Chapter Text
Kenma typically wakes up groggy. It’s his least favorite part of the day.
But this time he snaps into consciousness faster than you can say “B-quick”, and it’s so much worse.
He’s not in his bed, first of all. Or in any bed, which rules out being at Kuroo’s house because Kuroo always made him go to sleep in a proper bed. Normally, the best explanation would be that he stayed up too late gaming and fell asleep on his own floor, but—
—well, the blindfold and handcuffs kinda eliminate that option.
“Oof, he’s awake.” Pretty sure that’s Inuoka.
“Don’t feel bad for him! The little demon’s been manipulating us!” Ah, Tora. He never did get over Kenma’s attitude toward the game.
“Don’t call him that!” That one is definitely Kuroo. He sounds irritated. Heartwarming.
“Captain, you know he’s probably in your head making you say that, right?” No, wait, that’s Inuoka. The first voice might’ve been Yaku. Is everyone here?
“He wouldn’t do that…” Now Kuroo’s voice is tinged with doubt. Kenma decides now is as good a time as any to alert his teammates that he is awake.
“If I thought you wanted that, I would,” he cuts in before Kuroo can continue.
A small gasp emerges from the murmur of voices in front of him. Kenma rolls his eyes behind the blindfold. “What’s your plan here?” If they’d gotten organized enough to waylay him and trap him, surely there was a “next”?
“Uh, make you stop?” That one sounds like Shibayama. Yep, the entirety of fucking Nekoma VBC is in the room with him apparently.
Oh my god. If Kenma had freedom of movement in his limbs, he’d have facepalmed. “How?” He asks, forcing his voice into casual curiosity.
“Threats, mostly.” That’s Lev. Kenma grins internally. Lev is one of the few Kenma never needed to force into honesty. He just says whatever is on his mostly empty mind anyway, no hypnosis necessary.
But Kenma had put him under just like everyone else. He knows better than most the necessity of covering one’s bases. Which is why he’s kind of confused about how this is happening. Everyone on the team was under his trance when he needed them. And none of them, in the months he’d had them, had ever even questioned it.
It’s not as if he’s doing terrible things to them or making them do terrible things to others. It’s literally for volleyball. The only time he’s ever even approached the dark side of this morally grey hobby was…
God, he hopes Shouyou has nothing to do with this.
“What, to kick me off the team? Do it. I’ve been on the fence about it since last year.” He can almost feel Kuroo wilt at his words. It’s a bluff anyway. Kenma actually enjoys volleyball now, and he’d hate to have to give it up just because his teammates want their free will back. “I just wanted to make it easier for us to communicate during games. Is that so bad?”
A…partial lie. Being able to direct their movements on the court definitely does help during matches, but none of his teammates being able to lie to him is a perk that can (and has) extended beyond the court on which they play.
With any luck, it’s what gets him out of this, too.
“Be honest,” he says, clearly enunciating one of the few off-court triggers he has for these boys. Three, to be precise. He’s serious when he says it’s mostly about volleyball. “How did you figure it out?”
Be Honest is not a truth spell or anything. It triggers the loss of inhibition. Sometimes that means honesty, sometimes violence or…other primitive behaviors. Anything holding someone back from saying or doing something disappears. It’s not something he can use in a game or when tempers are high—he knows he’d get his ass handed to him. But for a simple question, it’s usually pretty safe. He can’t induce a trance in everyone in the room at once with his hands literally tied behind his back, so this is his best option.
“I just said that it’s real easy to do what you say in a game, senpai,” Lev says dreamily. “Don’t even have to think about it.”
“And this idiot doing complex plays without thinking is suspicious as hell,” Yaku finishes.
Kenma wants to laugh. He was found out because his strategies were working too well?
“So you want it to stop being easy to communicate on the court.” It’s not a question.
“Yes!” Tora’s voice yells from his right. “Wait, no! We just wanna be able to think for ourselves!”
“You can clearly do that already if you’re kidnapping me like this,” Kenma responds drily. He pauses. “Where are we anyway?”
