Dark Embrace

Title: Dark Embrace
Author: Tsutsuji (the shameless)
Rating: NC17
Warnings: tentacle porn! Dub-con (kind of goes with the territory). With a side of h/c and angst, and even a bit of fluff. Also, spoilers.
Word count: around 4000
Written for Springkink Round VIII, Prompt: Slayers, Xelloss/Zelgadis, Tentacles - "trapped in a web"
Summary: Heading off into the forest for some time alone, Zelgadis attracts some unexpected attention, and, naturally, Xelloss takes advantage of the situation.
AN: I wrote tentacle porn!! I'm so proud of myself! o/
Takes place after the events of Evo-R, and contains Spoilers of various sorts.

~~

In the darkness of the forest, sitting back against a tree to rest with his eyes closed, Zelgadis didn't notice the first dark tendril curling up from the ground until it touched his leg.

Even then, he thought at first that it was no more than a branch that had been nudged against him by the wind, and simply shifted to push it off. That was when he realized that his leg was caught on something, like a vine that must have become looped around it when he sat down. He opened his eyes and scowled at the interruption to his rest, and started to lean forward to brush it off. He discovered that he couldn't lean forward. Somehow, another vine (he assumed) had been blown across his shoulders by the wind and snagged him back against the tree. Except that the wind wasn't blowing. The forest was utterly still.

Then something brushed his cheek, cool and smooth, moving of its own accord. He tried to jerk out of its reach and also tried to look down to see what it was, but quicker than he could move, it darted across his face and clamped itself over his mouth.

He decided it might be time to panic a little. But it was already too late to cast a spell or reach for the sword lying at his side; he couldn't speak to chant the words, and both his arms were tangled in the curling, dark tendrils as well.

Pulling against them, Zelgadis craned his neck as well as he could to at least see what had snuck out of the darkness to grab him. Black and smooth enough to gleam softly in the dim forest light, the vine-like tendrils curled up from the ground, or out of the tree behind him, or, he realized as he looked closer, they simply appeared out of their own shadows. Some were as thin as string, others as thick as heavy rope, and as he watched they even changed, pulsing thicker or stretching out thinner as they moved around him. He couldn't tell if they were many creatures or a single one that constantly sprouted more snake-like limbs.

He let out a muffled curse of frustration, partly at himself for being caught, unprepared, alone, and half asleep in such a place as this. But this forest, cursed as it had been, should have been safe now that the ghost of Shabranigdu was defeated and the curse on Taforashia had been lifted.

He'd thought it would be the perfect place to get away from the others for a little while. The adrenaline rush of the great battle had worn off, leaving him weary from fighting and from healing himself and others, and weary of the noisy, emotional crowd of revived Taforashians. So he had slipped away from the palace and the recovery celebrations as soon as he could, and wandered out into the evening twilight, away from the lights of the city that remained standing, and away from the ruins of the battlefield where Shabranigdu - and Rezo - had finally been defeated. He had walked into this forest that had hidden the cursed city for so many years, and found a quiet place to sit as darkness fell under the trees.

It was just about the spot where they'd first encountered the mist that hid the cursed kingdom. There wasn't any mist now; he could see a few early stars brightly twinkling through the trees overhead. He tried to imagine what kind of creature could be lurking out here that would attack an unwary traveler like this, wondering if some evil creature had been awakened by the recent presence of the Demon Lord. Now that he was more alert, he sensed a malevolent aura that he should have noticed sooner if he hadn't been so complacent. It seemed to grow stronger as he tried to slip out of its grasp, as if it found his struggles annoying, or maybe just amusing.

He finally realized that, now that it had him pinned in its rapidly tightening grasp, more tendrils were appearing out of the shadows to slither across his body, but not to grip him as tightly as the first ones did. They prodded at him like thick, questing fingers. He shuddered as two of them slipped inside his shirt, and he felt the strange pressure of their touch on his stone skin. He was surprised to feel them so intensely, much more than he would have felt another person's touch in the same way. It was startling, but that didn't make it pleasant, and he kept on trying to twist out of their hold, and trying to think of a spell he could use against them.

When another pair of the things crawled over his hips and slithered into the waistband of his trousers, Zelgadis decided it was quite definitely time to panic.

"This cannot be happening!" he gasped, or tried to gasp around thing clamped over his mouth, as the tendrils under his shirt each flicked over the rocky nub of a nipple. At the same time, the lower ones were joined by others tugging at his trousers, and the ones that were twisted around his legs tried to pull them a little wider apart.

He'd heard stories about bizarre, carnal creatures like this. He'd always assumed - and hoped - they were only lurid fantasies. Horrified, he struggled with all of his recently recovered strength to get loose. They only grew tighter around his arms and legs, and even seemed to pulse a little, as if his struggles excited them.

