Archive of Our Own ^beta

The cave is small—too small, Kintsugi thinks irritably as he presses up against Kazuha. Honestly, it’s more of a hole in the dirt than a cave in the first place—there’s barely enough space in here for the two of them, leaving them sitting side-by-side in an awkward position that has Kintsugi’s toes out in the rain.

Kazuha’s legs are crossed, one of his knees resting on the puppet’s lap and the other scraping at the rock wall of the cave. The two of them silently agreed that since he’s human, and therefore can get sick, he needs to keep as much of himself out of the rain as possible. This, unfortunately, has led to Kintsugi’s predicament.

(The water on his skin is cold, and the ground underneath his sandals is getting progressively squishier. He has a bad feeling that his feet will be covered in mud soon.)

Kazuha shudders against his side, and Kintsugi feels a spark of irritation he can’t really explain. Both of them are still wearing their sopping-wet clothes from their mad dash into this claustrophobic nightmare of a cave, and now his travelling partner is shivering. He’d better not get sick.

He takes a fistful of Kazuha’s scarf, ignoring how droplets of water stream out of the fabric and run over his fingers, and yanks on it. The samurai glances over at him, then down at his hand, a questioning look on his face.

“Take off your clothes,” he demands, and relishes in the way his travelling partner’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“My friend, what,” Kazuha’s face starts to turn a wonderful shade of red. It really matches his eyes. “What are you—?”

“Do you want to catch a cold?” Kintsugi crosses his arms, a feat that’s quite impressive, considering their proximity. One of his elbows bumps against his hat, which he leaned against the cave wall next to him when he first realised that he wouldn’t be able to fit in the cave itself with it on.

The samurai looks off to the side, casting his gaze down to the floor. “I suppose not.”

With that as the only warning, he starts to strip. Kintsugi gawks, and with horror he’ll never admit to, feels his own face start to warm up. Archons. He didn’t tell him to do it right in front of him.

The armour on Kazuha’s shoulder comes off first, deft fingers undoing the buckle that secures it to his sleeve. The accessories on the left side of his chest go next—he places them, along with his armour, next to him on the cave floor. Then, from his neck, he unwraps the scarf (which Kintsugi’s still holding in a death grip. Kazuha ends up handing the whole thing to him, and he busies himself with wringing out the water instead of watching Kazuha rid himself of his clothes).

Kintsugi keeps his eyes on the fabric in his hands, running his fingertips over the fibres and trying to ignore the fact that Kazuha is getting progressively more naked right next to him. He wonders what the samurai looks like—from what he’s felt, he’s all lean, toned muscle.

Not to say that he’s felt him a lot, of course. He’s no creep.

There was that one time a few days ago when Kintsugi had been knocked out of the air by a vanguard’s hammer and gained a large gash in his side for it. Kazuha had scooped him up off of the ground and held him like a princess—a princess, of all things—while they retreated. Kintsugi had flailed in his arms, insisting that they could fight on, because they could’ve—such an injury was nothing worth mentioning after all of the pain he’d been through, especially from a Fatuus—and bled everywhere. Then, when they had gotten to a relatively safe place, Kazuha had sat him down and tried to patch up the wound as best he could. But that wasn’t what Kintsugi’s mind was on.

He was thinking about how warm the samurai’s hands were when they touched him, how solid he felt as he held Kintsugi against his chest. He thought about the freckles that dotted his tanned skin and the little scar he had just above his right brow, which was usually covered by his hair. He thought about the way his white eyelashes fanned down across his cheeks when he blinked. He thought about the way his blood shone on Kazuha’s hands as he desperately tried to keep it from oozing out of his puppet body when it really didn’t matter.

He thought about how he’d made a big mistake. Not in getting hit by that hammer, but in falling for Kaedehara Kazuha.

It was such a pain to get his blood out of both of their clothes. He tried to convince himself that it was because he was repaying the debt of Kazuha saving him (the thought of being saved made him want to vomit), but for some reason, it wasn’t as convincing as it usually would be.

His entire life was a cyclical process of give and take. He’d give everything he had, and humans would take the rest. It wasn’t until he’d been introduced to transactions that he’d realised how stupid he’d been. Now, everything was an equal exchange. He traded a story for a story, a favour for a favour. In return for advice, he’d make a gift. If his life was saved, he’d have an obligation to settle the score. He’d offer himself up, and in return have a debt that could be exploited at any time. A blessing for an offering. A kindness for a meal. His body for information. Blood for a misdeed. Death for a betrayal.

