Kamen Rider Kabuto Fic: Paying Attention
Title: Paying Attention
Fandom: Kamen Rider Kabuto
Pairings: Kagami/Tendou
Rating: Somewhere between R and NC-17.
Warnings/spoilers: Post-series, at least some casual spoilers.
Author's Notes: So!, I thought, I've had a rough week. I'll write a short pwp for myself, who's not cheered up by porn? Except, it took them almost 2500 words to even just get to the makeouts and then another 1500 words to wrap things up, and it's only my second fic in the fandom, so I'm still nervous as hell about getting them right but hopefully this is a bit closer to how I generally see them. (The problem, of course, being that you could make a case for switching around which one of them is the clueless one sometimes. orz) ....still half-pwp, but it kind of grew at least something resembling characterization around that.
Shut up.
(Also, the style of this is done deliberately. Shut up.)
Paying Attention
It had surprised Kagami how much easier it was to read Tendou than he'd originally thought, once he had started to pay attention.
Certain moods had always been difficult to miss; when Tendou was staring at you with icy coldness because you just admitted that you honestly sometimes liked those microwavable meals with the cellophane wrap that you peeled back before you set it on high for three minutes, it wasn't hard to figure out why you were being ignored for the rest of the evening. Or when Tendou got up and left because you were too tired from a long day at work to do much more than flop onto your own sofa with a beer and maybe, if you had maybe just a little smidge of energy left, you might actually reach over to get the remote and turn on the television, it wasn't hard to understand why he was in a bad mood the next day and kept making pointed comments about how lazy you were.
(It wasn't that Kagami was trying to ignore him, but unlike Tendou, mere mortals could only do so much before they had to pass out in a dead sleep, sorry.)
But it had taken him an embarrassingly long time to figure out certain other behaviors of Tendou. Which was sort of okay, though, because Kagami had also figured out that Tendou wasn't aware of half of them himself.
*
It started when Tendou had been kind of especially obnoxious about snatching away the finishing move against a rogue Worm they'd fought together. Most of the Worm left after Negishi's defeat hadn't been interested in continuing their cause, they'd kept to themselves and not made any trouble so the Riders had left them alone in return, but a few stragglers still kept mimicking and killing people, so they still kept fighting. It was rare, usually one of them was enough, and Kagami had volunteered to go (since Tendou had been implying that was wasn't doing the work he was supposed to be doing again) but Tendou had followed him anyway.
When Gatack's double caliburs crackled with the energy of a Rider Cutting, easily in position to do a final strike against the rogue Worm, Kabuto took the chance to slide between them with a powerful Rider Kick to its head. He landed gracefully, the explosion backlighting him dramatically and Kabuto's faceless mask staring in Kagami's direction.
"Oi, Tendou...."
Kagami was never sure how he did it, but somehow Kabuto's mask positively radiated superiority. "You were too messy, you should conserve your energy more, make your moves more worthy of the fight. I can handle the Worm, because I'm the one who--"
Maybe on another day, Kagami would have risen to the bait--it wasn't like they needed to be hyper-efficient fighters anymore, there were a handful left at best now, they could afford to play around a little more, Kagami swore the Gatack Zecter liked to play with its prey before finally destroying it and he indulged that sometimes--but he'd been tired. And it was really, really not the first time Kagami had compared Tendou's posturing to a childish need to be superior.
"Jeez," he snapped, only half-noticing that he'd cut Tendou off. "You're like a--" Like a little kid trying to impress everyone on the schoolyard playground he'd been about to say.
Kabuto dissolved around Tendou, the Kabuto Zecter buzzing merrily off into the sky, and Kagami was glad that the Gatack Zecter stuck around a few moments longer, it wouldn't have been a good idea to let Tendou see the tired, wry smile he'd had to fight down.
Even across the empty field where they'd battled the Worm, Tendou's eyes were electric and sharp, watching him carefully. "Like a what?"
Kagami let Gatack go, suddenly wondering why Tendou was even there. Usually, Kagami just shrugged whenever Tendou did something strange--Tendou was Tendou. No matter how much he'd finally come to understand about the guy, he was still kind of mystifying and bizarrely complicated and Kagami thought he was maybe doing it a little bit on purpose sometimes. He often showed up wherever Kagami was (or had somehow gotten there first, which Kagami still thought he was also totally doing on purpose) seemingly just to make a point of showing how great and wonderful he was.