He thought he heard a soft hiss of laughter. Startled, he stopped moving to listen, going still except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he panted from his efforts and from growing fear. He was almost certain he heard a voice again, coming right from the shadowy tendrils themselves, only this time it was more like a low sigh of pleasure that inexplicably sent a shiver down his spine.

While he listened for it again, heart pounding, the strand across his mouth pulsed, thicker and then thinner, and he realized it was trying to pry his lips apart and slip between them. With a muffled cry of horror he clamped his jaw and tried to twist his head side to side, but another length of the thing caught his jaw and held his head in place. The one over his mouth suddenly became warmer and slippery, slightly moist, and while the other held his head back, its touch became lighter, caressing his lips as if coaxing them to open to it.

There were warm, thick arms of the thing curled around his thighs, caressing there as well, pressing upward between his legs toward more sensitive areas. He groaned; if it kept touching him enticingly like that, he was horrified to think how his body would eventually respond. Meanwhile, the ones inside his shirt now seemed to be licking at him with flickering sparks of heat, like fingertips releasing sparks of dark energy against his stone skin.

Familiar dark energy, he suddenly realized with a shock of recognition; a heated touch that even his stone skin could feel. Familiar, soft laughter came from within the darkness that the black curling shapes grew from. Zelgadis gasped, and the thick, caressing finger slipped between his lips like a lover's tongue, eager but surprisingly tender.

The shape was utterly different but the kiss was the same, insistent and yet almost tentative, and tasting of dark magic. A taste that he'd missed more than he'd allowed himself to admit over the past several months, and in the last few hours, one that he was afraid he might never have again.

He almost sobbed out loud with relief. And then he jerked his head out of reach of the thing and lashed out with all the frustration he had been holding inside for months.

"Xelloss! You damn, perverted, suicidal Mazoku bastard!" he screamed.

The web of tentacles holding him shuddered, rippling with pleasure from the force of his rage, then went still for a moment Zelgadis sat there, panting quietly, arms and legs dangling in the bizarre embrace.

Finally, he summoned enough presence of will to turn his attention to the astral side. He reached across with his spirit, tentatively, and tried to remember all the rare astral magic he'd learned from Xelloss - knowledge he'd forced himself to half forget, out of fear that he might never have the opportunity or reason to use it again.

Xelloss was there. To his utter relief, Zelgadis felt the mazoku's spirit already curled lightly around his own smaller astral form, the indescribable shape and feel of it solid and dark, and wonderfully familiar. But he was alarmed to sense the lightness of its touch, and as he concentrated more on what passed for sight and touch in the astral side, he realized that it was torn in places. What should have been a solid cone of pulsating power felt more like a ragged curtain draped around him.

It made him shudder, with the memory of his last glimpse of Xelloss' face grinning up from the ground - nearly all that was left of him in the last moments of their battle with the Demon Lord. But the voice that came out of the darkness, out of the twining tendrils themselves, was as silky and sensual as ever.

"Ah, Zelgadis-san," Xelloss sighed. "It feels so good to touch you again."

He wasn't sure if Xelloss meant on the astral side or in the physical realm. He felt Xelloss' spirit shift against his, and at the same time, the black tentacles curled around his limbs, spiraled up the length of his arms and legs, and cupped his face. Zelgadis leaned into them this time, even though he instinctively shuddered at their strange, inhuman touch on his skin.

"Xelloss," he said, tugging against the strands that held his limbs out in all directions, "what the hell...?"

"Oh, this?" The voice tittered a little, as the spirals around his limbs tightened and pulled to stretch his arms and legs further apart, and then lifted him completely off the ground. Zelgadis squawked in surprise.

"I'm afraid it's the best I can do at the moment!" Xelloss continued, although he sounded far more amused than apologetic, of course. "It will be a little while before I've recovered enough to appear on the physical plane again, Zel-san - unfortunately! But I couldn't wait that long to touch you, so when you came out here alone, well, how could I resist? You do make it far too easy for me sometimes, you know!"

"Clearly," Zelgadis growled. He gave a sharp yank on the strands holding his arms, which held fast - but now that he knew the will behind them, he realized that they were not nearly as strong as they should be. In fact, even since Xelloss had begun speaking to him, he sensed that the Mazoku's spirit had grown a little thinner, as if expending even this much energy was a drain on his injured soul.

"Damn Mazoku," he grumbled. Because, once he'd realized exactly what it was that was groping him like this, fear and horror had quickly blended into relief and then into arousal. It would be just like Xelloss, he supposed, to tease him with this bizarre and alarming greeting, and then simply fade back to the astral realm until he'd recovered, leaving him alone in this state.

