
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/137395.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Loveless
  Relationship:
      Agatsuma_Soubi/Aoyagi_Ritsuka, Agatsuma_Soubi/Aoyagi_Seimei, Agatsuma
      Soubi/Minami_Ritsu
  Character:
      Agatsuma_Soubi, Aoyagi_Ritsuka, Minami_Ritsu, Kaidou_Kio
  Stats:
      Published: 2010-12-04 Words: 2037
****** This Black Ceiling ******
by celestialskiff
Summary
     Warning: rape and child abuse. Sometimes Soubi misses his ears.
No one ever told Soubi that loosing his ears would hurt so much. Since one of
the other young fighters had explained to him what having sex actually meant,
he'd thought that it must be uncomfortable, if not downright painful, but he
had not considered what it would cost him for his ears to be removed from his
skin.
Ritsu had made it very clear that pain of having sex was something Soubi would
soon experience. Soubi was getting more and more used to pain every day. He was
getting used to having his ears pulled and his tail tugged by the other
fighters if he let his guard down even for a moment. He was also getting used
to the pain in his hand when he hit someone and the pain in his body when he
was hit in return. He was getting used to the atmosphere in the school: there
was no struggle to be popular, here the struggle was simply to remain alive.
He didn't think any longer about living with his parents. It made the hurt
worse. Sometimes, when he woke up, he would remember waking in a different
room, a quiet room full of warm light. He would remember staring at a ceiling
bright with a pattern of stars, and the sound of music playing in a different
room. As soon as he thought about the music he would wake up properly and push
all thoughts of that room out of his head.
Soubi was getting used to the pain Ritsu inflicted on him too. He still hated
pain, feared it and dreaded it more than anything in the world, but he learnt
he could get used to fear and dread too. Ritsu liked to hurt Soubi in ways that
were hard to see, but in ways Soubi would feel for days. He liked to make
little cuts in the soft places on Soubi's body, little cuts on the soft skin
between his fingers and toes or behind his ears; worse, he would sometimes pull
a razor blade across the corners of Soubi's mouth or even at the sides of his
tongue. It would sting for days, weeks.
He would pull Soubi's tail so hard Soubi would think he was going to pull it
right off, and the pain would travel down Soubi's spine and crunch at the back
of his neck. Ritsu would whisper that he liked Soubi's tail, that he would be
sorry when Soubi lost it. He liked to run the razor blade lightly, almost
tenderly, over the soft skin around Soubi's anus, and over the even more tender
skin of his genitals. He rarely, if ever, broke the skin, but Soubi had to
force himself to be perfectly still, to endure, while Ritsu played with him.
So by the time Soubi lost his ears and tail he had grown to expect pain at
Ritsu's hands, but that didn't mean he was prepared for his. He thought the
pain of Ritsu's cock in him was more than he could stand: the utter wrongness
of it in such an intimate place, the feeling of it stretching his body past its
limits. He thought he had learnt to hold pain silently, but he found that he
couldn't hold this pain, that he was shouting and muttering and begging into
the dark room until Ritsu slapped him across the face and then shoved some foul
smelling cloth into Soubi's mouth. Soubi tried not to retch.
Tears ran down his face and over his jawline and he ground his teeth together
hard. It was impossible to distance himself from the feeling of Ritsu fucking
him. He could concentrate on nothing but his naked skin and the penis thrusting
into his flesh again and again and again. Ritsu was gripping him by his hair,
his body dwarfing Soubi's, and as the penis touched parts of Soubi that had
never been touched before Soubi felt like Ritsu was breaking through his softly
coiled internal organs, stabbing them until Soubi's intestines were in matted
ribbons.
Then Ritsu grabbed his ears and tugged, and it hurt more than anything in the
world, more than the saliva and bile trickling past the gag and out the corners
of his mouth, more than the pain inside him, more than all those hands on his
skin and those mornings waking up and knowing he was still here. Ritsu was
ripping a part of Soubi's body off, and it hurt like that sounds. Soubi felt
everything slipping away from him; there was a merciful, merciful blackness
beneath his eyelids.
Afterwards, Ritsu took the gag out and washed his face with a warm cloth, and
Soubi retched and spat. Then he stroked Soubi's head and rearranged his hair
over the places where Soubi's ears had once been. He sat Soubi up, and the pain
in Soubi's lower body hummed right through his head like white noise, and he
couldn't concentrate on anything for a moment. And then, on the bed beside him,
he saw his ears and tail neatly coiled around each other. The sight of them
there, and not on his skin, made him feel violently sick. He put his hands over
his mouth and bit it, easing the urge away.
“Do you want them?” Ritsu said. “Some women like to keep them mouldering away
in their underwear drawer for the rest of their lives.”
The thought was horrible. Soubi shook his head. He thought he could feel
something oozing out of his anus and was too scared to move.
“I'll get rid of them, then,” Ritsu said. He knelt by Soubi and gently stroked
his hair again, running it through his fingers. It was the most tender thing
Soubi could remember experiencing. He didn't hate Ritsu. As he looked at him,
it didn't even seem strange to him that he did not.
Later, when he was in the bathroom letting spunk and shit trickle out of his
sore body he felt sure that Ritsu would do this again, and he whimpered to
himself in the bright room.
