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Part Thirteen: Shaken not stirred...





Suikotsu quietly entered his room. "Ren... are you awake?"

Renkotsu yawned and painfully rolled over to face him. "Yeah...?"

"Ren, are you feeling better?"

The fire-breather nodded as he looked up his would-be lover.

"Good... Ummm, Ban wants to see you."

"He does...?"

Suikotsu nodded. "I believe he wants to put his mind at ease..."

Renkotsu sighed heavily. "Fine, then I'll go see him." He slowly got to his feet, his grimace of pain quickly dissolving into a look of extreme annoyance. "What the hell do you want now?" he said to Jakotsu as he slipped into their room without knocking.

Jakotsu smiled. "Nothing... I was told to stay away so I thought I'd ummm... help Sui with his stuff." The cross-dresser grinned at Renkotsu.

The fire-breather rolled his eyes at Jakotsu as he strode past him. "I'll be back as soon as I can, Sui. And, Jak, try to stay out trouble and don't bother Sui."

"Okay...Bye, Ren." Jakotsu waved at Renkotsu's retreating form. Turning to Suikotsu, he asked, "So what...?" The rest of his words died mid-sentence when he caught the look on the claw-bear's face.

"Actually, Jak, I was thinking you and I should have a little talk," Suikotsu said, his tone just as dark as the look on his face.

Jakotsu gulped. "I was thinking the same thing..." he tittered nervously./ Kami-sama, help me!/ "So...ummm...?"

Suikotsu stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists. He muttered softly to himself for several minutes before he relaxed and calmly walked over to the low table in the far corner of the room, Jakotsu in tow. Suikotsu knelt and sorted through the various jars and bundles of dried herbs on the table. "Here, make yourself useful," he softly as he handed the cross-dresser a large bowl of dried herbs and a mortar and pestle.

Jakotsu looked at him in surprise. "Ummm... Okay. What do I do?"

"You put the herbs in the mortar and then you mash them with the pestle until they're powdery. Think you can do that for me?"

"Oh... you mean like this?" The cross-dresser took some herbs, and placing them in the mortar, he pounded them.

"Yes..."

"How long do I keep doing this and what do you want me to do with the powder?"

"Until they're all done," Suikotsu said distractedly. He was doing his best to ignore the cross-dresser as he tried to calm his mind, and being annoyed with Jakotsu had left him feeling somewhat peevish. "You can put the powder in this." The good doctor handed him another bowl. "You need to grind them finer, Jak. Just keep doing that until I tell you to stop."

"When's that?"

"When they reach the proper consistency," a tiny hint of irritation crept into the doctor's voice.

"And that is...?"

"I'll tell you."

Jakotsu snorted in annoyance. "Okay..." As he pounded the herbs into a fine powder, he started humming a bawdy song.

"Tell me, Jak, were you drinking opium-laced tea last night?"

"Why would I do that? I'm not sick. All I did was drink some sake with Ren, why?" The cross-dresser gave him a puzzled look.

"No reason. I was just wondering what affected your brain so much that you would engage in sexual activities with Ren."

"Oh." Jakotsu blinked. "But ummm...I didn't have sex with Ren... all we did," he paused under Suikotsu's harsh scrutiny, and changing his mind as to what he was about to say, he went on, "ummm... all I did was suck him off. I thought it would be a good idea to teach him something you two could do together for fun..."

"But you had no right to just go and do that! Didn't you even consider my feelings about this?"

"Ummm... no... But I don't see what the problem is. I only did that because brothers are supposed to help each other."

"This is different from other things we help each other with," Suikotsu said quietly. "I understand that you are completely desensitized to the intimacy that sex or engaging in sexual activity holds... But I am not, and as such, I was deeply hurt that you and he would engage in such intimate activity."

