Heavy Blood

13. Izuna

"TOBES!!"

I was screaming, tears running down my face as quickly as I was running through the corridors. I was panting like a madman in pure panic as I ran in desperation, following his voice. What's happening? WHAT'S HAPPENING TO HIM?!

I wasn't offended when he turned and left. I knew he struggled between me and God, and I respected that. Personally, I didn't understand why he felt he had to choose between us, but that wasn't my business; it was between him and God. I'd finished my sushi, figuring he needed some time alone, easily using the chopsticks, then put away the dishes and put Tobirama's unfinished pieces on a plate, wrapped it in plastic foliage and put it in the fridge for him. It was when I was drying off the table with a cloth than I heard the first scream. It sounded like a grown man in excruciating pain.

I dropped everything I had at hand and ran out of the kitchen and down the stairs and started looking. That was fifteen minutes ago. I was running in a corridor in the basement, where I'd never been before, screaming his name and desperately trying to find him. His screams were obviously out of pain and were preceded by a course sound I couldn't identify. In the end, I was so panicked that I just ran aimlessly, unable to try to follow the sound of his screams but just stumbling across the stone floor in desperate hope that I would just find him out of pure luck. It felt like an eternity before I fell into the room where he stood.

And what I saw was the worst thing I would ever witness in my life.

He was completely naked, back turned towards me. On his back were a mixture of scars that stood up pink and unyielding, like chains of mountains, and rashes of different age. Some of them seemed to be a day old, and were open slits showing off the tissue underneath, still bleeding at the edges. But the worst part was the new rashes, the ones that had caused his current screams. They were leaking blood to the ground, so deep you could see the muscles underneath. Black spots swam before my eyes and I almost fainted. I screamed his name and ran to him.

And now, he was kissing me. In the madness of the situation, he was kissing me. I was angry with him. Yet, I didn't want to be. I kissed him back, putting my arms around his waist that were mostly rash-free, and he put his hands in my hair.

"Tobes..." I whispered. "What are you doing to yourself?"

I broke free of his lips with one final lick at his piercing, then went down on my knees. On my way down, I put my hand on his back, wetting it with blood. His hand went in my hair, grabbing it harshly in pain. I used my hand, lubed with blood, and started beating him softly. He looked at me with hooded eyes, as if in awe as I would do such a thing as using his own blood as lubricant.

"You're sick", he said.

"Shut the fuck up", I said and parted my lips. "I'm so mad at you, I don't believe it."

He leaned his head back in anticipation of what he knew what was about to happen. I opened my mouth and took him in. I blew him softly, back and forth, back and forth, mild moans escaping my lips, meeting the sound of my sucking and the blood dripping of Tobirama's back to the floor.

"Izuna..." he grunted darkly, and it egged me on to bob my head, following the lead he gave me by putting force in the hand that was tangled up in my hair.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" I asked again, releasing his dick for just a second, before taking it in again with a sigh.

"Guilt", Tobirama said simply.

"Does it make the guilt go away?"

"Yes."

"Does it render the actions that caused the guilt undone?"

Tobirama didn't answer. I increased my pace, started working for real in a way I knew would drive him mad. He leaned his head back and started moaning like someone starving. I stopped then, looked up at him.

"Izuna, I shouldn't be enjoying-"

"Shut the fuck up!" I said angrily.

He did.

So I kept working for him, twirling my tongue, deep-throating him, gagging myself until he spilled himself into my mouth with a scream to the heavens, calling out for the God he so whole-heartedly believed in. It was too much for me to take everything in my mouth, so I drooled some out in my lap, but I did my damnest. Tobirama looked down on me, panting, eyebrows furrowed, something in his eyes that resembled... Love, I think. He put his finger underneath my chin and I swallowed him, never breaking eye contact.

"Good boy", he cooed.

Then, he fell down on his knees and slumped over me. 

He was laying on his stomach on the mattress in the little room that had been mine for the last two weeks. It felt so much at home now that it almost felt strange seeing him there, but not in a bad way. He added warmth to the room, the presence of someone who took very good care of me. But now, I was taking care of him.

I cleaned his wounds carefully with aseptic. Then, I used a syringe with local anaesthetics Mito had given me. Tobirama breathed in through gritted teeth as I put the needle in and the aseptic went out into the tissues, but he never complained. Not once. Carefully, I started stitching.

"How do you know how to stitch?"

"My mother. Nourah. She was a nurse. And she taught me to stitch one summer, in the hope I would become a doctor. I became a teacher, but stitching came very naturally to me."

He didn't answer, just seemed to enjoy being taken care of.

"Tell me, Tobirama."

And he did. After a deep breath, he told me everything.

"My parents were strictly religious. Catholic. Against homosexuals, against contraceptives, against abortions, you name it. As a teenager, I rebelled. I did everything they stood against. I drank. I partied. I pierced everything I could think of. I don't have all of them left, unfortunately", he said, and I warmed up at the humour in his voice. "I slept around. I needed to find God in my own way, not by the way of my parents. So when I became catholic, and educated myself to become a priest, I had a lot of baggage. I felt I needed to compensate, because people around me were so... Pious, you know?" I nodded, even if he couldn't see me from where he was laying on his stomach. He continued. "That's when I read about the method of self-whipping as a way of balancing out all you did wrong. I tried it once, and it was like a drug. I felt that the more I did it, the more pure I felt. And I was obsessed with being pure."

"Still are?" I asked.

"Still am. It took me about a hundred days of whipping myself basically every day to feel I'd compensated for my youth. I was hospitalised twice with septic shock. After that, I kept whipping myself for every dirty thought, every time I masturbated... I just wanted God to love me. I just wanted to be closer to God. But it has become an addiction. I can't stop."

I listened intently while finishing my stitches, covering them in tape. I took Tobirama's hand and pulled him up so he was sitting. I didn't let go of his hand. "God loves you", I said. "Tobirama, God loves you."

He got tears in his eyes then. "Oh, Izuna..."

He put his hand on my cheek and kissed me then, and I felt myself stiffen up. "Don't kiss me if you'll just beat yourself up for it", I whispered.

"I'll try not to", he murmured, leaned in, and kept kissing me.

And I couldn't resist it.