The Fatima Curse

Shuuichi woke up against velvety skin. His eyes were blurry and clouded, and when he rolled his tongue out to brush across his dry, cracked lips, he tasted the salty flesh that rested before him. He winced with distaste, and then seemed to grow addicted to the flavor, his eyes fluttering up to find the back of Uriel’s head, his hair mussed and tangled, shadows crawling over his shoulder and the displayed portion of his muscular chest. The moon seemed eager to touch Uri’s skin; eager to lick at his curves and angular edges with a lover’s kind of gentle caress. Shu swallowed through a tight throat and brushed back his dark bangs.



Uri shifted in his sleep, turning onto his back. His features tightened painfully for a moment, and then relaxed, his mouth letting go of a deep, long sigh. Shu looked at the bruises - purple black - around Uri’s wrists, and felt his heart stutter in a tattoo of concern and affection. He traced his eyes across the multiple scars that Uri wore on his dark chest, one deep and puckered across the brown circle of his nipple.



Shu touched this, slipping his thumb back and forth across the aroused head of Uri’s nipple, rocking side to side until Uri was moaning deep and rugged and raising his hips against the air. Shu jerked his hand away quickly, flushing and biting up his bottom lip to pinch the sensitive skin between his teeth. His eyes, curved and filled with hazy passion, watched Uri settle in his dreams, his head rolling to the side, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as though he meant to speak.



Shu waited, but nothing happened. Uri mumbled a small something through his sleep, but it was incoherent and meaningless. Shu relaxed and looked at his hand, as though a tattoo or brand had been burned there to show his sinful touch. You feel obligated.



Shu nodded.



Because he stood up for you. Shu nodded again.



Is that all Shuuichi?



“Doushite?,” he asked himself below his breath. His eyes had gone from lustfully hazed to confusedly clouded. He looked in that moment like nothing but a little boy, brows knitted, mouth drawn down, eyes squinted. He looked like a child struggling to understand a troubling math problem.



Is that the only reason you want to put your hands on him? Because you feel a debt of gratitude? Because you think it’s what he wants? …You don’t think he wants you. Isn’t that the problem? Shu looked baffled, heart breakingly so. Just like that little boy who fails to comprehend how many times 12 goes into 144, he looked to be on the verge of tears.



“He would have hurt you. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”



Shu watched Uri’s face in the moonlight. Watched the shadows fight the patches of light, watched the light win only to submit in defeat. His eyes were hot and wet, but he paid them no attention. “I love you too, Shuuichi.”



But no… those words had been perfunctory and platonic. There had been no depth of passion or hunger, there had been no aching want rumbling below the cadence. It had been sweet, but at the same time, bitter. Like choking down a pill that will not make you better, but will slowly eat out your heart. That will make you hollow.



Shuuichi…



Shu looked away. It was better to look away. Better not to train his eyes on that face of marble and granite. A face that had never melted to him, and a heart that matched. Uriel Fatima was who he was, and Shu understood he couldn’t ask for more than that. Yet at the same time, he was hungry for something more. He didn’t understand what this more was - he told himself that at the age of eighteen, many things were beyond his grasp - but he knew that it had gone beyond want and was now need. He needed something more.



What do you need though? What is it?



Shu shook his head slowly from side to side.



Alright, then. What does Uri need?



Shu thought of Uri standing at the bottom of the stage, looking up, behaving like a man who is high on a strong drug. He thought of that dancer - Leon - and the way that he had moved his body. The way he had captivated everyone with the hypnotic gyrations of his hips, the wet and glistening look of his skin. And how, at the end of it all, it had not been the pretty blonde that had kissed Uri… it had been Uri that had taken the initiative.



It had been Uri…



Shu nodded his head just as slowly.



Uri needs him, I guess. That Leon guy.



Shu looked down at Uri. The man that had given up everything to take care of him. He had sustained so much cruelty and pain just so that Shu would be kept safe.



“Alright,” Shu whispered, “Okay. I want you to… go be with him, then. But he better be good to you, Uri. I mean that shit. He better be so fucking good to you that he’s like Jesus reborn. If he isn’t…”



Shu shook his fist in mock threat.



From his dreams, Uri smiled.



~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~



“Have a seat, Shuuichi.”



Shu nodded, plopping down into the chair before Abel’s desk and trying not to let his heart darken in fury and outrage. He looked at the desk closely, seeing scratch marks; remembering the peeled, raw look of Uri’s nails. It all clicked in his mind, and when all the pieces fell into place, he had to literally clutch the chair beneath him to keep him from leaping across the desk and tearing Abel’s eyes out. He raped him right here. Right here where I’m sitting. He took him right here. Right here. Right here. Right here…!



Shuuichi.



Shuuichi caught himself. He slumped into his chair, feeling heavy, feeling wasted, feeling helpless. He looked up at Abel, with big, moist eyes. Abel smiled at him. Lines sunk deep into his cheeks and corners of his mouth. In that moment, Shu knew that Abel knew just what he had been thinking. And he felt no remorse. His look was one of satisfaction and glee. Shu shuddered sickly.