Jakotsu sat there, listening to Suikotsu gently tell him off; the emotions flitting across the cross-dresser's face ranging from outrage to sadness. "Sui, I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt you, but I'm not as dumb as you think I am. I mean I may not be as smart as you or Ren, or Oo-Aniki, or the others... But I do know the difference between having sex and making love to someone, especially when that someone who holds your heart in his hands. And, ummm... what I showed Ren was just the beginning of having sex with someone, and well, ummm...I do that when we need money, but Oo-Aniki-chan does that with me because he loves me... and it's special to me. And I wanted-"

Suikotsu interrupted him with a heavy sigh. "Yes, but you should have considered the fact that I might have been uncomfortable with you touching him in such ways. When I opened that door and I saw you two there, lying naked and all over each other at that, how was I supposed to know that you two never made love?" He quirked an eyebrow at Jakotsu, before looking away in disgust. "I admit my possessive side may have jumped to a conclusion a bit too quickly, but... Well, it wasn't right to go behind my back!"

"Sui... There were times when a client would ask me to show him something that he could do to please his wife in the futon, and ummm... well, I never said to him, 'Wait, we need to go ask your wife if it's okay...' because such things were always meant as a surprise." He sighed sadly. "So it wasn't exactly going behind your back... It was meant as a surprise..." he rambled on, and looking away, he said, "Okay... I seduced him for my own needs, happy?" He looked back at Suikotsu, and instantly regretted it.

Suikotsu's expression grew suddenly vicious, as his evil side latched on to that little bit of information. "HE WASN'T YOURS TO HAVE!!"

Jakotsu's eyes grew wide as the color drained from his face./ Oh shit.../

For a brief second the look of fear in Suikotsu's eyes mirrored the cross-dresser's, and closing his eyes, Suikotsu gripped his head as if he were having a migraine.

Jakotsu, suddenly finding his voice, said, "I'm sorry, Sui... I...I wasn't thinking straight with all that sake we were drinking and it was sooo easy to talk Ren into it... but it wasn't like we actually had sex with each other like I told Oo-Aniki-chan! I swear on all that I hold dear, nothing like that happened! All I did was suck Ren off and then he threw up, which I wasn't too happy about..." Jakotsu, who was practically soiling himself with fear, rambled on. "I'm sorry! I swear if I could go back and relive that night over again, I'd tell him to fuck off! I know I should have gone off with one of the men who'd propositioned me, but nooo... I was stupid and I decided to go along with Ren and drink sake instead and then somehow we were talking about you and him and I mentioned something about painless ways of fun... and...ummm..." he swallowed as his mouth suddenly went dry when Suikotsu glared at him.

Suikotsu narrowed his eyes at him, his evil personality fully in charge, and said softly, "Let me kill him..."

Jakotsu, his voice going up several octaves, squeaked out, "Kill who...?" He was frozen to the spot with fear, even though Suikotsu had made no move to touch him.

Ignoring Jakotsu, as his in-between personality took charge, Suikotsu said, "There's no point now, Ren's still ours..."

"Hunh...?" Jakotsu whispered. He was completely baffled by the claw-bearer's odd behavior as he had never seen the different personalities talking to each other before. "Ren was always yours..." he said softly.

Suikotsu smiled evilly, "If we kill the little whore, then we can be sure of it."

"What little whore..? Oh shit!" Jakotsu, sitting back on his heels like a woman, desperately tried to get his feet out from under himself so that he could get away.

Suikotsu's voice softened, "Then Ban will kill us, and we don't really want to die, do we?"

Jakotsu seized that statement like a drowning man clutches a lifeline to safety. "That's right! You don't want to die! Because if you do... Ren will miss you!! He'll die without you!! And you don't want Ren to die, do you?"

Suddenly Suikotsu let go of his head, and slumping forward, his hands reached out and touched the floor in an effort to stop himself from falling. He panted hard as if he had just sprinted a mile, but there was an aura of calmness around him as if his evil side was fast asleep.

Jakotsu closed his eyes and clutched his chest. His heart was pounding as if he too had just sprinted a mile and it was all he could do not to sit there and laugh hysterically over his close brush with death. He took a few deep calming breaths before he flopped down on his side next to Suikotsu. "Are you okay, Sui...?" Jakotsu felt as though he had just aged fifty years in the last few minutes. "Sui...?" he said softly, cracking an eye open to look at the claw-bearer.

Suikotsu nodded.

"Good..." Jakotsu panted. "You scared the shit out of me..."

"I'm sorry; he's been very active lately..."