“Equipment closet,” Inuoka volunteers.
Ah. He should’ve known by the smell. “Well, that’s good at least. How about I strike a deal?”
“Oh?” His favorite of Kuroo’s grins is actually audible in his voice as he steps to the bargaining table. “Do tell.”
Kenma grins. Got ‘em.
“You know I don’t like crowds, so why don’t we talk one-on-one? As equals.”
It’s so much easier to reinforce commands when he can devote his full attention to a single person.
“Team conflicts are natural. Remember when we fought last year, Tora? It’s normal.”
He’s perhaps guilty of overusing the It’s Normal trigger to get people to stop bothering him about random shit. Teammates question why Kenma isn’t participating in free practice? It’s normal. Why does Kenma play video games while everyone around him is talking? It’s normal, don’t question it.
The key to this one is not disrupting people’s direct beliefs about the world. In such a mild trance as Kenma has put over his team, anything that transgresses their version of the world will be rejected. It’s a fun game he’s made for himself to logic his way into “normalcy,” but this is the first time he’s truly had to test it.
The trigger works for most of them on the first pass, he can tell. He even hears the scuffle of shoes he assumes is one of his friends coming to take the damn blindfold off.
Unfortunately, whoever it is is stopped by someone. “Yeah, but controlling us?” That’s Yaku’s voice. “We’re a team. We all have equal say!”
Oh, Yaku. He’s fun. But in this circumstance, he has a fatal flaw: he, like Kenma and every other member of their esteemed Nekoma VBC, believes in teamwork. “Teams are made up of different roles. My role, as Kuroo loves to remind you, is the brain. I come up with a strategy and we all work together to implement it. It’s normal.”
“I guess that’s true,” Yaku said at length, and suddenly Kenma can see.
The blindfold hangs in Kuroo’s hands. “Sorry for getting aggressive. I should’ve come to you on my own first. Team members fight sometimes.”
It’s back and forth as to whether Kuroo’s long history with him gives him an advantage or disadvantage in resisting Kenma, but for the moment, it’s clearly working in his favor. “Well, why don’t Kuroo and I talk first, guys? It’s normal to take things up with the captain during team conflicts, right?”
And it is.
***
After crossing whatever intangible line he’d crossed with Shouyou, it’s much easier to justify what happens next.
“Kuroo, are you upset that I’ve been trying to control the team? Be honest.” He reiterates the command because he’s not sure how long it lasts under such a light trance. Thankfully, he’s about to rectify that. He just has to get Kuroo to cooperate.
Kuroo frowns, eyes slightly dilated. “I mean, not really? You were always the chessmaster type anyway, and I don’t think you’d ever do anything to hurt the team.”
Yep, Kuroo was going to be an easy sell. “Oh, good. Do you think you could help me practice it then? It’s normal for us to practice together, and I think getting better at this will help the team.”
Kuroo nods. “Yeah, sure. What do you need me to do?”
Kenma’s getting excited now. Time to really flex his new skills. “Nothing complicated. Just lie down and listen.” He keeps his voice smooth and low. They’re still in the equipment closet, which isn’t ideal, but Kenma wasn’t going to press his luck with anyone until he had deepened the whole team’s trance.
Starting with Kuroo. “Let your muscles relax. I bet you’ve been tense ever since the team found out. Loosen that tension. Think about how my voice sounds. How it feels. Telling you it’s okay to relax. Deep breaths. In…and out…”
Oh man, he’s already getting hard. He glances at Kuroo to see if he’s noticed.
Kuroo’s eyelids are fluttering, but he forces them open at the lengthening silence. “Oh. Should I not close my eyes?” He asks, suddenly apprehensive.
“You can do whatever you want to do,” Kenma soothes. “We go at your pace. I just want you to feel comfortable and trust me.”
“I do trust you, Kenma.” Kuroo’s voice is a hazy drawl. He’s already getting into it.
