Title: Tribute
Characters/Pairings: Aomine and Kuroko
Summary: Aomine doesn't particularly want to be a tribute to the god on the mountain.
Notes: Adult for smut. Written for Porn Battle XV. AU in the Mushishi-flavored vein. 3711 words.

Tribute

After a while, his knees began to hurt him, so Daiki gave up and stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back on his hands. That improved matters briefly, but the stone floor was cold under his ass and it wasn't long before he began to shiver. Great.

He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, cursing the thin white robe they'd stuffed him into while he'd been out. Tribute to the god on the mountain, his frozen balls. More like the headman of the village was pissed that he'd caught Daiki in the barn with his pretty daughter and figured that getting rid of Daiki by way of a slow death by exposure was only fitting. And he hadn't even gotten a chance to do more than look at her breasts before the old bastard had come storming in. Life was so very unfair.

They hadn't even left him a light to see with. Not that this old temple had anything inside it to see, of course—Daiki already knew that, like he knew every last rock and shrub on the mountain from having run wild over it from the time he could walk. Personally he didn't believe there was a god on the mountain, no matter what the people in the village said. If there were a god, he would have seen it, but the temple had always been nothing more than an empty room at the top of a long string of stairs, with no decorations or anything inside except for a staple set in the floor, the purpose of which Daiki had never understood before.

He tested the chain and the cuff around his wrist again, to no avail—the staple didn't budge, and the cuff was too small to fit over his hand. Not that he'd get very far if he did get it off; he was barefoot and the snow was still deep, even though the year had turned four weeks ago.

Daiki rested his forehead against his knees. "This isn't fair," he muttered. He raised his head and yelled. "This isn't fair, d'you hear me? If I die up here I'm going to haunt you forever!"

He doubted that anyone in the valley below would hear him, but the threat made him feel better, at least temporarily. He began to shiver again all too soon, however, no matter how he tucked the hem of the robe under his feet and tucked his hands under his armpits to keep them warm.

A slow, sick feeling began to creep over him: he really was going to die up here, all alone and in the dark.

The thought panicked Daiki; he strained against the chain on his wrist and yelled for help, heart hammering against his ribs, until blood ran down over his hand, hot in the chill air, and his throat was raw with shouting. When he'd exhausted himself, Daiki slumped over his injured wrist, breathing hard and more afraid than he'd been since he'd first realized that it was him against the world. "Please," he whispered, "please, somebody, anybody, help me."

When he first saw the glow of light on the steps that led up to the temple, he thought he must have been hallucinating it. Then, as the light continued to glow, even after he rubbed his eyes, he thought that somebody in the valley must have heard his cries for help and had pity on him after all. Daiki sat up, watching the light climb steadily closer, his mind almost numb with relief, until its bearer reached the top of the steps.

It was a stranger, a young man Daiki had never seen before, who was bearing the lantern aloft. "Hello?" he called.

Stranger or not, Daiki didn't care. A stranger might even be better, anyway, all things considered. "In here," he croaked. "I'm in here. Please, help me."

The stranger did not hesitate to climb the steps that led up into the temple. "So I did here someone calling," he said calmly as he set the lantern down and swung a pack off his shoulders. He looked Daiki over, head to toe, as Daiki leaned towards the lantern, halfway believing that he could feel the heat it put out. "What's this all about?"

He knelt without waiting for an answer and drew a blanket out of his pack, which he draped around Daiki's shoulders. It cut off the chilly air immediately; Daiki clutched it close, teeth chattering now that the prospect of being warm again was in reach. "Depends on who you ask, I guess."

The stranger raised his eyebrows, which were as pale as his eyes, the color of the winter sky. "Is that so?" He dug into the pack again and produced a brazier, the charcoal to fill it, and a little firepot. In very short order, he had a small fire burning in the brazier.

Daiki leaned toward it, soaking in the heat with relief. "Yeah, it is." The warmth of the blanket and the little brazier felt miraculous; he wanted to luxuriate in them forever.

The stranger produced a kettle next, as well as the water bottle to fill it. He settled it into the coals before sitting back on his heels and tucking his hands into his sleeves. He was well dressed, better than anyone Daiki had seen in the village; he must have been some kind of merchant or traveler, Daiki guessed, judging by the quality of his clothes. "Suppose you tell me about it while we wait for the tea to be ready."

