(I… couldn’t resist. It ate my brain in a very immediate fashion.)

Starrk unlocks the door to his small apartment and gesture Kuchiki in, glad that he’d conned Kurosaki into letting Lilynette sleep over. He doubts the man would react well to the piece of himself he’d split off so long ago; Lilynette is bold and bright and driven, all the things that Starrk cannot fathom being, and she would undoubtedly overwhelm Kuchiki in a heartbeat.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to live like… this,” Kuchiki says diplomatically as he takes off his shoes, gaze sweeping over the cramped apartment.

“It’s easy to maintain,” Starrk answers with a shrug, closing the door behind them and kicking off his shoes. He doesn’t bother with house shoes of any sort, just wanders barefoot down the main hallway towards his ritual room. “It’s not like Lilynette or I really need to eat human food anyway. Or do much here besides sleeping.”

“Lilynette…?”

“Subordinate.” He’s not about to get into the peculiarities of his existence, so ‘subordinate’ is good enough. “She’s not here right now.”

Kuchiki’s shoulders relax at the reassurance, and he follows Starrk down the hallway willingly enough. The first door they pass gets a curious look, as do the second and third, but he lags behind a pace as Starrk sets his hand on the door at the end of the hallway.

Starrk leaves Kuchiki to his nerves. He can’t cleanse a human mage’s soul the way actual human mages can, and a mage like Kuchiki should know that.

(His way is deeper, more invasive.)

(He is a Hollow, a being born of magic and soul, a being who lives on magic and souls and emotional resonances.)

(He does not simply sweep bindings and contamination away, he devours them.)

Starrk paces the perimeter of the room, assuring himself that the wards are in place and charged. He doesn’t need a ritual circle to do what he plans — another difference between himself and a human mage — but the wards are important for… many reasons, privacy the least of all.

Content with the state of the wards, he pulls open his shirt and tosses it aside; Kurosaki would be disappointed if he hurt Kuchiki in any way, which means he needs as much skin contact as Kuchiki will allow. He needs the clarity that closeness brings, especially given how tangled Kuchiki’s soul felt.

(Unlike the cleansing that human mages perform, he could permanently damage Kuchiki’s soul with a moment of inattention.)

(He’d rather not face Kurosaki with that hanging over his head.)

(So much for being a terrifying Lord of Death…)

When he turns around, Kuchiki is standing just inside the room, eyes wide and gaze fixed on Starrk. His gaze trails down Starrk’s bare chest, color blooming across his cheeks, then abruptly jerks back up to focus on Starrk’s face. “Is there a reason for this?” he all but demands, outrage covering embarrassment.

“Relax, I’m not going to mount you unless you want me to. I prefer my mates willing,” Starrk says with a casual shrug.

Kuchiki makes a strange, strangled noise and covers his face with his hands, blushing red right to the tips of his ears.

(Oh, that’s… beautiful.)

(If only Kuchiki was actually interested in him…)

Starrk sighs and moves towards the center of the room, tucking his hands in the pockets of his pants. “My way needs skin contact,” he explains as he comes to a stop. “The more I can have, the easier it is to do what I need without hurting you.”

Kuchiki takes a deep breath and straightens, forcing himself to meet Starrk’s gaze despite the blush that still stains his cheeks. “Very well. So long as you take no liberties…”

“Told you, prefer my mates willing.” Starrk sits on the floor and nods at the spot in front of him. “Close the door behind you so the wards activate and get over here.”

Kuchiki hesitates, then nudges the door closed and crosses the space between them, hands clenched at his side. He sinks to the floor in front of Starrk and wavers, gaze skimming over Starrk’s bare chest again before darting up to his face.

“Top off and back to me.”

Orders seem to be the way to go, Starrk decides; Kuchiki gives him a look for it, but turns around and fumbles open his shirt, shrugging it off and letting it drop to the floor.

“Better?” Kuchiki asks, voice rough and spine ramrod straight.

It looks uncomfortable.

“Yeah, that’ll do.” He tosses Kuchiki’s shirt aside and inches closer, setting both hands on the other’s shoulders. Muscles tense beneath his hands and he can feel Kuchiki’s magic trembling with nerves, but the man doesn’t lash out or reject his touch.

It’s surprising how far the man is willing to go despite his fear.

He breathes a sigh and smooths his hands across Kuchiki’s shoulders, familiarizing himself with the hum of Kuchiki’s power and the pulse of his soul. Both are choked by the weight of bindings and dark intent, their resonance dimmed and their reach limited. How the man is still alive under it all is either a minor miracle or a testament to his strength.