Like a--
Like a little kid who wants to show off how great they are, Kagami thought again. (He'd often suspected that, for all Tendou was a genius at many things, he was a little slow in the social development department.) Like a little kid who wanted to show off how great they were to the person whom they--
".....nothing," he finally settled on, turning the new thought over in his head.
It wasn't that he didn't know he was attracted to Tendou and that Tendou was attracted to him. There'd been too many moments where they nearly came together, too many moments when Kagami had almost reached out to touch Tendou, to kiss him, to hold him in an embrace when he was falling apart, and Tendou hadn't pushed him away.. They'd always been interrupted and Kagami hadn't brought it up later because he suspected Tendou wasn't ready to admit it yet, that he had accepted Kagami's friendship (finally, Kagami thought) but that was different from the something more that they were headed towards. And there was no schedule for this, they had plenty of time, besides.
It also wasn't anything new to realize that Tendou had a competitive streak and hated to not be the best at everything in the room. The best on the planet, really. He made a point of showing off and making sure Kagami knew how great he was.
But, Kagami wondered suddenly, was it that Tendou... was it that Tendou wanted everyone to know he was the best or that he wanted Kagami to know that he was the best? Eventually Kagami decided that it was both, but that was enough to realize that maybe Tendou was trying to get his attention and Kagami thought that he wasn't doing that on purpose, not consciously.
Tendou had been extra sharp and critical the entire way back to La Salle, but Kagami hadn't minded. He'd kept the new little insight to himself for awhile, simply paying more attention to Tendou from then on.
*
So when Tendou--out of the clear blue, with no warning whatsoever--had been in a bad mood nearly a week later, Kagami was smart enough to know that Tendou wanted him to figure something out, but wasn't going to say it directly to him. He'd tried the direct approach--why couldn't Tendou simply tell him what the problem was so he could fix it?
Tendou had given him an annoyed, closed-off look, arms loosely crossed while he stared at Kagami over the counter at La Salle. "There are things you need to figure out for yourself," he'd said coldly.
Which might as well have been If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you., Kagami thought. (Not that he said it aloud. Not ever. He at least had that much sense.)
It had taken him another week to figure it out (Tendou had been acting weird because he wanted Kagami to move to an apartment closer to work and the restaurant and the Tendou household now that his lease was up, so that he could be around to help watch over Juka and Hiyori more, especially while Tendou was gone and how the hell was Kagami supposed to have guessed that?) and by then he'd spent a lot of time thinking about Tendou's behavior.
Like how much easier it would have been if Tendou had just been straightforward (nothing new there) or even just picked out whatever place he thought he wanted. But Tendou never did that, not really. He kept pushing and prodding until Kagami finally figured out what he wanted and just did it, but... Kagami didn't think he was doing that part on purpose, not really.
But it was like Tendou wanted him to just do something sometimes and....
Well. The next time Tendou had worn the sleeveless tank that showed off both his long, long arms and the sharp lines of his collarbone, along with the khaki pants that Kagami really kind of loved on him, the ones that made him think a whole lot of really impolite thoughts about Tendou's ass with the way it looked in those pants and those long, long legs of his, Kagami thought that maybe he really ought to just do something.
That was who he was, right? The kind of person who did what they thought was right and charged forward, even if they were an idiot about it.
*
There was never going to be a better opportunity. Tendou had spent the last hour implying that he was slow for not catching on to what he wanted (it was obvious what he had been getting at, since he was planning a trip to France and of course he'd want Kagami closer to his sisters to watch over them, even if Kagami was barely worthy of watching over Tendou's potted plants, much less his precious baby sisters, and that was totally clear what he'd been getting at, was the gist of what Kagami got out of his pointed barbs) and wearing that really low-cut t-shirt that Kagami liked and really didn't seem like he was going to stop any time soon.
So, when Tendou had leaned back against the front counter during a lull in the workday (Yumiko-san was on vacation and Hiyori had gone to the market--Kagami half-thought he wanted to go with her, at least she was reasonable in her criticisms--and the restaurant was quiet and empty for now) and started to say, "Even the smallest of plants that have trouble reaching the sunlight can--", Kagami decided it was the best possible moment he was going to get.
