Work Text:
Two people darted around an arena, two opposing fighting styles creating a violent dance. It was hard to tell who was winning from looks alone - though winning didn’t seem to matter to either of them. Both Demifiend and Raidou looked like they were enjoying themselves.
They were sparring, like they always did when Raidou passed by. Raidou always made sure to find him whenever he passed through the Akarana Corridor - ‘Ensuring you won’t be a threat to the Capital,’ he always said, barely noticeable smile always betraying his intentions. Pixie always complained to Demifiend that she never got to join in, and Gouto always chided Raidou for ‘being reckless’, but they couldn’t care that much. They left the two of them alone, after all.
Demifiend found it difficult to stay quiet while training with Raidou - A novelty, given that he talked so little any other time that Pixie had declared herself his interpreter. Right now he was in the middle of recounting his trip to another world. Not to the Capital or Akarana Corridor or anywhere Raidou would be familiar with, no, but somewhere else. A place full of humans (if they could be called that) who could turn into demons and were forced to cannibalize each other to survive.
“Now they were real demons,” Demifiend said offhandedly. “I should have asked them what human tastes like.” He tried to punish a mis-timed swing, but Raidou easily dodged.
“You want to eat a human?” Raidou replied between attacks. They were a tangle of flesh and cloth, hands and swords and claws looking for any opening they could.
If he could spare the time to shrug, he would. “It’s a demon thing.” He ducked under a sword strike, kicking his leg out to send the summoner off balance. Raidou dodged that one too.
“Then eat me.” He slashed and Demifiend threw a hand up to grab the sword before the words registered in his mind.
Demifiend froze, hand on blade, barely phased by the edge of the Muramasa digging into his skin and drawing blood.
A leg kicked into Demifiend’s stomach and pushed him back into reality. “You’re wide open.” Raidou’s gun clicked, which was all the warning Demifiend had before the air was filled with the sound of gunfire. The words were a mercy.
“Hey-!“ Demifiend shouted six shots later. “-The hell you mean, eat you?” A kick knocked the empty revolver out of Raidou’s hand, giving the fiend an opening to finally do something- Javelin Rain- which was blocked by Raidou’s green-tinted blade.
(Their breathing had become irregular, and though Demifiend could probably continue for a bit longer if he wasn’t rash - bloody and definitely bruised as he was - Raidou was absolutely reaching his limits. But it wasn’t over until someone gave in.)
“That is what I said,” Raidou jumped backwards, putting enough space between them that Demifiend couldn’t punish the brief opening that the Javelin Rain created. Like those words clarified anything.
Demifiend grit his teeth and sucked in a deep breath, focusing his energy not on the swordsman who had wasted precious seconds picking up his gun but the floor beneath them. His head lurched backwards.
The ground shattered.
Debris went everywhere and the footing became unstable. For a second, Demifiend lost sight of Raidou.
A second was too long.
He heard the click of Raidou’s revolver and ducked- But his feet slipped out from under him and Demifiend collapsed on the floor instead.
Though it was obvious what happened, Demifiend still threw a hand in the air. “mm, ‘m done,” his words were muffled by the floor his face was buried in, but he knew Raidou heard it.
Once he didn’t feel Raidou’s blade hovering over his head, he rolled onto his side. Raidou gave him a silent, wild stare. Standing over him like this, with disheveled clothes, shoulders heaving with each breath, face flushed from the battle, and so far from the prim and proper look of a Kuzunoha he tried to upkeep - Demifiend couldn’t help but think about just how human Raidou was.
He thought a lot of other things, too.
“Help me up,” He said, pulling himself up to a sitting position with Raidou’s assistance. Raidou, of course, said nothing. That unkempt look of victory he had just a moment earlier was already gone, disappearing once the battle was over.
Demifiend lifted a bloody hand to his own mouth. Was he so different when they fought too?
(His own blood didn’t taste of iron anymore, nor did it taste sweet like magatsuhi. It didn’t taste like anything.)
“You were distracted at the end.” Raidou said quietly. He sat a short distance away from Demifiend, looking over his revolver.
“Obviously.” Demifiend replied. Raidou was barely injured. Most of the damage had hit his cape and uniform, though even that was minimal. The worst of it was a tear through the sleeve on Raidou’s right arm from where he couldn’t block an attack. It stained the white undershirt with red, a single blotch on an otherwise flawless victory. A heavy difference from Demifiend, who was covered in as much red from his markings as he was red from blood. Still, this was the kind of thrill he rarely got from fighting other demons.
“Why?”
Demifiend blinked at him, gold eyes meeting silver. “What do you mean, ‘why?’ Anyone would be thrown off by what you said.” Demifiend’s eyes wandered back to the injury on Raidou’s arm. If he’d just learned Mediarahan already, maybe that could have been healed. “You don’t just jokingly promise yourself like that to a demon.” Not even to him.
“It wasn’t a joke.”
His head snaps back to stare at Raidou. “…What?”
Raidou blinks back, slow and deliberate. “If you want to eat a human so badly, make me the first and last one you eat.” He says the words like a command. Maybe it is.
“Do you even know what you’re saying?” Is all Demifiend can respond with. He’s unable to keep the bite out of his voice.
Raidou’s response is to stare in silence.
“I don’t actually want to eat someone,” Demifiend says. “Some demons do, yeah- But…” He trails off. Raidou already knew this. He had to. But then why-? He runs a hand through his hair, groaning. Damn, if he could just find the right words…
How painfully human of him.
Raidou moves closer, just ever so slightly. Barely noticeable to anyone. Demifiend notices.
“Why would you let me?” Demifiend says at last.
Finally, Raidou’s unrelenting gaze breaks as he turns his gaze towards the injury on his arm. “…It wouldn’t be so bad,” he says, barely audible.
There’s something that goes unspoken. Demifiend resists the urge to reach out, to further stain Raidou’s ruined clothes.
“You’re a damn idiot,” he says instead.
“Maybe so.” Raidou agrees.
The room goes silent again as Raidou carefully holsters his gun. The wince he hides barely shows as he moves his arm, but Demifiend still notices. He can’t help but notice the slight stutter in his hand’s movements - where Demifiend kicked him - or the shudder when Raidou breathes in too much - A bruise on his ribs, maybe.
Demifiend moves closer, leaning towards Raidou like he’s magnetic.
“If you’re going to be stupid enough to say that, then I’ll do it.” Demifiend feels pinned under Raidou’s sudden attention as the words leave his mouth. “I’ll eat you when you’re already dead. Don’t go making that soon.”
Raidou doesn’t respond immediately. His eyes narrow slightly as he lifts his hand.
A thumb gently brushes over Demifiend’s lips, smearing the blood there and sending a wave of red rushing to his face. “You’ll clean up my blood better than your own, won’t you?”
Demifiend scoffs, pretending like his tattoos are the only reason his cheeks feel bright red. “What do you take me for? Some kind of wild beast?”
“An untrained dog.” Raidou retorts.
“Woof.” Demifiend replies sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
He looks to the side, pretending to be annoyed, when a hand on his head makes him jump to attention.
“Good boy.”
Ah.
Raidou’s hand gently combs through his hair, just barely smiling with what Demifiend recognizes as an amused look in his eyes.
He whines pathetically. He swears he hears Raidou laughing at him, so softly he might have imagined it.
Part of him wishes they could stay like this forever, where the burdens of their roles can’t reach them.
It wouldn’t be so bad, Raidou had said.
Maybe it wouldn’t.
(That was kind of like a date, wasn’t it? A strange date, but they were strange people.)
He purrs contentedly. Not that bad at all.