Daiki didn't see any reason not to explain his predicament, from having accepted a bowl of soup from one of his fellow villagers and passing out halfway through it to waking up in the temple, chained to the floor. "They said I was supposed to be a tribute to the god on the mountain, but I think they just wanted to get rid of me," he concluded bitterly.

"Hmm," the stranger said, noncommittal. "Why do you say that?"

Daiki laughed, though it wasn't funny. "Why wouldn't they?" The stranger looked at him, politely silent, and so Daiki found himself spilling out what it was like to grow up the son of the village drunk, knowing that everyone expected him to follow in his worthless father's footsteps, to a stranger he'd never met in his life. It was a relief, in a way, to unleash that torrent of words, like lancing an old wound that had festered for too long.

"Hmm," the stranger said again, quietly, once Daiki had fallen silent. He gazed at Daiki, thoughtful. "Have you given them any reason not to expect that of you?"

Daiki opened his mouth, but something about the weight of the stranger's gaze made it difficult to speak. He looked aside, huddling into the blanket. "I dunno."

The stranger did not say anything to this, but instead produced a teapot and a packet of tea, which he prepared in silence. When the fragrance of the tea had filled the air, he poured a cup for Daiki and a second one for himself. "It seems to me that you've made a mess for yourself," he said, cradling the tea in front of his chest. "When the morning comes, your people will come to see what's become of you. You can go back with them and go on as you have been, or you could make a fresh start and prove to them that you are not your father."

Daiki grunted, not particularly moved by either option, and sipped his tea—it warmed him all the way through, probably the best tea he'd ever had. "Assuming the god on the mountain doesn't take me."

The stranger smiled. "Assuming that, but gods tend to prefer willing tributes, in my experience." He blew on his tea to cool it. "Or you could seek your fortune elsewhere, instead."

"How?" Daiki asked, though the thought of leaving—of going away to find a place where no one would already know what they expected of him when they met—had its attractions. "I don't have any money and I don't have any skills." And there was the mountain itself, which he would hate to leave after it had been his shelter and solace for so long.

"A man with sufficient determination can overcome such things, Daiki," the stranger said. "Just as he can overcome his neighbors' prejudices with enough good will. It only requires that he choose his path and exercise his talents accordingly."

"Yes, but—" Daiki began to protest, before he stopped. He stared across the brazier at the stranger, to whom he had never given his name. "Who are you?"

The god on the mountain smiled at him. "You already know the answer to that," he said gently. He took a sip of his tea and added, "Though there was a time when I was called Tetsuya, if you prefer."

"Oh," Daiki said faintly, as old, half-forgotten lessons about the respect due to the greater powers surfaced from the sediment of years. He set his cup down with hands that shook and prostrated himself. "Please forgive my presumption."

The god sighed and reached over to poke his shoulder. "Stop that. There's nothing to forgive, you idiot. Sit up and drink your tea."

It was a command, so Daiki sat up slowly, still shaking, and picked up his tea again. His throat was really too dry to swallow, however, so he simply held the cup and watched the god, uncertain and afraid. "What are you going to do to me?"

The god raised his eyebrows again. "Do to you?"

Daiki wet his lips. "I'm—I'm your tribute."

The god gave him a cross look. "Don't be stupid. I already told you, I prefer a willing tribute."

If there was anything that was clear, it was the chain attached to Daiki's wrist to keep him here in this place, will he, nil he. "Then why are you here?" he asked, utterly baffled. "Why would you—do all this?" He gestured at the lantern and the brazier, the blanket and the tea, simple things that had nevertheless undoubtedly saved his fairly useless life.

The god's expression softened. "I heard one of my own cry out for help," he said, simple. "I am only a small god and there's little enough I can do, but I can manage this much at least." He smiled then, almost fondly. "And it seemed a fitting enough return for the pleasure I have taken in watching you grow."

Daiki stared at the god—the god on the mountain. The mountain that he'd roamed over all his life, taking an unwarranted, proprietary joy in its wildness and solitude. "Oh," he said, flushing hot with embarrassment, thinking of all the things he had done on the privacy of the mountain, from the foolish to the very intimate.

The god smiled at him again, gentle. "Don't be ashamed, Daiki. It brings me joy to see someone who loves this mountain as much as I do." He nodded at the forgotten tea in Daiki's hand. "Drink that before it cools off, and then I will see what I can do for your injury." He sipped his tea. "Then we might have something to eat, and I will keep you company until the dawn."

"Is that all you really want?" Daiki asked, still hot with embarrassment and a certain amount of healthy fear. Even the best tales about the meetings of gods and humans did not end without some mark being left on the human.