*
Later Kio told him it didn't have to hurt like that. He told him that the ears
and tail did not have to be ripped from his skin like an arm being torn off. He
said his own had been removed gently, after sex, and it had hurt like hair
being tugged out, or like cold hands on aching, feverish skin.
“Not as bad at the tattoo,” Kio said.
Kio didn't seem to feel the loss of the ears like Soubi did. He did not put his
hands to the crown of his head and search for the place where they had once
been in his hair, and search, and search, and find only smooth skin.
Ritsu and Seimei had left their own marks on Soubi's skin. There were scars
between all of his fingers, and a strange, discoloured line on his tongue, and
there were scars on his ass and on his upper thighs. There were scars beneath
his shoulder blades, and scars wound round his throat. He hated pain, but the
scars reminded him not of pain, but that he was owned. These were Seimei's
legs, and Seimei's arms and Seimei's marks on his skin. Ritsu had never owned
him, but his scars remained on Soubi's body, and that was a kind of ownership
too.
The loss of his ears was accentuated by the lack of scars. He had nothing to
show that they had once been there except the memory of stroking the soft fur
between his fingers, the memory of their colour and their shape.
“Does that mean you're going to take my ears?” Ritsuka had asked, and he'd said
not now, but he did not think he could ever take that from Ristuka. He never
wanted to see pain in Ristuka's face; he never wanted to see Ritsuka touching
the crown of his head and searching for ears that were not, could not, be
there.
After that they did not even discuss it. Soubi was happy when Risuka allowed
himself to be held, when he could rest his head by Ristuka's on a pillow, when
he could gather Ristuka in his arms and hold him gently against his chest and
feel the shape of his bones against him. He would take Ristuka's tail in his
hand and gently, liquidly, stroke it between his fingers, and he would feel
Ritsuka warm against his skin.
Ritsuka never asked how he lost his ears, but Soubi suspected someone had told
him. He was glad that they did not discuss it, because he did not want to tell
Ritsuka any more about Ritsu than he had to. Sometimes he would touch the
wounds on Ristuka's skin (the bandaged wrists and the cuts on his face), and
think perhaps Ritsuka would understand better than anyone.
Once, after a night with Ritsuka, he painted a room diffused with golden light,
a room with stars on the ceiling, a room which held the promise of distant
music. He painted it almost in a dream, because he thought he had forgotten
this room. Kio looked at it for a long time.
“It's a good painting,” Kio said.
“I know,” Soubi said, watching him, and waiting. But Kio only gave him a
surprisingly piercing look and began to talk about something else.
*
The house smelt of turpentine and linseed after a day of painting when Ritsuka
let himself in. Soubi greeted him with enthusiasm, but continued cleaning his
brushes in white spirits, his fingers stinging slightly in the chemicals.
Ritsuka limped to a chair and sat down heavily. Soubi didn't ask him if he was
hurt: he could tell from his movements that he was. He finished the brushes
briskly and left them by the sink. An arc of blue paint was still bright on the
skin halfway up his forearm, but Soubi ignored it. He went to Risuka and knelt
by his side in the chair.
“Soubi,” Ritsuka said. He gently put his hand on the crown of Soubi's head for
a moment, and Soubi shivered slightly at the touch.
“How badly are you hurt?” Soubi asked.
“Not very,” Ritsuka said, and he allowed Soubi to roll up his sleeves and
examine the bruises on his arms. There were cuts on his legs from where he had
fallen onto a broken glass, and Soubi cleaned those carefully. He no longer
reminded Ritsuka that he did not have to go back. It only upset and irritated
him, and Soubi did not want to make Ritsuka feel either of those things.
He stroked Ritsuka's ears gently, and Ritsuka allowed his head to loll to one
side so that it rested on Soubi's abdomen.
“Soubi,” Ritsuka said. “When are you going to take my ears?”
Soubi knelt down so he was at Ristuka's eyes level. “Never, unless you want me
to.”
“Does it hurt?” Ritsuka said. They did not speak of pain often. Soubi thought
Ritsuka handled pain with more grace than he did, but then Soubi thought
Ritsuka did everything with more grace than he himself was capable of.
“More than anything,” Soubi answered honestly.
They were at eye level so Ritsuka could reach out easily and touch Soubi's soft
hair with his left hand, touch and stroke the scalp as Soubi had often done.
“It doesn't leave a mark,” Soubi said gently. “Once they're gone, they're just
gone.”
“Oh,” Ritsuka said. He looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but he
didn't. He rested his head on Soubi's shoulder and Soubi breathed in his fresh
smell.
“Soubi,” Ristuka said. “I'm sorry it hurt.”
Soubi drew him close, closer. His canvas, drying slowly across the room, was
covered in butterflies, butterflies, butterflies. “What should I paint?” he
asked.
“Whatever you like,” Ritsuka said. “Anything but me, because that would be
embarrassing.”
*
Soubi slept without dreaming, and the next day he painted red flowers and
distant mountains and carousels, and if he thought about anyone, he thought
about Ritsuka, not about Seimei, and not about Ritsu. But it may have been
that, as he added golden highlights to the peaks of the mountains, he thought
only about himself.
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