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He usually took care to extinguish whatever lanterns and candles remained before even thinking about removing a single stitch of clothing. It wasn’t about fear, of course, and it wasn’t about loathing – it was because his body belonged to someone that he no longer was, it was why he hid his face. He could not respond to that name. Even Nobutomo, as strangely kind as he had been to someone who was formerly (and probably still) an enemy of the Takeda, sometimes would slip, he’d start on the first syllable and then correct himself.
It was not hatred that he held. But that name and that life and that soul was no longer his. There was nothing he could do to get it back, not without first being forgiven, being absolved by the very one he betrayed, by his fallen Lord.
This time, however, Nobutomo had insisted that they leave the lights burning – it was more of a gentle request than anything else, but Tenkai at least wanted to give it what little effort he could. It was something he did want, and something that he was strangely apprehensive about. How did he become so unknown even to himself?
He had kneeled quietly on the floor and let Nobutomo carefully loosen the ties on his clothing, one by one, ever so carefully. This wasn’t frightening. But it wasn’t familiar either. Nobutomo’s hands, however, calloused and worn and warm, were – and he put what little remained of his blind hope in that.
“Lay back.” A hand on his shoulder, a soft, but insistent press, and he obliged. Nobutomo cupped his head with his other hand as he lay down on the mat, almost as if he was handling a china doll, and when Tenkai still had his old name and self and soul, he would have protested at that. Found it insulting, even. Do you think I can’t handle it? Who do you take me for? He would have laughed, probably out of some cruel kind of amusement.
Now it was all he could do to try and navigate, a few inches at a time, in this fog.
He shivered as his skin came into contact with the air, inch by inch, each piece of his robes carefully folded and set to the side methodically. There was no rush, but neither was it torturously slow – in fact Nobutomo almost seemed detached in all of this, and the flaming, burning hunger that he had grown so used to seeing in his eyes during his own time in Takeda captivity was no longer there.
Had it died? He wondered how, or why – something to do with Takeda Shingen, no doubt. It had been long festering, even before he had been sent by Nobunaga to dismantle what remained of the Takeda cavalry. Gone was the frustration that had once radiated through every inch of his being, through his eyes and his breath and his hands, and in its place was a steadiness that Tenkai had never seen before.
He couldn’t decide if he liked it or not, if he wanted to run or not, if he wanted to stay or if he wanted to vanish. Instead, he held very still and let himself be unraveled, piece by piece, and then Nobutomo took his hand in his own, passing his thumb gently over Tenkai’s bony knuckles, every joint and nail, entranced. It certainly wasn’t what Tenkai had expected in the least. Where was the blood the pain the agony the sting. Nowhere to be found.
Nobutomo rolled on top of him, but he did not rest his full weight on him, no – instead he braced himself on his forearms, just inches away from him, before showering his forehead, his sharp cheekbones, removing that mask and then tracing along the underside of his jaw, leaving Tenkai breathless and confused and it wasn’t bad. No, not at all. He certainly didn’t want it to stop, that was for sure. Down his neck and over his throat, where his pulse was the strongest – along the collarbones. Across his chest. No more than a tiny graze of teeth on his hardened nipples, and even then Nobutomo was quick to soothe with gentle fingertips.
Tenkai didn’t exactly brace himself – that wouldn’t be the right word, not nearly, but he’d certainly expected him to move lower eventually, to take what they both likely wanted, what Tenkai himself craved whether he truly deserved such intimacy or not, but instead he stayed there. Rolling to the side, Nobutomo wrapped his arms around Tenkai’s bare torso, warmth radiating throughout his body as he pressed little kisses along his elbow, his arms, nothing desperate or feral in them. Along the back of his hand, even as Nobutomo closed his eyes, the lanterns still on, the shadows falling on his gentle, tranquil face. More at peace than Tenkai had ever seen him before.
He really didn’t intend to do anything else aside from lying here, holding him, the lights flickering, the gentle glow spanning across the screen doors in front of them, and as Tenkai felt his own exhausted, heavy eyes start to close, he wondered why he had ever been so apprehensive in the first place.