On the other hand, Zelgadis knew - from experience - exactly how to heal an injured Mazoku. That was basically how their relationship had begun, after all.

He twisted again, yanking hard against the strands, and let all of his frustration come out in a snarl. He pulled hard enough that it hurt, and let that come through, too, and then, let a rush of fear follow when the dark cords only grew tighter.

"Oh, Zel-san," Xelloss said, sighing his name, "are you sure you want to tempt me so?" The tendrils caressing his groin and his face curled in pleasure, lapping at his skin. "You are so beautiful like this, so good to touch, and I... am so hungry..."

Zelgadis closed his eyes and searched inside himself for every dark emotion he could find.

"I'm sorry, Xelloss," he said softly. "I know you prefer hate and anger, but I don't have any of that to give you at the moment. I hope this will do... "

His fury with Rezo had been burned out by the battle, and he couldn't even find any rage in his heart for all that Xelloss must have known and kept from him during the search for Rezo's jar. Frustration, fear, and pain would have to do, and the revulsion he still felt for his own body and for the inhuman things that were touching him so intimately.

Apparently, those were enough. Xelloss responded by twisting more of them around him, and his spirit swelled slightly against him on the astral side.

"From you, Zel-san... anything!" Xelloss sighed happily.

But 'anything' apparently also included pleasure, Zelgadis soon discovered, because Xelloss gave him plenty of that along with all the pain and disgust the dark tentacles could draw from him.

The tendril that had teased his lips thrust inside his mouth again, like a hot tongue in a hungry kiss. More of them slithered around his body and roughly clawed his shirt off, although others were deft enough to carefully unfasten the clasps of his cloak and his sword belt and remove them without damage. They quickly pulled off boots, trousers, and underwear and flung them away, all the while twisting around to keep their grip on his flailing limbs.

He really didn't have to fabricate his revulsion at their strange touch; it was Xelloss' familiar, heated touch and yet it was totally alien. The multitude of snake-like strands slithered over his skin, some thick and pulsing weirdly around his body, others as thin as claws raking at him. Some of the ends formed into bulbous heads with wet mouths that sucked on every part of his stone-covered body that Xelloss knew was sensitive. He was entirely tangled in their grasp, suspended in the air like a beetle struggling in a demon-spider's web.

Tendrils clamped into the wire strands of his hair and pulled his head back; they licked the tip of his ear, and nipped at his thighs, and twisted his arms and legs apart, stretching his joints painfully. They clawed at his back and his chest with those sparks of black energy that he knew so well by now, leaving trails of pain that he willingly gave to Xelloss in exchange for pleasure that was almost more than he could bear.

He groaned when they started to prod between his spread legs, half in relief and half in sheer horror. One of them, warm and wet like a thick, pointed tongue, wriggled its way inside of him, and then began to swell, pulsing as it spiraled in deeper. Another one - or two, or more, he could hardly tell anymore - curled around his cock and stroked him to hardness with its throbbing length, while another tiny tongue licked at the tip, and more of the mouth-shapes sucked on his balls, rolling them like the palm of a large, warm hand.

Zelgadis struggled in honest panic, utterly helpless in the grasp of the things, even though the sexual stimulation made him groan with pleasure. It was like having more of Xelloss than he'd ever had before; he felt utterly filled and engulfed by the Mazoku, and he still felt like he wanted more of him. He longed to touch the body that he'd come to desire so much, even though he knew it was an illusion, and he fed even that impossible longing to Xelloss.

With every struggle and every shudder of horror, he felt the tentacle shapes grow and swell around him, and Xelloss' astral body grew harder, looming over his fragile spirit. But as helpless as he was, even this was a kind of power, Zelgadis realized: his power to make Xelloss strong again.

The familiar spiral of desire wound up between them. Even as overwhelmed as he was with the horrid strangeness of the tentacles' touch, pleasure began to overtake the pain and revulsion Zelgadis felt. He heard and felt Xelloss groan, the vibration of it spreading through all the twisting shapes that held him and that pulsed inside of him, and felt the greedy mouths suck on him with all the mazoku's hunger for his body and his dark emotions.

He held back as long as he could, willing to give Xelloss more, but Xelloss seemed as hungry for his climax as he was for his pain. The tentacles twisted inside him with just the perfect pressure, and twisted around his cock, a rippling corkscrew that demanded him to give in and come.

He finally did, straining against the strands that held him, screaming around the hot tongue that pulsed in his mouth as if it had been overtaken by its own orgasm. And then he simply hung there in mid air, naked, limp, wet, and utterly helpless in Xelloss' shadowy web.