The cross-dresser was still in shock over his near death experience and he let the silence stretch between them before finally answering, "That's okay..."

"Don't worry; he won't come after you again."

"You sure about that...? Jakotsu smiled weakly. "I feel like I've aged a hundred years..." he said to no one in particular as he watched Suikotsu stretch out on the floor.

"Yes, because when he wants to kill someone, he doesn't wait around or bide his time, he just kills them, unless given a good reason not to."

The cross-dresser gulped. "Yeah...?" he said in a strangled voice as he tried not to faint.

Suikotsu reached out and patted him tiredly on the cheek. "Don't worry; you're not dead..."

"I feel like it." The cross-dresser barked out a tired little laugh. "And now I won't be able to sleep at night..." he said softly to himself.

"Why not? You seem tired enough, but I could always drug some of your tea if you want."

"Nightmares... I'm going to have worse ones now than I get after a battle..." He shivered. "But I'm afraid if you drug me, they'll be really scary... Ummm... Sui, can I sleep with you tonight? Please?! Since I can't sleep with Aniki-chan and sleeping with Ren is what started this mess!" his words came out in a rush. "Please, Sui?!" The cross-dresser looked over at the claw-bearer, his eyes swimming with tears. "Please..."

Suikotsu eyed him askance. "What?!" He stared at the teary-eyed cross-dresser, completely taken aback by his question. "Haven't you learned anything from this experience?!"

Jakotsu, wiping a way a tear, said, "Hunh? All I learned is I'm never going to sleep again!" His lower lip quivered, and taking a deep ragged breath, he wailed, "I want O-Aniki-chan!!"

"Calm down! One night of no-sex isn't going to kill you!" Suikotsu said forcefully.

Something in the claw-bearer's tone calmed Jakotsu's hysterics before they got out of hand. "Sex?" He blinked away the remains of his tears. "What the hell are you talking about? I'm afraid of nightmares and you want sex?" The cross-dresser sat up and backed away from him.

Suikotsu also sat up, and blinked back at him, equally in shock. "I thought... When you asked me to sleep with you that... I see..." he finished softly.

"Noooo... I'm not that stupid..." Jakotsu put a hand on his chest to still his wildly beating heart. "I get nightmares from intense situations like after a battle or this..." He smiled weakly. "And while sex does help, in this instance, I think it's going to be awhile before I can get it up again..." he said with a sigh.

"Good, because I don't want to have sex with you," Suikotsu said. When Jakotsu looked highly insulted, he clarified, "Because that's Ren's privilege alone."

"Oh... okay, when you put it that way..." The cross-dresser brightened. "So are you going to sleep with me or not because if you're not, then I want something that'll keep me awake and then some..."

Suikotsu, understanding the hell of nightmares, sighed. "I will on two conditions. One, we get our respective lovers' permission first, and two, you keep your clothes-"

"Okay, but I wasn't planning on swapping clothes with you," Jakotsu said as he shot the claw-bearer a puzzled look.

"You didn't let me finish. I was going to say 'You keep your clothes on.'"

"And that'll help keep scary Sui away...?" Jakotsu asked timidly. "I don't want to wake up dead tomorrow."

"It would help."

"Good... then I'll sleep dressed. If I can do it on a mission, then it shouldn't be too hard to do it in a futon, right...?" I hope...

"Well, you either keep your kimono on, or no deal," Suikotsu said in a tone that brooked no argument.

"I said I would, okay?!" the cross-dresser replied peevishly. He looked away and then back at the claw-bearer. "Ummm... thanks, Sui," he said softly.

"You're welcome." Suikotsu sighed softly. "I just hope my own nightmares don't get too bad."

"You get them too...?" Jakotsu reached out to tentatively put a hand on Suikotsu's shoulder.

Suikotsu nodded. "Yes, a good deal of the time..."

"I'm sorry... What do you do about them? Aniki-chan lets me snuggle up to him at night and they go away..." the cross-dresser said softly.

"Yes... And since Ren has been in my bed they've gone down considerably."

Jakotsu nodded in agreement. "Yeah... having a warm body next to you really helps..."

"It does..." the claw-bearer said softly.