(Or both.)

The darkness is the easiest to devour, made up of hundreds of minor curses and unfocused emotional traces. It’s the sort of thing that Kuchiki should have been cleansing himself of every month, the sort of thing that everyone who uses magic cleanses themselves of on a regular basis, and the fact that Kuchiki hasn’t is… strange.

Kuchiki’s breath catches as Starrk runs his hands down the man’s back, but he doesn’t sway into it. His body remains steady, unmoved despite the touch and the ever-lightening burden, and his head remains poised.

Minor bindings shatter under Starrk’s touch and he devours the shards along with more traces of ill intent, feeling his hunger wane with every bit of strength he eats.

(It’s been so long since he was faced with such a feast.)

(Years bound to the human realm, years of following Kurosaki’s will…)

Starrk compresses the power he’s eaten and feeds it into his circlet for later. There’s no telling when he’ll find such a feast again.

“I thought the more skin contact the better,” Kuchiki bites out as Starrk continues running his hands across his shoulders and back. “If this was all you needed, then why take off your own shirt?”

“Could just have done it to make you more comfortable,” Starrk says idly, thumbs digging into Kuchiki’s tense muscles in an effort to get the man to relax. Not that he expects it to work, but… he can certainly try his best.

Minor bindings and ill intent are one thing, but he can already sense the true bindings emerging from beneath the mess and he knows they’re going to be trouble. If Kuchiki tries to resist him, even unconsciously, he could hurt the man without meaning to.

(How troublesome…)

“Why does that feel like a lie.”

Starrk shrugs and continues to try and coax Kuchiki into relaxing. There’s very little left that he can easily consume, but he refuses to go further without at least attempting to make the next part easier on both of them. “Because it is. I don’t need much for what I’ve been clearing out so far, but when I finish with that…”

Kuchiki swallows and rolls his shoulders, one hand coming up to rub at his temple. “You’ll need more.”

“I’ll need more,” Starrk agrees easily. “We could always stop here if you’re uncomfortable. I’ve cleared out the mess of accumulated emotions and loose or unaimed bindings, which should make things easier for you. Though I thought you human mages had a routine cleansing…?”

“I… Hisana… When Hisana became sick, she couldn’t…” Kuchiki’s breath shudders through his body and he unbends enough to sway into Starrk’s touch. “She was never powerful to begin with,” he admits softly, warily, as if expecting Starrk to react poorly. “When she became sick, she couldn’t help me anymore, and after she died I just… I couldn’t bring myself to ask any of the other clan mages to help. They were all– they’d never liked my choice of partner to begin with and I… I couldn’t face their reaction, much less let them touch my magic so intimately.”

“Reasonable.” If it had been him, Starrk wouldn’t have wanted to deal with people like that either. Kuchiki’s decision might even have been for the best depending upon who in his clan was responsible for the mess of magical chains around his soul. Giving someone such easy access when he was at his worst would have been like handing over his very will. “Still should have found someone. Your magic’s halfway stagnant under all of this.”

Kuchiki scoffs and shakes his head. “You think I was not aware of that? I was working on a way to handle it myself.”

“There’s a reason cleansing requires a partner, even for us Hollows,” Starrk reminds Kuchiki, jabbing a finger into the man’s back as he does. He’s seen the result of fools trying to self-cleanse before and it never turns out pretty: best case, someone powerful enough can untangle them before their powers implode, worse case they just implode. He’s lucky that Lilynette counts as separate enough to enable them to cleanse each other, because otherwise he wouldn’t have survived long enough to become a Lord.

“Just get on with it before I change my mind,” Kuchiki grumbles.

The words are reluctant but there’s no hesitance in Kuchiki’s powers when Starrk presses his palm to the man’s back and tests his welcome. “You know, I’m starting to think you’re a tsundere,” Starrk murmurs in amusement.

Kuchiki bristles like a cat about to strike but Starrk doesn’t give him any time to react further; he spreads his legs and inches as close as he can to Kuchiki before leaning in and pulling him against his chest. He closes his eyes and buries his nose in the nape of Kuchiki’s neck, inhaling the man’s scent, resisting the urge to bite—

Starrk reins in his instincts and splays one hand across Kuchiki’s chest and the other across his stomach, vaguely amused by the man’s racing heartbeat and shallow breaths. “Take a deep breath,” he orders, not drawing his face away from where it’s buried in Kuchiki’s hair. “Relax.”