The dark strands lowered him to the ground and slithered softly around him, finally releasing their hold on his arms and legs, then curled up all around him and coalesced into one familiar shape. Zelgadis opened his eyes to see Xelloss lying next to him. His naked body was still covered in a web of shadows, as if he might not have fully materialized into his human form yet, but it felt comfortably ordinary against Zelgadis' side. The mazoku's eyes were closed, but he was smiling.

Zelgadis curled up closer to him, wincing a little when he moved. He felt sore, and embarrassed, and even a little irritated, now that he thought about it, for the way Xelloss sprung this on him. But he also felt ridiculously satisfied, and relieved. It was - he had to admit - an interesting experience, to say the least. But he was much happier to have Xelloss in his human form again, and to feel him more solidly on the astral side again, too.

"Idiot," Zelgadis breathed, nuzzling the strand of silky black hair that had fallen next to his lips. "You really do have a self-destructive streak, don't you? Would you please stop letting yourself be torn apart right before my eyes?"

Xelloss opened one violet eye, still smiling.

"I certainly hope I won't have the opportunity to do so again any time soon, Zel-san!" the silky voice said, now coming from Xelloss' lips as it should. "But as I said to you once before, suicide is a human concept! I hope I won't have the opportunity to watch you risk your own stony skin to save the human world again any time soon, either."

Zelgadis frowned; it was still strange to hear Xelloss say things like that. Just about as strange as it had been to be lying there in a dark forest, tangled up in the dark tendrils of a Mazoku's astral projection into the physical world, like a scene from some pornographic fantasy.

He had no idea if this would last. When Xelloss had vanished from his life on the call of his Mistress, months ago, Zelgadis had forced himself to face the possibility that it could be the end of the relationship that they had somehow, impossibly but inevitably, fallen into over the past year. They were on opposite sides again, as he'd always known they would have to be eventually, and working at cross purposes, even if Xelloss did shock them all by fighting the ghost of Shabranigdu alongside them. Even that was only for a practical purpose - practical according to Mazoku logic, anyway.

He had decided long ago that he wanted Xelloss, as absurd as it might be, and that he would put up with whatever it took to be with him when he could. Even stranger than his own desire, he'd also finally managed to believe that Xelloss really wanted him. So, for the moment at least, it didn't matter what happened after this. If Xelloss was going to be sent off on another mission that kept them apart, even if they ended up on opposite sides again, he'd give all he could to Xelloss now, and take all that he could get of him.

"I heard," Xelloss said, musingly, "that Lina-san intends to continue the search for a new magical sword for Gourry-san." He opened both eyes and regarded Zelgadis. The corner of his lips twitched, Zelgadis supposed with amusement. "So, after the Slayers save the world from destruction once again, all goes on as before, hm?"

Zelgadis knew what he was implying, and guessed what he was asking.

"Yes," he answered. "I will continue to search for a cure, in spite of what Rezo's spirit said. He was an imperfectly resurrected demon, and he was also a very imperfect human. Why should I start believing him now, after all this time? And anyway, what else would I do?"

"Foolish chimera!" Xelloss chided him, but he was still smiling. "Well, as soon as I've fully recovered, I suppose I should go back to keeping an eye on you, then, for the time being. You are almost as good as Lina-san at stumbling across dangerous magical lore, and I certainly wouldn't want you accidentally destroying the world before we Mazoku get around to it!"

Zelgadis huffed irritably, trying to counteract the huge sense of relief he really felt. "Of course you don't! Well, at least that means I'll have a chance to brush up on my astral-body magic. I haven't had much chance to practice it lately, since my teacher has been busy with other things."

"Ah," Xelloss said, grinning even more broadly. "That's true! In fact, I think you might be ready for some more advanced techniques!"

Zelgadis shuddered as the mazoku's spirit curled more closely around his own; it was still as much frightening as enticing to feel Xelloss in that way, but it was far better than the touch of those tentacle strands slithering over his skin.

Of course, knowing Xelloss, he wasn't likely to leave it at that.

"I'm so glad I finally had the chance to use one of those sexual techniques we haven't tried before!" he said, far too cheerfully. Violet eyes gleamed in the shadows. "As soon as I get my full strength back, there are a lot of other ... shapes... I've been wanting to try..."

Zelgadis grimaced, and reached for him. "I prefer you in this shape, if you don't mind..."

But even as he reached out, Xelloss dissolved into a shimmering purple shadow, and then disappeared.

"Thank you, Zel-san," Xelloss' voice said in the dark where he'd been. "I look forward to traveling with you again!"

His presence faded. Zelgadis stared at the place where he'd disappeared for a moment, and finally closed his eyes and sighed, and smiled. He'd been weary before; now he was too tired and sore to move, although finding his clothes and then a bath were going to become priorities soon.

And after that, he thought, he might even feel like joining in the celebration back in Taforashia, after all.


~~ the end ~~