Hell or High Water: Peach Pit

“Dozo,” Kurama said, the bough practically giving the peach to his hand, bending slightly before springing up in a release of its burden, which he passed carefully to Yusuke. The golden skin of the ripe fruit succumbed easily to Yusuke’s teeth, releasing a flood of juices that poured down his chin and stained his t-shirt a darker green. Yusuke pulled back, crushing the bite to the roof of his mouth before swallowing. He smacked his lips a few times at the tart taste, and then groaned.
“Kurama, if I could orgasm from fruit, I would do it for yours.”
Kurama laughed, a sound as sweet as any peach to Yusuke, and then replied wickedly, “You’d be surprised at what you can orgasm from.”
“I can’t believe you just grew that tree in front of me. Oh God, if I could choose a power it would be yours. Why don’t you come live with me?”
“Don’t be foolish, Yusuke," Kurama deflected smoothly. "It takes many years of intensive study and training to become proficient at plant magic. I doubt you would last the first day.”
“Hey, I kept it together during Baa-san’s training, didn’t I?”
Kurama chuckled again, but didn’t argue the point. “So how is our—” His lips pursed as he tried to come up with the correct word. “…Visitor?”
“He was asleep, last time I looked. I’m not surprised Genkai didn’t want him in her dojo. It's gotta be very nostalgic snoring—for her, at least.”
They sat for a moment, Yusuke making pleased little murmurs as the peach’s flesh peeled from the pit and melted in his mouth. Kurama tapped his chin, flexing his ki to make the little tree, which would never be capable of bearing mature fruit in the wild, revert back to a dried peach pit, which he shook the dirt off of and folded away into one of the slight leather pockets at his waist, flicking a clasp closed. There was nothing in there that was necessary for battle or survival, or it would be much simpler to access, but it didn’t hurt to have a pouch of common ningen seeds on him. If nothing else, it aided in cooking.
“What’s for dinner tonight, anyway?” Yusuke mumbled around a mouthful of peach, his eyes burning with suppressed delight as he glanced up at Kurama. He was sitting like a gerbil, hunched over the pit, slyly probing with his tongue for the last few morsels of flesh. As he turned it between his fingers, he suckled the grooves with unappetizing slurps, his hands slick and sticky with sugar.
“All you ever think about is food, Yusuke,” Kurama chastised lightly, his heart far from into it. He was admiring the juice that dripped down that dapper chin, and almost leaned in to taste the succulent nectar for himself before stemming it sharply and disguising his slight motion by plucking a few blades of grass from the tufts that stuck out between the stones of the garden path. “I believe I’ll make vegetable yaki-soba and fry those nikudango tonight. I’ll start soon—I have to make enough for the three of us, and that may turn out to be a lot. It’s likely been a long time since he ate anything worth eating. I have no doubt the fare is awful in the darkest depths of hell.”
“Nonexistent, I bet,” Yusuke agreed vaguely. “Those nikudango you make from scratch are much better than the store bought ones, though, Fox-Boy.”
“I don’t think I’ll have the time. He’ll wake up soon, and I think he’ll appreciate having a full meal in front of him when he does. Now come inside and help me with the rice cooker.”
Kurama got up, brushing himself off, and walked through the flowering bushes and shrubs to the filigreed garden gate, his shapely ass swaying invitingly as he moved, attracting Yusuke’s eyes. Yusuke blinked, scrubbing at the peach nectar that coated his face with the back of his hand, and then grinned and rose, determined to eat his fill before Toguro awoke.
---
“Yusuke, please leave some of the yaki-soba for the rest of us.”
“I can’t help it, fox! It’s just so damn good,” Yusuke exclaimed, plucking another cooked slice of sweet potato from the pan with his bare hand. He popped it in his mouth with an exaggerated hiss at the boiling oil, his fingers twitching as he tried to decide what vegetable slice he would eat next.