“A bit hard to do when you’re draped over me like this,” Kuchiki bites out, but does force his breathing to be deeper, steadier, which helps his heart-rate to settle. It’s still faster than Starrk would like, but it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to hammer its way out of Kuchiki’s chest anymore.

“All the better to eat you,” Starrk jokes, then huffs a sigh at the way Kuchiki goes stiff in his arms. “I still have no interest in an unwilling mate, Kuchiki, and the only thing I’m about to eat is the bindings wrapped around your soul.”

“Hollows eat souls.”

“Hollows eat magic,” Starrk corrects absently as he worms his powers into Kuchiki’s and starts to focus on the first binding he can find. “There’s magic in everything. It’s just… more expedient to eat souls because souls are magic. But things like emotions or accumulated malice or bindings… those are viable too.” He runs mental fingers over the chain, searching for a weakness, for an opening he can use, and smirks as he finds exactly that.

(There will never be a chain he cannot break.)

Kuchiki shudders in his grasp as the first binding shatters like glass, one hand reaching up to settle atop Starrk’s. “Y-you… can live off of… this?” he gasps as Starrk presses in, presses closer to devour every last shard.

“Mmmhmm,” Starrk hums in agreement, carefully compressing the freed magic into his circlet before reaching out to find the next binding. “Been living off of emotions from people around town, everything I clean off of Kurosaki and his sisters every month, and whatever Kurosaki feels like gifting me. This is a feast that’ll last me months.”

Kuchiki laughs, the sound rusty and clearly unexpected, and tightens his hand around Starrk’s. It’s enough to make Starrk lift his head and move to peer over Kuchiki’s shoulder at his face, wondering what the hell he said that was so amusing to the man.

“Only Kurosaki,” Kuchiki says when he gets his laughter under control, turning his head to give Starrk a faint, wry smile. It’s a tiny glimpse into who Kuchiki is under all the noble poise and twisted powers, and Starrk can’t help but feel a spark of possession rear its head at the sight.

(His.)

(He uncovered this.)

(His.)

“Grows on you, doesn’t he?” Starrk asks with a smirk, mentally shaking off the urge to claim the man. Unknowing is still unwilling, and he’s not going to tread that line. “I know. I’ve been here since he was ten.”

Kuchiki blinks, brows furrowing and lips pursing as his gaze turns calculating. “Five years,” he murmurs in surprise. “Five years and not a single noble clan or high-ranked mage raised the alarm about a Lord of Death living amongst us.”

Starrk shrugs and tucks his face back into the hair at the nape of Kuchiki’s neck, inhaling the man’s scent and letting it settle his instincts. He reaches out to resume cleansing Kuchiki’s soul, and says, “Kurosaki didn’t want trouble, just a friend. I stuck around because he was powerful.”

He stuck around because Kurosaki could stand in his presence when so few others could. He stuck around because something was better than nothing, and Kurosaki was offering something that no one ever had: friendship. He was desperate enough for anything resembling companionship that a small human child could compel his loyalty with only a few words.

He likes to think he got the better end of the deal.

(These days he doesn’t have to worry about his strength killing everyone around him, but even so…)

(Even so, he refuses to turn his back on Kurosaki.)

Starrk does wait for Kuchiki to respond, just twines their powers together and feels the ripples of unease spread and fade away as he hunts down the next binding. He’s surprised Kuchiki is as accepting as he is but it’s… nice. It makes things easy.

“How many more?” Kuchiki wonders aloud, letting his hand fall back into his lap.

“Too many,” is the only answer Starrk can give.

(They wind around each other, so intertwined that Starrk knows he’s going to have to rip apart many of them at once if he hopes to free Kuchiki without injury.)

(Some are so old he suspects they’ve been there since the man was a child.)

(Sometimes he truly cannot comprehend humans…)

Kuchiki takes a deep breath. Another. Lets his head tip forward and his shoulders sag and his spine bend. He relaxes in Starrk’s grip, magic going loose in a way Starrk’s never felt before. “Get rid of everything,” he orders.

Starrk chuckles and presses his nose against the back of Kuchiki’s neck. “With pleasure,” he growls, pleased by the shiver that drags out of Kuchiki.

He’s going to enjoy this feast.

(And if he’s maybe keeping a mental tally of every binding he destroys, well…)

(Kurosaki is the only one who’ll ever know for sure.)