And yet, with Kazuha, the one that he’d wronged the most, he wasn’t doing this as some kind of payment. He did it because he wanted to. He got his blood out of Kazuha’s clothes because he wanted to, he replaced Kazuha’s bandages because he wanted to, and he loved Kazuha because he wanted to.

So, he did—ignoring how the injury in his side, right around his ribs, throbbed with every movement.

An injury that flares up when a sharp elbow jabs him in the ribs.

“Watch it,” he snaps, a hand flying to grasp at the area as he feels a sharp pain lance through his side. He bites his tongue to stifle any profanities that might slip out—Kazuha doesn’t need to know how much it aches.

“My apologies,” the samurai grunts, and Kintsugi recoils as an arm thrusts itself into his field of vision, halfway out of its soaking wet sleeve. “There’s no room to move in here.”

“You don’t say,” the puppet grumbles, finally turning his head to face Kazuha, and—

If his face wasn’t flushed before, it is now.

Kazuha still has his shorts on, but not much else. His upper body is bare—with the exception of the sleeve that’s currently in Kintsugi’s face—and he’s beautiful.

He flicks his gaze away before he can start staring like some kind of weirdo, but from what he saw…

He knew about the burn on Kazuha’s hand, of course—he’d wrapped it himself a few times during their travels—but everything else is new to him. Kazuha’s body is covered in scars. His chest, his back, his shoulders—he’s obviously been in his fair share of fights. Some of them are from slash wounds, some from stab wounds, one which is clearly the work of an arrow. Some are thick, some are thin, some are barely-there, wispy shapes that blend into his skin so well that even Kintsugi’s sharp eyes can just pick them out. Some of them are dark, a stark contrast to his tanned skin. There’s so much history written all over him.

He’s breathtaking.

Kintsugi doesn’t often scar. His body is made of a strange material that can be fixed with enough effort. When his skin is mended, it often results in all marks disappearing without a trace, like nothing ever happened. When the wound isn’t mended, instead agitated and reopened time and time again, it heals over in a golden scar.

The Doctor made sure that this didn’t happen often.

He has a few notable scars (notable in the fact that they never went away): five circles on his back from the tubes that connected him to the Shouki no Kami, two symmetrical ones on his chest, and one particularly annoying one on his side that never healed right. Besides those golden marks, his skin is unblemished by injury.

He has no history.

But Kazuha, the mortal that he is, in the short number of years he’s lived, manages to have ten times the amount of history that Kintsugi has. It’s mapped out on his skin like a sacred text, scar over scar, event after event, and it’s so fascinating that Kintsugi almost forgets how much it makes him long to be human.

Because he does. He wishes to be human. He wishes to have scars of his own, ones that don’t vanish without a trace or shine gold in the sterile, fluorescent light of an operating room.

A quick, hot bolt of rage sparks down his spine, and he takes Kazuha’s sleeve in his hand, roughly pulling it off of his arm.

The samurai sighs in relief, oblivious to Kintsugi’s anger. “Thank you.”

He can hear the rustling of fabric to his right as Kazuha no doubt hangs his clothes on the rock wall to let them dry. As much as they can dry, anyway, with the storm outside and the damp ground beneath them. (They’ll no doubt still be wet when the rain finally abates and they decide to leave.)

Kintsugi twists his fingers into the wet fabric of the samurai’s scarf, head tilted downwards, and lets his eyebrows furrow.

He wants to be mortal, have a fleeting life free of the pain he deserves. No matter how many times he refused to answer the question truthfully, there’s still a pang whenever he thinks about how he’ll never be one of them, a clawing in his chest as he realises that neither divinity nor mortality is in his grasp anymore.

He had a chance, and he blew it; he messed up horribly, and there was nobody there to stop his fall. He was lucky Lord Kusanali took pity on him when she did, otherwise he’d be nothing but a fractured body on the floor of the workshop that promised him godhood. But because of that, because of her kindness, because of the fact he was saved, he has to live with his failure. He has to live with the knowledge that he had what he wanted for four hundred years within his grasp, and lost it all. He has to—

“My friend?” Kazuha’s voice cuts cleanly through his thoughts like a knife to his throat. He looks up and sees the samurai’s vaguely concerned expression, directed at him, and—a shudder of disgust runs through his body. How dare he look at him with pity?

