Amy, I'm sorry it took so long. I hope it's worth the wait. <3 Also, I am clearly not Catholic >.> and so there are bound to be incorrect Catholic-type things in here. But that's probably the last thing I need to be sorry about… lol. Thank you to those who did a bit of hand-holding for this and listened to me bitch. <3
------
Masuda awakens to the moist heat of summer beading on his skin, but sticky with more than sweat. With a grimace, he slides his underwear down his thighs and swipes them over the mess before tossing them in his hamper and dropping to his knees beside his bed, naked but for his rosary, the hard wooden surface creaking painfully under him as he pulls the string of beads over his head and begins his litany. His fingers slip along the beads as he recites the Sorrowful Mysteries, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he tries to scrub the night's dreams from his mind. At the end he adds prayers for purity, and when he finally rises, he has to grip the edge of the bed tight to keep from gasping at the pain in his knees.
------
They sit across from each other, Bishop Danforth in quiet contemplation, and Masuda in silent expectation.
"There's no shame," the bishop starts, "no shame in leaving the Seminary if you don't think that it suits you." His words are full of kindness, as they always are. Masuda has never doubted the bishop's concern for him. "Priesthood isn't meant for everyone."
They've spent six years together, six long, difficult, and fulfilling years as Masuda worked his way toward priesthood. He is just a year too young to be ordained and the bishop has decided that rather than ordain him early, he will be tested - sent into the world and away from the protection from the secular he'd had since he graduated high school and came to Rome. This was important, the bishop had told him gently, because Masuda's very strengths, his love of life and color and kindness, could also be his downfall. After all, it's just one side-step into the over-enjoyment of things and that downward spiral, and Masuda has always been a little too easily excited by material things. One last chance, the bishop offered, to make sure he was on the right path for him.
Well. Doesn't everyone struggle? These would be his burdens to bear.
"Let me go," is all Masuda answers, eagerness in his voice. "I'm ready."
The bishop nods his old, grey head and stands, clasps Masuda's hand in his own and pulls him up into an embrace.
------
"I don't think I can see you again," Masuda says, head bowed in shame. He shouldn't be so easily tempted by worldly things, but he is.
Koyama just smiles slightly, reaches his fork over Masuda's plate to delicately trap a scallop on its tines, holds it up to Masuda's mouth. "Ah," he says, blinking long lashes in interest, watching Masuda's lips.
They open on their own, it seems, and Koyama places the delicacy on his tongue, waiting for Masuda to close his lips over it before sliding the fork away.
"Good? I love the chef here. Melts in your mouth, doesn't it?"
"It's delicious." He can't bring himself to repeat his disgraceful admission. He should be stronger than this. His hand snakes out to take hold of his fork, the taste of the buttery, slightly sweet dish, the feeling of the firm, fine texture lingering, and he wants more.
------
Masuda remembers the first day the man entered the parish. It was early autumn, the leaves just beginning to change to fiery, jeweled tones. He was fresh from Rome, where he'd spent so many years away from everything he'd known, devoting himself to God.
So there he was, thrown back into the world headfirst, sure of himself, but unsettled. And then the stranger came, strolling up the walk to the double doors of the house of God, kind, charming smile on his face, the loose, rolling gait he had that made him seem so approachable, the way he had of looking at Masuda with every ounce of attention he had, like Masuda was something precious, something to be unwrapped and discovered. It was then, when the man had first entered his sight, bronzed skin, tawny hair, and warm brown eyes that Masuda's fall began.
------
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have had… impure thoughts." He forces himself to say just how impure. He of all people knows that his dreams are a reflection of his inner thoughts, even if they're thoughts he'd never known he could have dreamt up. Penance is welcome.
------
He always expects Koyama's face to be blurry in his nightmare-dreams, but it only seems more perfectly focused. The better to see him with, all hard angles and long, tanned limbs, slender fingers as they run over every inch of his own body and wring out sounds that make Masuda writhe with desire.
"Don't hold back," Koyama whispers, then bites down on his lower lip as he groans, one hand moving slowly over his erection, prolonging the agony, or Masuda's anyway. "What's wrong with a little hedonism?" he asks and glances coyly at him, eyes dark as a country night.
------
"All things in moderation, Masuda," the Bishop tells him. "But you are held to a higher standard. A priest must deny himself many things."
Masuda waits patiently for the Bishop to organize his thoughts.
"God's will is different for everyone. One also serves by living a Godly life outside the Church."