“Are you alright, Shuuichi?,” Abel asked innocently, “You don’t look well. You’re a bit flushed.” Shu swallowed and shook his head, fumbling for his pocket and the pack of emptying cigarettes he kept there. “Iie,” he said huskily, and then cleared his throat. “No. I’m fine. You mind if I smoke?”



“Be my guest,” Abel said. Shu didn’t trust his kindness. He felt like a man trapped in a room full of hissing, rattling snakes. One misstep and his fate would be sealed.



Shu pulled the pack from his pocket, tapped out a cigarette, and placed the butt between his clamped lips. His lighter was pulled free, twirled through his fingers with almost a magician’s hypnotizing ease. He flipped the cap of his Zippo and applied the blue-white jettison of flame to the tip of his cigarette, dragging deeply. His nerves were rattled, but he didn’t show this with the sleek and oddly acrobatic use of his hands.



“You’re quite gifted,” Abel admired.



“Arigatou, arigatou,” Shu said around his cigarette, tucking the stick in the corner of his lips. “You flatter me.”



“I mean it. I’ve never seen someone move so swiftly. Not even Uriel is that fast.”



“Well, yeah, Uri’s two hundred and twenty pounds of man. He can’t move like I can. And shouldn’t you know this already?” Shu drew his cigarette away, haloing his face with smoke as he flared his nostrils and released the milky fog. “I’ve been with you for ten years, Master.”



“I never realized how skilled you were, until just yesterday, Uriel told me how well you handled the last mission on your own. You know I’m a man who likes to have his instructions strictly followed - and Uriel basically read the French side - but I have to admit you did very well.”



“It was all about gettin’ in touch with your inner gay stripper,” Shu said with a shrug of his shoulder. “But don’t let Uri give me all the credit. I mean… he did extensive research too.”



“Oh, I know,” Abel said, with a horrible, hard glint in his emerald eyes. Like two quarters had been dropped inside. “I know all about his research, Shuuichi. Let me tell you, I was quite displeased with him.”



Shu looked away.



“I’m sure he told you all about his punishment.”



Shu shook his head, taking another drag on his cigarette, which now shook in his trembling hand.



“Oh, really? Do you know what he did that angered me so, Shuuichi?”



“I guess he…” Shu choked on the next words. “Fucked that stripper.”



“Precisely.”



There was a stab to Shu’s heart with this confirmation. He had known all along that was just what Uri had done. He had smelled Leon’s cologne all over him, had seen the satisfied glow in Uri’s eyes, and the same glow in his cheeks, brightening him up, strengthening his gait. More importantly, he had just known it from the way Uri had been unable to meet his eyes.



“Is that really so bad?,” Shu heard himself asking, “Why can’t we make love to people - or fuck them, if you wanna say it that way - or spend time with them? What makes us so different from them?”



“Let me ask you something. How many people in this world could understand you, Endo Shuuichi? How many people would even want to understand you? You’re an orphan who wandered into a business where all you do is murder people. How many people do you think would sit down with you and discuss that with you?”



Shu was looking down, the ash from his cigarette growing long and falling down onto the carpet where it burned itself out. He shook his head. “No one,” he whispered, “No one would ever understand me.”



“No one but us,” Abel said softly. He stood and walked around the desk, grabbing Shu’s thin shoulder and giving a small squeeze. “No one but your brother’s and sister’s.”



Shu nodded.



“I want you to do something for me, Shuuichi,” Abel continued in his same reasonable, soft voice. “I want you to undertake this mission with Uriel - but remember your talents - he’s purely there in case things need to be smoothed over. One thing he’s good for is thinking fast.”



“What do I need to do?”



“Go down to Exhale and apply for a position there.”



“A waiter?,” Shu asked.



“A dancer.”



“What!?”



“You have a lovely body,” Abel purred, leaning down to brush his lips over the curve of Shu’s ear, his fingers massaging on the shoulder he held. “So soft, and smooth. So flexible and firm. You’ll be the perfect bait for that despicable Fletcher.”



“But I--” Shu flushed hotly and thought of the way Leon had moved. How he had unashamedly shown his gorgeous, sculpted body to all who wanted to see it, how his eyes had glinted with confidence and arrogance, how his naked muscles had trembled and quivered with an acrobatic grace. “I can’t… do that. I’m not into the whole… gettin’ butt naked in front of strangers… thing. I mean, I’m not a prude but… yeah, you know, just… no. I don’t do that.”



“You’re mistaking me for a man who cares what it is you do and don’t do,” Abel said threateningly into Shu’s ear. “You will do this, Shuuichi. They’ll want you to show your skills, the way you move your body, the way you connect with the audience.” Abel smiled, Shu could feel this against the sensitive skin of his ear, and he shivered in repulsion. “Maybe I should be your practice.”



Shu found himself across the same desk his friend had earlier been ravaged upon, and when his body was torn open and the stars of pain and helpless pleasure burst across his vision, he found himself biting back a scream of his own. Afraid to let it free - not because of his Master’s policy against screaming - but for another reason altogether.



Because it was Uriel’s name that burned on his lips.