“For Inari’s sake, Yusuke,” Kurama cried out, amused, “I also have to eat dinner. You’re not the only one who’s hungry!”
“Yeah, yeah. I figure you can just make yourself something else. Besides,” he added, his voice honey, “don’t you want me to eat my fill?”
“No,” Kurama replied, deadpan. “I want you to come over here and help me put this tray together.”
Yusuke looked up from the sizzling victuals in front of him, swallowing his excess saliva, and stared over at Kurama. He stood in the corner of the narrow kitchen, carefully shaping a mound of white rice into an elegant crest above one of his ceramic bowls, housewarming gifts from his mother. Finally satisfied, Kurama sighed, and sprinkled some seasoning over the top, before replacing it on the elegantly appropriated tray.
A plate piled high with meat buns and yaki-soba, delicately arranged despite the staggering amount of food he had put on there, was counterbalanced with a deep bowl of miso soup and boiled mushrooms, another bowl of fresh garden salad, and two carefully molded dishes of rice. Kurama had artfully placed a lily behind the little clay chopstick stand that allowed a pair of his good wooden chopsticks to balance over it, all carefully complemented with a slice of shortcake Yusuke was eyeing, which Kurama had gotten for himself from the convenience store, and now donated to the problem of dessert. He had even poured a steaming mug of his famous green tea, making the dinner so flawlessly tantalizing that Yusuke almost stuck his finger in his mouth as he edged closer.
“There we go,” Kurama pronounced, putting a dash of his homemade ginger dressing on the salad. “Hopefully we’ll have enough left for a second helping if he’s still hungry after this.”
“That looks incredible, Fox-Boy. Can I have some now?” Yusuke said, almost whining, his stomach feeling painfully empty.
Kurama sighed and rolled his eyes irately, wiping his hands on the kitchen rag he’d draped over his shoulder. “Fine, Yusuke. I’ll make yours up now, and then take Toguro’s food to him.”
Yusuke let out a whoop, overjoyed to finally be able to dig into all this delicious looking (and no less delicious smelling) cooking. He followed Kurama like a duckling to its mother as he put together a heaping plate of food, and, slightly more carelessly than before, filled some of his common bowls with salad, rice, and soup, which he knew Yusuke would eat last. Yusuke opened a bottle of Mitsuya Cider, taking a swig as he sat down, ignoring the rice and miso (as Kurama had guessed he would) and picking up his chopsticks with a muttered ‘itadakimasu.’
Kurama hefted the lacquered tray in two hands, smiling as Yusuke began to maneuver the chow from the plate to his mouth at a lightning pace, all manners forgotten. He walked quietly down the hall, past scrolls and hung paintings he’d picked up from a variety of legal and illegal methods and used to furnish his cottage, which resided off Genkai’s grounds; past pots and patches of plants and flowers that climbed the walls even indoors, fed by his ki; and up the immaculately-kept azure carpeting that was tacked to the stairs.
He hummed a pleasant, nostalgic tune his mother had sometimes sung under his breath as he went, trying to remember the elusive feelings of the words. At the top of the steps, he turned past his room to the furthest doors of the hall, pausing to rest the tray between one hand and the crook of his arm and open a window, letting in some of the warm summer air and the hum of insects and birdsong that made the outdoors so beautiful on this gorgeous evening, before nudging his way into the second guest bedroom, glancing at the huge figure of the man who lay fitfully atop the too-small bed.
Kurama crept forward, intending to put the tray down in a place easily visible, but was surprised by the man's voice, heavy with sleep. “Come to kill me, fox?”
Kurama paused, and blinked. “To feed you,” Kurama replied, his own voice guarded. “Only to feed you.”
Toguro sat up with a grunt, his movements rickety and slow, and felt the high angles of his face with dull movements, prodding the place where his sunglasses usually sat.
“They’re on the nightstand,” Kurama said calmly. He was hesitant to move too close, but aware that he would have to eventually if he wanted to relay the meal to him. Keeping that in mind, he fought down his trepidation and walked softly up to the huge man, weight shifted to the balls of his feet in case of attack.