“I am so grateful for that. You can let go around me. No need to think about anything else, just relaxing, letting your breaths get slower…deeper. Empty your mind. No thoughts, just my voice…”
Kuroo’s eyes are closed now. “It’s dark, isn’t it? But darkness is good. It swallows your thoughts. Let them fade, Kuroo. You don’t need them. Keep your eyes closed so nothing can take you away from this blissful emptiness. You’re so relaxed, it’s hard to open them anyway. You’d try, but you don’t want to, do you?”
“…no,” Kuroo borderline moans. Kenma barely prevents a sharp gasp from escaping him. He presses a hand to his now-very-tight shorts.
“No need to talk. After all, you’d need to think to speak, and there are no thoughts here. Just you and me. The darkness and my voice, holding you, telling you what you need to know. You don’t need to move, just listen to what my voice says.”
He’s close now, Kenma knows. Just a little deeper.
“You’re happy here, aren’t you, Kuroo? I know you are because I know your thoughts. They are here with me in the darkness. You’re so relaxed, you can’t move, can’t feel, can only speak when I ask it because my words are your thoughts. You are mine.” He wets his suddenly dry lips. “Say it.”
“I am yours.” Kuroo’s voice emerges from deep in his chest, a rumble that tingles along Kenma’s spine.
Kuroo’s shorts are bulging too now, hm.
Time to reinforce his triggers. “Kuroo, you know you can be honest with me when I ask, right? You feel so safe telling me anything. Your hidden thoughts and secrets, things you would tell no one else. You can tell me. I already know anyway because I am in your head, so you can share those dark parts of yourself with me. You want to so badly whenever I tell you to be honest.”
He pauses. “Can you do it now? Be honest.”
Kuroo’s passive growl emerges yet again. “I want you to control me. I like it.”
Kenma’s cock twitches. Oh? “I know, Kuroo. I know what you want. You have only to ask for it.”
“Please,” Kuroo whispers.
“Please what, Kuroo?”
“Please, sir.”
Kenma has to grab the base of his cock to prevent himself from coming. That certainly isn’t what he’d expected, but he isn’t complaining.
“You like to call me ‘sir,’ don’t you?” Kenma presses further. “You like to do what I say and obey me. It turns you on.”
Kuroo only moans, but Kenma needs a clear answer. If he’s going to go further than he did with Shouyou, he needs to be sure.
“Tell me what you want, Kuroo.”
“I want you to fuck me,” Kuroo breathes. He can’t move his limbs or open his eyes, but his body is shaking, and a wet spot has appeared on his shorts. “I want to be your slave, suck you off, be dominated. I want to be yours.”
Kenma runs a finger down Kuroo’s neck, playing at his collarbone. “Can you feel this, Kuroo?
“N-no.”
Kenma’s eyes light up. “If I want you to feel something, you feel it, Kuroo,” he commands sternly.
“Yes, sir,” Kuroo moans.
“I want you to feel me touching you.” He pauses. “But you are not allowed to come.”
The whine that comes out of Kuroo’s mouth is filthy, but it is swiftly followed by another obedient, “Yes, sir.”
“In fact,” Kenma muses, “I think you feel my tongue on you right now.” He’s never had someone this deep in trance before—or this amenable. He’s going to see just what is possible. Lucky Kuroo. “You feel it tracing the veins of your cock, sucking and hot and wet. How does it feel, Kuroo?”
Kuroo’s nostrils are flaring, body tense with pleasure as he hisses out, “So good.” As soon as he says it, he’s biting his lip on another moan.
Kenma wants to see those lips wrapped around his cock. Kuroo would do it, he knows now.
But they’re still in the equipment closet, and Kenma has more work to do. “Remember how good you feel right now, Kuroo. Let it wash through you. Only I can make you feel this good. You can feel this good any time you want, as long as you listen to me. As long as you do what I say. Doing what I say feels right. It’s normal. If I tell you it’s normal, then you know everything is fine and to keep doing what I say.”
Kuroo’s poor erection is leaking all over his shorts now. Kenma shakes his head. “Let’s try it. It’s normal to want to suck off your best friend. If you want to ask for permission sometime, you only have to ask.”