Unfortunately, Kazuha seems to take this shudder as a sign that Kintsugi is cold, and offers him his right hand—the hand that’s always covered in bandages, the hand that he hides from the public, the hand whose flesh is twisted and marred with the ambitions of his dead best friend, the hand that he’s showing Kintsugi right now. “Do you need help?”

He wants to vomit.

No, he wants to scream. No, that’s not what it is. I don’t deserve to see you like this. I don’t deserve your kindness. But he keeps his mouth shut, and nods once, firmly.

Kazuha’s hands are gentle as they remove the outer layers of his clothing. First, they unclasp his Vision from its ring—and Kintsugi almost protests, almost lifts his gaze from the floor in front of him—but he feels the smooth stone and casing being pressed into his hand, and he wraps his fingers around it. Kazuha knows.

After, the ring and golden feather from his mother (he notices Kazuha lingers on it, but he doesn’t ask any questions—something Kintsugi is immensely grateful for) are safely removed and placed in the very little space between them. He takes off his mantle himself, knowing that the cape is too far for Kazuha to reach over and even attempt at removing without some kind of awkward shimmying. Then, he shrugs off his haori, pulling one of his arms from the sleeve as Kazuha returns the favour and slides the fabric off of his other arm.

But the samurai doesn’t stop there, and Kintsugi inhales sharply as he feels Kazuha’s hands dance across his knuckles before slipping his glove from his arm. It’s slow and intimate, Kazuha’s fingertips brushing against his skin as he rolls the cloth down his forearm, over his wrist, and finally away—Kintsugi can’t help but look at the samurai, memorising the look of those focused red eyes, those snowy eyelashes, those freckles, that scar. When Kazuha holds his hand out, Kintsugi gives him his other arm as well, and that glove is removed too, just as gently, just as quietly.

Then, Kazuha’s hands are hovering over his shoulders, asking for permission to touch, and despite the prickling on the back of his neck, despite everything inside him telling him no, no, no, Kintsugi feels himself nod. He forces himself to stay still, suppressing another shudder as the warm hands settle on his shoulders. Through the semi-sheer fabric of his bodysuit, he can feel Kazuha’s hands smoothing over his skin, and he can’t stop the way his breath hitches in his throat, the way his body tenses up at the too-gentle touch.

“Do you want to take this off?” Kazuha murmurs, and Kintsugi can feel the way his voice vibrates in the air between them. “It’s still damp.”

He shakes his head in response, breath still stuttering out of his lungs, and decides to stop breathing entirely—Kazuha must hear this with those freakish ears of his, because he leans even closer. Kintsugi curses the gods, his mother, everything there is to curse, because now one of Kazuha’s hands rests on his upper arm, and it’s so warm.

“Is everything alright?” He asks, and—Archons, he can feel Kazuha’s soft hair tickling his face. That’s how close they are. If he leaned just a little bit closer…

He feels his gaze flick down to Kazuha’s lips, completely unbidden.

No. No. What is he doing? Thinking about kissing Kaedehara Kazuha, the man whose life he ruined? The man whose situation right now is his fault? How stupid can he be?

Control yourself, Kintsugi. For Archons' sake.

“Do you not know about the concept of personal space?” He asks, and he can’t help the bitter, biting tone creeping into his words.

A strange look appears in Kazuha’s eyes—is that disappointment?—and he leans back to a more acceptable, yet dismaying, distance. Kintsugi misses the brush of that soft, white hair on his face already, despite how loath he is to admit it.

The samurai opens his mouth to say something, but closes it after a moment, apparently thinking better of it. Kintsugi wants him to say something—to shoot back with a sharp retort, or spout some poetry, or even say something that implies he cares in a way more than the two of them just being travelling partners—but he knows the idea is far-fetched, and his imagination is running too wild for this reality.

He turns to gaze straight ahead, not wanting to look Kazuha in the eyes. How humiliating. The samurai’s touch burns, and yet he desperately wants more. He knows this’ll end in pain—it always does. The lives of mortals are short, a blink of an eye to him, and yet this man, the last of the Kaedehara Clan, intrigues him so much that he’d be willing to go through the heartbreak when he eventually dies for him? How foolish.