The god smiled, though there was a little twist in it that had not been present before. "It is all I expect," he said. "Rest easy. You will not come to any harm from my hands."

Daiki gazed at him, shaken to his very core by that glimpse of a god's wistfulness, and lifted the cup to his lips to drink.

Daiki did not remember falling asleep, though he must have done so at some point, lulled by the soft murmur of a god's voice, because he woke to a rough hand on his shoulder and a startled voice saying, "He's still alive!"

Daiki blinked and yawned before memory broke over him like a landslide—being left in the temple, the god, and the stories the god, Tetsuya, his name was Tetsuya, had told to pass the night away. He sat up, looking around, but Tetsuya was gone, along with all the things he had brought for Daiki's comfort. There was only him, the village headman, and the blacksmith, who was carrying a shovel and had been so surprised to find him still breathing. No, that wasn't entirely correct—there was still a strip of pale cloth wrapped around his wrist, where Tetsuya had cleaned and bound the abrasions from the iron manacles. "I cannot heal with a touch," he'd apologized, "but I think you'll find that your injuries will be much better in the morning."

Daiki flexed his hand—the ache in it had dissipated almost entirely—and turned to the two men. "Where did he go?" he asked them, urgent.

The headman frowned, his expression dark and displeased. "Who, boy?"

"Tetsuya—the god," Daiki said, though it occurred to him that the man might be wondering which villager had been his confederate. "He was here, he—" He stopped as the two men exchanged glances laden with meaning. "What?"

"The god?" the headman repeated, scowling, though there was a certain tension in his posture that hadn't been there before. "Don't tell tales you shouldn't, boy, the god on the mountain wouldn't bother with your worthless hide." He gestured at the blacksmith. "Well, go on. Get that chain off him—what?"

They both stared as Daiki showed them the pieces of the chain that Tetsuya had struck off him and the shattered staple in the floor. "He doesn't want tributes," he said, which was not precisely what Tetsuya had said after he had freed Daiki. ("I don't want any unwilling tributes," Tetsuya said, "though this has not ever stopped them from being brought to me." He paused, looking regretful. "No one has ever come here willingly.")

After a moment, the headman swallowed. "I see… well. I suppose you'll want to come down to the village and get inside, where it's warm."

Daiki didn't bother telling him that he was already plenty warm. And he pretended not to notice the wary distance that the two men kept between themselves and him as they made their way back down the mountain.

It was more difficult not to notice the way everyone kept him at an arms' length after he came down from the mountain. It was a distance tinged with respect, to be sure, but it was still distance. Daiki ignored it the best he could as he set his shoulders and tried to make himself useful for the first time in his life, as Tetsuya had suggested he do. The days had begun to lengthen, after all, and so there would be more than enough work to go around.

The village accepted his labor, uneasily at first, watching him as if they expected him to break out into a sudden fit of insanity or prophecy, or perhaps sprout wings and fly away. As the days turned warmer and the ground began to thaw, and Daiki did not do any of these things, some of their caution eased. Since his night spent in the company of the god on the mountain had not left any lasting mark on him, it came to be almost as though that night had made him into a new person in their eyes.

Perhaps he was a new person, or at least a changed one, because their acceptance, however tentative, no longer seemed as vital to him as it once had. Perhaps this was why all the stories ended the way they did, with the human changed somehow, marked out and made separate by his experiences, because the hours he'd spent with Tetsuya felt more real to Daiki than the days he spent working next to his neighbors. As the days grew longer and longer, he spent more and more time pausing in his labors and looking up at the mountain, thinking of Tetsuya and the loneliness in his eyes instead of what his fellow villagers thought of him.

At the end of the spring planting, when the village celebrated its labors with a festival, Daiki slipped away from his neighbors as the sun began to go down in order to ascend the stairs that led to Tetsuya's temple. At the top, he sat down on the steps leading up to the temple itself as the sun slipped beneath the horizon, and he waited.

Tetsuya came to join him as the moon began to rise, full and golden on the horizon, emerging from the empty temple behind Daiki and sitting down next to him without saying anything.

Daiki cleared his throat. "What if the tribute is willing?" he asked, looking down at the village nestled in the valley, glowing with the light of the festival lanterns. It was too far away for him to hear the noise of the festival, but he could imagine the laughter and the music that must be blending together.

"That's a different thing altogether." Tetsuya's voice was very quiet, barely louder than the breeze that rustled in the undergrowth around the temple.