The hint is not subtle at all, and Masuda gets it, he does. But this is what he wants. Absolutely. Hasn't he been aiming for it all his life?
------
The man is only part of Masuda's life for a short year when he is young, but it changes his whole life. A quiet missionary, he sits at the park in his dark suit with the white tab at the throat for an hour every day and speak with any who approach him. There aren't that many. His lips clumsily shape Japanese words and Masuda listens, entranced by the ecstatic, faraway look on his face. The man is kind and pays Masuda special attention, answering all his childish questions with infinite patience and an unflappable peace.
The day the man leaves for good, giving young Masuda a tight hug, Masuda watches him go, determined to follow in his footsteps, dedicating himself to an idea he can't yet understand.
------
"Why did you bring me here?" He watches his fingers twist together, avoiding looking up.
Koyama is carefully studying a black and white photograph, almost life-sized, following the supple lines of bared feminine flesh. "Hm? Because it's beautiful, isn't it?" He presses two fingers to Masuda's chin, raises his face until they're staring into each other's eyes. Slinging an arm over Masuda's shoulder, he turns him, directs him to follow his fingers tracing the shape of the woman in the air, over the peak of her breast down her ribcage to her abdomen. "God created admirable things. Isn't it a shame to ignore them?"
Lead me not into temptation but Koyama is far from evil, he thinks, and yet he does need deliverance. Koyama's hand squeezes Masuda's shoulder comfortingly. Not for the first time, Masuda wonders if he can read his mind.
------
"Down on your knees," Koyama commands, silk over steel, and Masuda does, sliding down Koyama's body until he's in compliance, the fabric of Koyama's jeans rough under his hands as he rests them against his thighs and he can see every thread of the fabric between his fingers.
Koyama smoothly undoes his pants and brings his cock out, taps it against Masuda's lips until he opens them, slides it over Masuda's tongue and sighs. "Go on then," he whispers, one hand cupping Masuda's chin and looking down at him with gentle eyes, Masuda trembling with fear or anticipation or both.
He lets the weight settle in his mouth, running his tongue over the underside, feeling the warmth spreading across his cheeks as he hollows them around him. It's delicately salty and Masuda savors it as much as he can, drawing back to lave the tip with his tongue, tasting the bitter pre-come there. On accident he bumps the sensitive nerves just under the crown and Koyama gasps, one hand flying up to Masuda's hair, the other balancing on his shoulder as he bucks against him.
Delighted laughter tumbles out of the tall man's mouth, and Masuda sucks it out of him, turning it into a garbled moan. "Such a naughty boy," Koyama says, breathless. "Give me an Act of Contrition and two Hail Mary's. And say it like you mean it."
That's how he comes, a burst of bitter warmth across Masuda's tongue while he's still humming out his second Hail Mary.
------
Days are spent balancing on his bruised knees praying, praying, praying. Rosary beads like worry stones under his fingers.
"How are you finding our parish, Masuda?" Father Maron asks, concern lacing his voice.
Masuda just nods. "It's beautiful here," he says, lip twitching down quickly at the corner.
"Is everything all right? You seem… unwell."
Pale, wan, a fine tremble from lack of sleep and guilt that eats him from the inside out. Guilt over not feeling guilty. "I might be coming down with something," he says. A little white lie. He is definitely sick, though. Add it to his list.
"I will pray for you," the man says piously, and Masuda smiles weakly.
"Thank you."
------
"You seem nervous," Koyama says thoughtfully from his place beside Masuda on Koyama's bed (a dangerous place, really), fingers inching up Masuda's arm in a way that's probably supposed to be soothing, but it sends shivers down his spine. "Is everything all right?"
Masuda weighs his answers. "I haven't been sleeping well." Truth.
"Something on your mind?"
"Not really." Lie.
There's a long pause and Koyama taps his knee and looks up.
"Bad dreams?" he asks, eyeing the ceiling.
"Sort of." What do you call something between a truth and a lie? An evasion?
"What about?"
"You," he says, and their eyes snap toward each other. Truth. The truth will set you free, and he does feel a weight rise.
A sly smile lifts Koyama's lips and he walks his fingers up Masuda's thigh slowly. "Can't be all bad, then," he says with a laugh.
Masuda grabs Koyama's fingers as they get dangerously close to his inseam, and Koyama's eyes flash with something darker, and before Masuda can even blink, Koyama is leaning forward, his other hand already threaded in the hair at the back of Masuda's head, crashing their lips together in a fierce kiss.