Toguro was adjusting himself into a seated position on the bed, pushing his body further up with another grunt, his hands running through his military-style buzz cut as though surprised to feel it. Kurama put the tray down softly on the table beside his bed, adjusting the things that had gone awry in the trip up here. Toguro looked at it, his eyes not quite blank and his eyebrows raised slightly. There was so much different about the man before him, so much that seemed as though it had been peeled away by torture.
“Was hell—” Kurama began, and then paused, realizing that that was likely not a pleasant conversation starter for the man.
Toguro looked at him, and then back at the food, his small black eyes drawn to it hungrily. “Was hell what?” he prodded darkly, his voice somehow minutely different than the one he used as a fighter of the Dark Tournament. Then, he had been sure of himself, of his worth, of his place in life—now, somehow, Kurama knew he was not.
“Was it really so terrible?”
Toguro said nothing for a moment, and then pointed to the food. “May I?”
“It’s not poisoned.”
Toguro laughed a wry, guttural laugh, and then picked up the soup. In short order, both of Kurama’s eyebrows were up above his hairline. Even Yusuke couldn’t eat like Toguro did then, knocking back the big bowl of miso like it was just a dish of sake, and seeming to struggle with himself not to forgo the chopsticks entirely and use his hands. In short order, there was nothing edible left on the tray except grease and a few ornery grains of rice, which he picked up with an oversized finger, etiquette no match for his ravenous hunger.
“Do you have any more? Any coffee?” the huge man enquired, sitting back with a sigh.
Kurama nodded carefully, moving closer to take the tray from the buffed cherrywood nightstand, leaning in without bumping the bowl of seashells that stood on the top and served as ornamentation, or the glasses that the huge man had yet to put on. “How do you like it?”
“Black. Black as death.”
Kurama chuckled, refusing to allow himself to be frightened by the ferocity of the man before him. “I’ll bring it up to you,” he said, and then turned to leave, the tray half off the table. He wasn’t expecting the giant hand that enveloped his wrist and dragged him back, a little too harshly to be called gentle. The tray fell back to the nightstand with a clatter, Kurama’s brows knitting restlessly as he hoped that nothing had been damaged. His feet, suddenly twisted, mussed the rag carpet that was tucked up to the bottom of the bed.
“Stay with me,” Toguro murmured, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “Please.”
Kurama paused again, contemplative. “And why should I do that?”
“Because you are, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in five years, and I want to touch you.”
Kurama was stunned into inaction by that strange proclamation, and then let out an undignified squawk when he was dragged onto the bed with one smooth tug of his wrist, his shirt pulled up, exposing the lean curves of his back. He wriggled, unsure of what to do as his hands unconsciously found and gripped the lacy edges of the coverlet, another gift from his mother. It was incongruent with its current occupant, who seemed to be made of stone, and who smelled so strongly of sulfur and flame. “Toguro, this is highly—”
“What? Irregular? Fox, I’ve spent these last five years craving soft skin and pliant muscles, good food, sunlight, and delicacy of any sort. Now that I have it, do you think I’ll give it up so easily?”
“Yes, but—oh—” Kurama’s head fell back with a light groan as he was flipped over and hard, rough lips laved their way up his chest, his whole body arching willingly for the starved, brutal grace of Toguro. “But,” he tried once more, and then let out a soft, supple yelp as Toguro maneuvered him to place a firm kiss on the bulge of his cotton pants, Kurama's feet finding the edge of the bed and curling.
“I’m begging you, fox,” Toguro said, his deep voice breaking, far from its usual impassive monotone.
Kurama lowered his head, biting plush lips in a conscious seduction, and then, after a quick deliberation, raised it with a flushed expression that spoke of lust and worry. “If you must, Toguro. Do as you will.”