He can feel Kazuha’s eyes on him for a time, silently watching him. Studying him. It’s unnerving how Kazuha knows things about him just from observation, and it feels like bugs are crawling over his skin wherever the samurai’s gaze lands. He supposes it doesn’t help how little clothes he has on.

Only in his bodysuit and shorts, he feels exposed. Back at home, he’s fine with this, even prefers it when he’s relaxed or in his room in the Sanctuary of Surasthana. He has no problems with showing some skin, and even less problems with his body as a whole—he was sculpted to be perfect by his so-called mother, and so he is. He’s not a fool, and knows he’s beautiful; usually, he has no qualms with showing himself off.

But usually, he’s not sitting in a cave, shoulder-to-shoulder with Kaedehara-fucking-Kazuha. Usually, said man isn’t half-naked next to him. Usually, he’s not letting his mind run rampant with thoughts of them—Archons forbid—kissing.

A fleeting thought dashes its way through his head: maybe, wearing his wet haori wouldn’t be too bad. It’s still damp, but the rest of him is too, and it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway—he can’t get sick, and the worst that’d happen is that he’d make Kazuha uncomfortable.

…Which is something he shouldn’t do. He almost groans out loud at the ridiculousness of it all.

He’s tempted to wrap his arms around himself—and maybe he would, if it weren’t for the samurai sitting next to him. He doesn’t need Kazuha to know his discomfort—such a thing would just be bothersome for the both of them, and while he’s sure that Kazuha would say some nonsense about not denying himself his needs, Kintsugi doesn’t care. What would happen is simple: he’d agree with Kazuha’s words, and then never do anything about it, leaving himself in an uncomfortable state—because the last thing he needs are more debts, especially to someone he owes so much to.

But now, Kazuha, stupid observant Kazuha, must notice something—either in his posture or the expression on his face—and offers his right hand.

Kintsugi stares at it. He notes the mountains and valleys of the scar tissue, the patches on his palm where the burn is the worst, how the skin has been twisted and marred…

He quietly takes the hand—

And before he knows it, he’s pulled into a hug. He can’t help the strangled gasp that leaves him when he’s gathered to Kazuha’s chest, can’t help the rapid breaths that escape his lungs when those scarred arms wrap around him. The samurai is warm, warm in a way that Kintsugi only felt hundreds of years ago when he was embraced similarly to this. He feels something dizzying well up in him, and something prickles behind his eyes.

He knows what it is. Desperately, desperately, he claws for control over himself, halting his breathing and shutting his eyes tightly. He’s stronger than that.

He won’t let his tears fall.

Kazuha pulls away, and, belatedly, Kintsugi realises that he didn’t move. He didn’t return the samurai’s embrace, nor lean into it. He sat there, like an unmovable object. Like a doll.

“I don’t need your pity,” he says, no real bite to his tone. “I don’t deserve it.”

“It’s not pity.” Kazuha still has his hand around Kintsugi’s, and he rubs his thumb over the puppet’s knuckles. Kintsugi feels a shiver trace its way down his spine at the simple action.

He keeps his eyes trained on their fingers. “What is it, then?”

“Compassion,” comes the simple answer, and such amusement suddenly fills him that he can’t help but throw his head back and laugh. The fact that the samurai is offering kindness to him is hilarious—especially after knowing what his mother did to him. Not to mention the fact that Kazuha knows what Kintsugi did—it’s not like he kept him in the dark. From the moment they met, Kintsugi had been nothing but clear on what he wanted from the last Kaedehara (retribution, obviously), and the idea that Kazuha didn’t kill him, only to give him sympathy?

Ridiculous.

“I fail to see what’s so funny about this,” Kazuha says once Kintsugi’s hysterics have calmed somewhat. His red eyes are narrowed, one brow raised, and he’s the spitting image of Niwa Hisahide. How foul.

“Compassion?” He cackles. “For the man that killed your family? You must be off the rails, Kaedehara.”

For the second time today, Kintsugi watches as the poet goes speechless, only letting out a short hum in response and looking out of the cave opening. He follows his gaze to see the rain pouring down, as strong as ever.