The dreams are always so clear, but this, this is fuzzy, and time seems to jump forward in tiny skips. Tongues sliding wetly together as Koyama pulls at their clothing; Masuda tangled in his shirt, the both of them laughing breathlessly; slender fingers wrapping around his cock and tugging sharply, bringing a cry to his lips. Time stops when those fingers are pressing into him, warm and slick, finding his weakness and rubbing at it until Masuda begs for him to stop, to give him more.
And he does, gives him everything, turns him onto his stomach and pushes in slowly, rocking against him and building up to something… he doesn't know. It's so much. Koyama's hands on his hips bring him up onto his knees and grip tightly, tight enough to bruise, probably, but that thought gets less than an instant's focus, mind reeling with Koyama's punishing pace. He can't breathe it's so strong, the pleasure flooding through him, and he gasps against the sheets.
"Ma-s-su," Koyama croons brokenly. Then he detaches a hand from Masuda's hip and grips his cock, sliding up and down its length only a few times before Masuda is coming with a strangled shout.
Koyama doesn't stop, only removing his hand long enough to bring it to Masuda's lower back, smearing there but Masuda can't care; he's seeing flashes as he's overloaded with sensation, the pressure against his skin from Koyama's scrabbling hands, and Koyama still brushing against his prostate with almost every thrust until he, too, finishes, slumping over Masuda's back for only a moment before pulling out and falling onto his side.
They smile at each other, sated and worn out, for the moment, breathing coming to a balance, and Masuda shifts closer to Koyama, runs a hand wonderingly down the man's slender chest. They fall asleep like that, and when they wake up, they start all over again.
------
He resigns with a deep bow, thanking Father Maron for his guidance and kindness. Bishop Danforth had received his phone call earlier with a sad sort of understanding, though Masuda knows that if he knew the truth, there would have been fewer benevolent words, and more offers of prayer for his soul.
He walks away with a light step, years of self-imposed burdens slipping off with every movement. After all, he tells himself, what's wrong with a little hedonism. He knows just where he'd like to start.
Characters/Pairing: Koyama/Massu
Rating: NC-17
Words: 2,155
Warnings: Blasphemy and irreverence. Really. Don't read if you are religion-sensitive, specifically Catholic/Christian. Irregular/non-linear timeline. AU.
Summary: "His fingers slip along the beads as he recites the Sorrowful Mysteries, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he tries to scrub the night's dreams from his mind. At the end he adds prayers for purity, and when he finally rises, he has to grip the edge of the bed tight to keep from gasping at the pain in his knees."
Notes: For beltenebra for her donation to help_japan. Amy, I'm sorry it took so long. I hope it's worth the wait. <3 Also, I am clearly not Catholic >.> and so there are bound to be incorrect Catholic-type things in here. But that's probably the last thing I need to be sorry about… lol. Thank you to those who did a bit of hand-holding for this and listened to me bitch. <3
------
Masuda awakens to the moist heat of summer beading on his skin, but sticky with more than sweat. With a grimace, he slides his underwear down his thighs and swipes them over the mess before tossing them in his hamper and dropping to his knees beside his bed, naked but for his rosary, the hard wooden surface creaking painfully under him as he pulls the string of beads over his head and begins his litany. His fingers slip along the beads as he recites the Sorrowful Mysteries, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he tries to scrub the night's dreams from his mind. At the end he adds prayers for purity, and when he finally rises, he has to grip the edge of the bed tight to keep from gasping at the pain in his knees.
------
They sit across from each other, Bishop Danforth in quiet contemplation, and Masuda in silent expectation.
"There's no shame," the bishop starts, "no shame in leaving the Seminary if you don't think that it suits you." His words are full of kindness, as they always are. Masuda has never doubted the bishop's concern for him. "Priesthood isn't meant for everyone."
They've spent six years together, six long, difficult, and fulfilling years as Masuda worked his way toward priesthood. He is just a year too young to be ordained and the bishop has decided that rather than ordain him early, he will be tested - sent into the world and away from the protection from the secular he'd had since he graduated high school and came to Rome. This was important, the bishop had told him gently, because Masuda's very strengths, his love of life and color and kindness, could also be his downfall. After all, it's just one side-step into the over-enjoyment of things and that downward spiral, and Masuda has always been a little too easily excited by material things. One last chance, the bishop offered, to make sure he was on the right path for him.
Well. Doesn't everyone struggle? These would be his burdens to bear.
"Let me go," is all Masuda answers, eagerness in his voice. "I'm ready."