“Thank you,” the man murmured, ever polite. He fell upon Kurama with a sigh, hands grabbing hungrily at the pert thighs, ears attuned to the little gasps of pleasure.
----
Yusuke had finished his dinner, and even helped himself to seconds (hoping Kurama wouldn’t notice the disparities in the amount of available food), before he started wondering what was keeping Kurama. Yusuke distracted himself from the annoyance of waiting by pulling out the rest of the shortcake roll, which he downed in three bites, and then beginning to pace idly around the kitchen, wishing Kurama would return.
Finally, sick of staying in one place and aware his stomach couldn’t handle another bite, he stomped down the hall and quickly mounted the stairs, taking them two at a time and bursting through the simple door to Toguro’s new room, where his salutations died on his lips. In seconds, his finger was extended, the spirit gun already powered.
“You bastard.”
“Easy, boy,” Toguro said. Kurama was splayed in front of him, red faced and gasping, his pants discarded and his tunic up under his chin as long, supple limbs entwined with Toguro’s hips. Toguro rubbed their cocks lightly together, tormenting the kitsune until his succulent lips fell open with pleasure, unable to stay closed, his brows permanently, tantalizingly knit. One of Kurama’s hands fisted on Toguro’s shoulder, clawing into the trademark green jacket, still untouched despite all his years without it. Even the kitsune’s nipples were erected painfully into hard pebbles under Toguro’s adept fingers, the frottage continuing mercilessly, even with Yusuke’s entrance.
“Get away from him!”
Glassy green eyes opened, blinking in the shadow Toguro’s figure cut out of the sunlight from the window. “It’s alright, Yusuke,” he panted, swallowing thickly. “I’m just performing a favor.”
“Favor? You call this a favor?” Yusuke yelped, caramel eyes wide with fury. “Stop that! Stop that right the fuck now!” He stalked up to them, intending to say a great deal more, when a giant hand threaded through the short, waxed-back spikes of his hair and slammed him forward into rough lips. His mouth fell open in shock, and a tongue easily slid through, nearly choking Yusuke with its artless need. He finally yanked himself away, looking down into the placating green below him.
“I’m hungry again,” Toguro murmured, amused. “You taste very strongly of good cooking and peach.” He rubbed his only half-shaven chin speculatively, ceasing his motions and earning a needy mewl from Kurama, who arched up against his cock, licking pink lips. “Boy, would you mind getting me some more of that food?”
His matter-of-fact tone sent Yusuke into hysterics. “You kissed me!”
Toguro smiled ruefully. “That I did.”
“You kissed me!"
Toguro grinned, and suddenly reached forward, Kurama lying petulant and forgotten below him, and gripped his enemy’s crotch. “That I did,” he said. “And if you don’t want me to do more than kiss, go get some food and let me fuck your teammate in silence.”
Yusuke mouthed, looked down at the gently amused smile on Kurama’s beautiful face, and then sputtered and left, damn sure that he would not get him food, and would not remain and be molested. If Kurama wanted to do it, that was his business, but he would not.
“That was ever-so-slightly cruel, Toguro-san,” Kurama hummed. Toguro frowned, and pinched Kurama's flattening nipples a little harder than was necessary, earning a shocked gasp.
“That boy has never known when and where to stick his nose,” he growled. "I'll have to teach him." He smiled at that, his lips quirking up into an infectious smirk that made Kurama blink. Then, his eyes falling back on the put-out fox beneath him, he sharply jerked his hips, earning a throaty growl from Toguro and a high-pitched whine from Kurama.
Nice, Toguro thought. Very nice. I could learn to like it here.
And then he laughed, idly gripping one of Kurama's calves to expose his beautiful body completely.
Well, there's always tomorrow, he mused, and grinned again, excited to start. Kurama felt perturbed by that almost bloodthirsty smile, but was too quickly distracted by the muscles scraping pleasantly along his body to focus on it for long.
It seemed many things had changed in hell, Kurama thought with some trepidation—many things indeed.

To be continued.