Daiki closed his hands on his knees. "Different how?"

"If someone were to come to me willingly, I would take him to myself and keep him." Tetsuya's voice wound through the air, quiet and certain. "He would leave the mortal world behind and become as I am, only able to touch it briefly and in passing."

Daiki looked down at the village—not his village anymore, if it ever had been—and said, "The mortal world isn't all that wonderful, if you ask me."

The god smiled at him, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "It has its charms," Tetsuya said. His smile faded then. "Daiki, why do you ask me these things?"

Daiki glanced at him, sidelong. "Because this time, I'm willing."

Tetsuya turned to him and caught his hand, making Daiki look at him full on; the moonlight gleamed on his hair and over the focused, watchful expression he wore. "Daiki, are you sure?"

Daiki shivered at the intense edge in Tetsuya's voice, but he nodded. "I'm sure." He'd been sure when he'd woken up on the temple floor, and had only grown more so as spring had ripened into early summer.

Tetsuya moved, all unexpectedly, and pressed him down to the smooth-worn stone, heavier than his slight appearance suggested. He leaned over Daiki, cupping his face between his palms, and looked down at him. "Are you sure?" he asked again, urgent.

Daiki couldn't nod, so he wet his lips instead. "I'm sure," he said softly, curiously unafraid despite the part of him that suggested that he ought to be.

Tetsuya leaned closer, until his breath mingled with Daiki's. "Are you sure?" he asked for the third time, so close that Daiki could almost feel the movements of his lips shaping the words.

"I'm sure," he said softly, feeling it like an oath settling on his shoulders.

Tetsuya kissed him; the touch of his lips ran through Daiki like a sunbeam, warm as a summer's day. He arched against Tetsuya, reaching for him as every fiber of him seemed to vibrate, turning toward the god and straining after his touch. Tetsuya hummed into his mouth; Daiki groaned, trembling beneath him, suddenly and impossibly hard beneath him. "Mine," Tetsuya said, low and triumphant. His eyes were gleaming with satisfaction when he lifted his mouth from Daiki's and ran his hands down Daiki's chest, stroking his clothes aside.

Daiki gasped, clutching at Tetsuya, feeling as though he was melting beneath Tetsuya's touch, becoming malleable as hot wax. "Tetsuya," he groaned, shuddering as Tetsuya kissed his throat, his mouth burning like a brand.

"Mine," Tetsuya said again, setting his hands between Daiki's knees—that couldn't be so, Daiki thought, feeling bare skin beneath his fingers when there should have been cloth—but Tetsuya was bare against him, and Daiki was trembling, yearning for him. He arched up beneath Tetsuya, crying out as Tetsuya sank into him and sensation blazed through him, feeling himself changing, transformed by the fierce heat of Tetsuya's joy and pleasure. Tetsuya caught him close, holding him and moving against him, sinking into him so deeply that Daiki could feel him moving in his very soul. He wrapped himself around Tetsuya, groaning breathlessly with the unforgiving pleasure of it, feeling his old life burn away in the fire of it, and cried out as he came undone, shaking in Tetsuya's arms afterwards as Tetsuya pieced him back together.

He opened his eyes an unknowable amount of time later and saw the patterns of the stars overhead, subtly brighter and changed from the patterns he'd known before. Everything had changed, shifted in his perceptions of them. He made a quiet sound, one of wonder. "Is this what you see?" he asked quietly, voice hushed.

"Yes, it is." Tetsuya leaned over him, looking down at him; there was a shadow of worry in his eyes. "It can be disorienting at first—"

"It's amazing," Daiki said softly, because Tetsuya had changed, too, and flamed in his senses, unbelievably brilliant. Just a small god? he wondered. If Tetsuya was a small god, he trembled to think what one of the great gods must be. "You're amazing." He pushed himself up on his elbows and kissed Tetsuya, tasting his mouth for the first time, almost losing himself in it.

Tetsuya looked at him, wondering. "You really are willing," he said, soft and wondering. "Daiki…"

"Been a long time, huh?" Daiki said quietly.

Tetsuya smiled, only a little shaky. "Longer than you can imagine."

Daiki reached for him, lacing his fingers with Tetsuya's. "We have the time, if you want to tell me about it," he said.

Tetsuya smiled again, wondering. "Yes," he said. "We do, don't we?"

end

Comments are always lovely! (And if you liked this, may I also recommend "Your Greater Sky" by Sapphylicious over on AO3?)