The bishop nods his old, grey head and stands, clasps Masuda's hand in his own and pulls him up into an embrace.
------
"I don't think I can see you again," Masuda says, head bowed in shame. He shouldn't be so easily tempted by worldly things, but he is.
Koyama just smiles slightly, reaches his fork over Masuda's plate to delicately trap a scallop on its tines, holds it up to Masuda's mouth. "Ah," he says, blinking long lashes in interest, watching Masuda's lips.
They open on their own, it seems, and Koyama places the delicacy on his tongue, waiting for Masuda to close his lips over it before sliding the fork away.
"Good? I love the chef here. Melts in your mouth, doesn't it?"
"It's delicious." He can't bring himself to repeat his disgraceful admission. He should be stronger than this. His hand snakes out to take hold of his fork, the taste of the buttery, slightly sweet dish, the feeling of the firm, fine texture lingering, and he wants more.
------
Masuda remembers the first day the man entered the parish. It was early autumn, the leaves just beginning to change to fiery, jeweled tones. He was fresh from Rome, where he'd spent so many years away from everything he'd known, devoting himself to God.
So there he was, thrown back into the world headfirst, sure of himself, but unsettled. And then the stranger came, strolling up the walk to the double doors of the house of God, kind, charming smile on his face, the loose, rolling gait he had that made him seem so approachable, the way he had of looking at Masuda with every ounce of attention he had, like Masuda was something precious, something to be unwrapped and discovered. It was then, when the man had first entered his sight, bronzed skin, tawny hair, and warm brown eyes that Masuda's fall began.
------
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have had… impure thoughts." He forces himself to say just how impure. He of all people knows that his dreams are a reflection of his inner thoughts, even if they're thoughts he'd never known he could have dreamt up. Penance is welcome.
------
He always expects Koyama's face to be blurry in his nightmare-dreams, but it only seems more perfectly focused. The better to see him with, all hard angles and long, tanned limbs, slender fingers as they run over every inch of his own body and wring out sounds that make Masuda writhe with desire.
"Don't hold back," Koyama whispers, then bites down on his lower lip as he groans, one hand moving slowly over his erection, prolonging the agony, or Masuda's anyway. "What's wrong with a little hedonism?" he asks and glances coyly at him, eyes dark as a country night.
------
"All things in moderation, Masuda," the Bishop tells him. "But you are held to a higher standard. A priest must deny himself many things."
Masuda waits patiently for the Bishop to organize his thoughts.
"God's will is different for everyone. One also serves by living a Godly life outside the Church."
The hint is not subtle at all, and Masuda gets it, he does. But this is what he wants. Absolutely. Hasn't he been aiming for it all his life?
------
The man is only part of Masuda's life for a short year when he is young, but it changes his whole life. A quiet missionary, he sits at the park in his dark suit with the white tab at the throat for an hour every day and speak with any who approach him. There aren't that many. His lips clumsily shape Japanese words and Masuda listens, entranced by the ecstatic, faraway look on his face. The man is kind and pays Masuda special attention, answering all his childish questions with infinite patience and an unflappable peace.
The day the man leaves for good, giving young Masuda a tight hug, Masuda watches him go, determined to follow in his footsteps, dedicating himself to an idea he can't yet understand.
------
"Why did you bring me here?" He watches his fingers twist together, avoiding looking up.
Koyama is carefully studying a black and white photograph, almost life-sized, following the supple lines of bared feminine flesh. "Hm? Because it's beautiful, isn't it?" He presses two fingers to Masuda's chin, raises his face until they're staring into each other's eyes. Slinging an arm over Masuda's shoulder, he turns him, directs him to follow his fingers tracing the shape of the woman in the air, over the peak of her breast down her ribcage to her abdomen. "God created admirable things. Isn't it a shame to ignore them?"
Lead me not into temptation but Koyama is far from evil, he thinks, and yet he does need deliverance. Koyama's hand squeezes Masuda's shoulder comfortingly. Not for the first time, Masuda wonders if he can read his mind.
------
"Down on your knees," Koyama commands, silk over steel, and Masuda does, sliding down Koyama's body until he's in compliance, the fabric of Koyama's jeans rough under his hands as he rests them against his thighs and he can see every thread of the fabric between his fingers.
Koyama smoothly undoes his pants and brings his cock out, taps it against Masuda's lips until he opens them, slides it over Masuda's tongue and sighs. "Go on then," he whispers, one hand cupping Masuda's chin and looking down at him with gentle eyes, Masuda trembling with fear or anticipation or both.