Loud thunder cracks overhead, a flash of lightning following it, and Kintsugi lets a bitter smile spread on his face. Hello to you too, mother.

Alarm bells suddenly start ringing in his head as the hand holding his suddenly stiffens and twitches. He looks down at their fingers, only to find that Kazuha’s hand has tightened its hold to something that’d be overly harsh (if he cared, that is. Or had a the pain tolerance of a human).

He glances up at the samurai’s face to see that his features are twisted in an expression wholly unlike him: anger. His eyebrows are furrowed, and the corner of his mouth is turned down into a frown—it doesn’t take a genius to realise what’s made him so upset.

Kintsugi vaguely knows the details about what happened to Kazuha before the two of them met. He knows about his friend, Tomo, the one who died by his mother’s hand, and whose dead Vision helped Kazuha block the Musou no Hitotachi (an impressive feat in its own right, and Kintsugi might not ever get over the fact that the Raiden Shogun was bested by a mortal).

But therein lies the problem: the Raiden Shogun. Kintsugi’s mother. She killed one of Kazuha’s friends, and nearly killed several more.

“You don’t like the lightning, do you,” Kintsugi asks, and the lack of inflection in his voice makes it into more of a statement than a question. He watches Kazuha’s expression morph from gloomy to surprised, and almost snickers at how abrupt it was.

The samurai takes a moment to answer, tilting his head to the side and fixing Kintsugi with his stare. “I don’t.”

A beat of silence.

“That’s it?” He stares, incredulous as Kazuha nods, and says nothing more.

He must really not want to talk about it if that’s all he says. For all his flowery words and general eloquence, he tends to clam up about things that make him uncomfortable.

So, Kintsugi takes a deep breath and steels himself, deciding to bring himself down to Kazuha’s level. He pulls on the samurai’s hand, and yanks him into an embrace.

He feels Kazuha’s breath hitch, feels him stiffen in his hold—which is definitely less forgiving than his was, but Kintsugi keeps holding on. It took him a moment to get over his own problems, so he allows Kazuha to do the same. It’s only fair.

Then, after what feels like an eternity of awkwardly sitting there with his arms around the samurai, Kazuha finally grasps onto him and hugs back.

Again, Kazuha is warm. In comparison to Kintsugi’s skin, which is always freezing cold, Kazuha is like a furnace; heat radiates from him, and Kintsugi feels himself relax against his chest. He traces the uneven scars on the samurai’s back with his fingers, gently—and with a start, he feels Kazuha start to do the same. He tries not to let himself react, but can’t help the way he subconsciously shifts away from the touch as the samurai’s thumbs brush over the circular scars.

Kazuha’s hands still, and an unexplainable, frantic jolt of fear runs through Kintsugi. “No,” he hisses into the samurai’s ear. “Put your hands back.”

And he does, his fingertips ghosting over the puppet’s back.

-----

It’s impossible to know how long they spent like that, in each other’s arms, but now Kintsugi sits, quietly watching the rain, with Kazuha’s head on his shoulder.

The samurai is clearly asleep, based on his slow, even breathing, and it’s only now that Kintsugi can summon the courage to brush his hands through that white mop of hair. He softly cards his fingers through the strands, making sure his touch is light enough as to not wake Kazuha—and rids him of tangles and snarls.

(And if he starts braiding his hair, weaving intricate patterns like he used to do with the children in Tatarasuna, nobody is there to witness it.

Later, upon waking, Kazuha will reach for his hair tie, only to realise that it’s already in use. His hair is pulled away from his face, in careful braids—upon touching them, he’ll feel small flowers intertwined with the strands of his hair. He’ll try to thank Kintsugi, but will be brushed off with an embarrassed huff and remark about how he should take better care of his hair.)

Kintsugi was right, earlier, when he knew his feet would get covered in mud. It sticks to his heels, his toes, everywhere as uncomfortable as possible—but he doesn’t dare move to clean it, or he’ll disturb the sleeping samurai.

If only they’d found a bigger cave so he’d not become Kazuha’s personal pillow…

He heaves a sigh. He supposes that it’s nice to sit like this. No Traveller and floating white thing bickering in his ears, no hustle and bustle of Sumeru city. Just the soft breathing of a samurai, and the rain.

Kintsugi leans back against the cave wall and closes his eyes.