Kuroo, go-getter that he is, immediately takes the initiative. “Can I suck you off, sir?” He pants.
Kenma considers for a moment. “Not yet.” Still a few more triggers to get past, and he doesn’t know how long they’ll have in this closet uninterrupted. His teammates won’t bother them, but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t come along.
He’s been holding his best friend on the precipice of pleasure for a while, but the logistics of clean-up are worrisome, so… “You can no longer feel me touching you, Kuroo. You can relax. You feel drowsy and warm, like you’re soaking in a bath that’s the perfect temperature.”
Kuroo’s harsh pants slowly subside. He’s still pitching a tent in his shorts, but that’s okay, Kenma likes it. “My voice is still your thoughts, telling you how to feel, guiding you to do the right thing. You never have to worry about anything else as long as you just listen.” He brings out the last of his previous triggers. “If I tell you just listen, you know nothing else is as important as focusing on me and what I am telling you. You know I’m right and smarter than you and doing this for your own good. You will never falter or stumble as long as you just listen to me.”
He doesn’t know how necessary this command will be once he has done deep trance, so he doesn’t bother to test it, but it can’t hurt to reinforce it. In the past, it has helped his team to focus, and now that focus and devotion will intensify. But time to move on to the most important goal of this session (which, believe it or not, wasn’t about getting off): the trance trigger.
Watching Kuroo lie peacefully in front of him, Kenma muses over the exact words to use. Something relatively innocuous is usually the goal, but he’ll need to be careful with this one because he doesn’t want to accidentally trigger it. This command will be to plunge him back into trance in an instant. A backdoor mind editing protocol, if you will.
“Just listen closely, Kuroo,” he says when he’s decided. “When I tell you to be good, you’ll come back to this lovely dark place where everything feels so good and you don’t have to think. You won’t need to do anything but feel my voice in your head and do what it says. If I tell you be good, you’ll come back here even when you’re not actually here. Even if you’re standing up. Even if your eyes are open. You will be in a trance so deep nothing matters but my words.” Kenma pauses. “Open your eyes.”
Kuroo’s eyes slowly flicker open. Kenma leans forward to look: his pupils are blown out, making his normally dark eyes pitch black. “What do you see?”
“The dark place,” Kuroo says, sounding pleased.
Kenma grins. “Good.” Then he realizes he still has to bring Kuroo out of trance. He doesn’t need a trigger for that right now, but this is another process that it may be helpful to have a shortcut for. He sighs. “Okay, last thing.”
Kuroo says nothing, blissed out and staring into space. Kenma half wants to laugh, half wants to sit on his face. He clears his throat. “Whenever we’re done, you will sadly have to leave my side and go on living your normal life. You won’t remember the things that have happened in this dark place. It will be like a dream you can’t quite hold onto. When it’s time to wake up from that dream, I will…” Hmm, the cliche is a snap of the fingers, but Kenma’s not all that great a snapper. “…pinch you.”
Kenma grins at his own little joke. “When I pinch you, you will wake from your lovely dark trance and forget everything that happened while you were under. You will always feel it when I pinch you and know it is time to go back to the rest of the world.”
Sighing, Kenma sits back and adjusts himself. Kuroo’s erection has finally gone down, but Kenma’s still rock hard. The band of his shorts presses the head of his cock against his stomach in a tantalizing bit of friction, but it’s better than going out with an obvious hard-on. “Stand up, Kuroo.”
Kuroo stands dazedly, and Kenma pinches him. The blinking, startled expression on his face makes him laugh.
“Dude, did I just pass out on you?” He rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, guess I wasn’t much help practicing your technique.”
Kenma shrugs. “You take these little cat naps all the time. It’s normal.”
Kuroo chuckles. “Guess so.”
Time for a test. “I think the guys are waiting to hear what you decided, but first, you gotta be good.”
“Oka—” Kuroo wavers on his feet, staring straight ahead of him.
“How do you feel?”
“Good. Safe.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“Who does your thinking for you?”
“You, sir.”
Kenma grins and pinches his friend. This is gonna be fun.
***