He lets the weight settle in his mouth, running his tongue over the underside, feeling the warmth spreading across his cheeks as he hollows them around him. It's delicately salty and Masuda savors it as much as he can, drawing back to lave the tip with his tongue, tasting the bitter pre-come there. On accident he bumps the sensitive nerves just under the crown and Koyama gasps, one hand flying up to Masuda's hair, the other balancing on his shoulder as he bucks against him.
Delighted laughter tumbles out of the tall man's mouth, and Masuda sucks it out of him, turning it into a garbled moan. "Such a naughty boy," Koyama says, breathless. "Give me an Act of Contrition and two Hail Mary's. And say it like you mean it."
That's how he comes, a burst of bitter warmth across Masuda's tongue while he's still humming out his second Hail Mary.
------
Days are spent balancing on his bruised knees praying, praying, praying. Rosary beads like worry stones under his fingers.
"How are you finding our parish, Masuda?" Father Maron asks, concern lacing his voice.
Masuda just nods. "It's beautiful here," he says, lip twitching down quickly at the corner.
"Is everything all right? You seem… unwell."
Pale, wan, a fine tremble from lack of sleep and guilt that eats him from the inside out. Guilt over not feeling guilty. "I might be coming down with something," he says. A little white lie. He is definitely sick, though. Add it to his list.
"I will pray for you," the man says piously, and Masuda smiles weakly.
"Thank you."
------
"You seem nervous," Koyama says thoughtfully from his place beside Masuda on Koyama's bed (a dangerous place, really), fingers inching up Masuda's arm in a way that's probably supposed to be soothing, but it sends shivers down his spine. "Is everything all right?"
Masuda weighs his answers. "I haven't been sleeping well." Truth.
"Something on your mind?"
"Not really." Lie.
There's a long pause and Koyama taps his knee and looks up.
"Bad dreams?" he asks, eyeing the ceiling.
"Sort of." What do you call something between a truth and a lie? An evasion?
"What about?"
"You," he says, and their eyes snap toward each other. Truth. The truth will set you free, and he does feel a weight rise.
A sly smile lifts Koyama's lips and he walks his fingers up Masuda's thigh slowly. "Can't be all bad, then," he says with a laugh.
Masuda grabs Koyama's fingers as they get dangerously close to his inseam, and Koyama's eyes flash with something darker, and before Masuda can even blink, Koyama is leaning forward, his other hand already threaded in the hair at the back of Masuda's head, crashing their lips together in a fierce kiss.
The dreams are always so clear, but this, this is fuzzy, and time seems to jump forward in tiny skips. Tongues sliding wetly together as Koyama pulls at their clothing; Masuda tangled in his shirt, the both of them laughing breathlessly; slender fingers wrapping around his cock and tugging sharply, bringing a cry to his lips. Time stops when those fingers are pressing into him, warm and slick, finding his weakness and rubbing at it until Masuda begs for him to stop, to give him more.
And he does, gives him everything, turns him onto his stomach and pushes in slowly, rocking against him and building up to something… he doesn't know. It's so much. Koyama's hands on his hips bring him up onto his knees and grip tightly, tight enough to bruise, probably, but that thought gets less than an instant's focus, mind reeling with Koyama's punishing pace. He can't breathe it's so strong, the pleasure flooding through him, and he gasps against the sheets.
"Ma-s-su," Koyama croons brokenly. Then he detaches a hand from Masuda's hip and grips his cock, sliding up and down its length only a few times before Masuda is coming with a strangled shout.
Koyama doesn't stop, only removing his hand long enough to bring it to Masuda's lower back, smearing there but Masuda can't care; he's seeing flashes as he's overloaded with sensation, the pressure against his skin from Koyama's scrabbling hands, and Koyama still brushing against his prostate with almost every thrust until he, too, finishes, slumping over Masuda's back for only a moment before pulling out and falling onto his side.
They smile at each other, sated and worn out, for the moment, breathing coming to a balance, and Masuda shifts closer to Koyama, runs a hand wonderingly down the man's slender chest. They fall asleep like that, and when they wake up, they start all over again.
------
He resigns with a deep bow, thanking Father Maron for his guidance and kindness. Bishop Danforth had received his phone call earlier with a sad sort of understanding, though Masuda knows that if he knew the truth, there would have been fewer benevolent words, and more offers of prayer for his soul.
He walks away with a light step, years of self-imposed burdens slipping off with every movement. After all, he tells himself, what's wrong with a little hedonism. He knows just where he'd like to start.