He'd stood up directly in front of Tendou and leaned forward to softly kiss him, just to make him shut up and because... because--
It was hardly more than a light touch of lips, a precursor for something more, but it was enough that Tendou froze in mid-sentence and blinked in shock at him.
Just for a moment. Then he'd recovered and his expression grew cloudy, not quite dangerous, but only a hair's breadth away. "Kagami, you..."
Kagami had had a whole explanation ready in his head. He liked Tendou and he had to tell him because Tendou was going to France soon and Kagami didn't need an answer right now, but he wanted Tendou to think about it seriously while he was gone and that he knew Tendou was his friend and it would be okay if Tendou really didn't want more, but Kagami knew that wasn't true, that he did want the same thing, so just think about it, all right?
Every last one of those thoughts flew out of Kagami's head while Tendou stared at him and what sounded like thunder boomed in the distance.
"I'm tired of waiting," he said simply instead. "So, Tendou...."
And Tendou was staring at him, eyes shuttered and unreadable, but obviously the wheels were turning in Tendou's head, like he was trying to figure out how exactly he was going to kill Kagami for this and was that the sound of buzzing he heard? Kagami was kind of thinking that maybe he should go, he didn't really want to find out if it was just the ringing in his own ears or the Kabuto Zecter coming when Tendou called, but his stomach had dropped somewhere to around floor level and he probably shouldn't leave without it and--
Something shifted in Tendou's expression, something softened just enough that the high-pitched whine in the back of Kagami's head that was urging him to call for the Gatack Zecter now now now right now faded, and Tendou didn't even seem ready to punch him in the face.
"Kagami..." he said in a low voice, which made Kagami think for a minute that he was going to be rejected and that was almost worse, despite that he knew he wasn't entirely wrong about this, and Tendou's hand curled loosely around his arm. "How long have you been planning that?"
Kagami held himself still and tried not to lean into Tendou, no matter how much he wanted to. "I didn't plan it." Tendou's look was sharp enough to make him almost step back. "But I've wanted to for a long time."
Then, like it was in slow motion, Tendou relaxed and whatever had been propping Kagami up seemed to melt away so that he was pulled flush up against Tendou, within easy reach for Tendou to continue the kiss, opening up against Kagami when he kissed back.
"You're slow," Tendou murmured against him, which Kagami knew was true, but at least he wasn't the only one.
*
Once he'd figured out that Tendou had always been pushing him into just doing what Kagami thought was right and what he really wanted instead of trying to just guess what Tendou was getting at, things progressed a whole lot more smoothly. Kagami still felt like Tendou gave him the world's biggest headache sometimes, but at least there were new benefits to dealing with him now. Especially since Tendou seemed to approve when Kagami didn't hesitate with him and paid proper attention to him. He didn't like being ignored and it was surprisingly not as difficult to get Tendou in a good mood as Kagami had used to think.
Their first time had been nerve-wracking for Kagami, he'd tried to plan for everything he could think of--he made sure he had supplies on hand (because he did not have to be a genius to realize that Tendou would have had a royal fit if Kagami tried to get anywhere without a condom) and prepared his heart and mind for it (not that he thought Tendou would really hold it against him if he made a mistake or he was bad at this, but Kagami really did not want to mess up with this, not with Tendou)--but once he'd actually been touching Tendou, actually been kissing him and allowed to touch wherever he wanted and granting the same in return, it had been almost easy. Well, sort of.
It hadn't really taken him long to realize that Tendou liked to fuck like he liked to cook--everything had its time and place, every move was exquisitely graceful and never wasted, no time spent without purpose, but never a single step skipped or slid over. It was about an expression of passion as much as it was about the pure sensations of it. It was impossible not to be swept up with Tendou, he was intoxicating.
(Not that Kagami would ever tell him that, Tendou had enough of an ego already, but he was kind of sure Tendou knew anyway.)
Tendou's hands fisted tightly in his hair to pull him down for another bruising kiss and it hurt a little, but not enough to distract him away from the feeling of Tendou's mouth against his, of Tendou's knee pressing insistently upwards along Kagami's own leg. Their clothes were half-scattered across the floor (the first time, he'd been a little surprised that Tendou hadn't neatly folded them and put them away, instead he'd grabbed the front of Kagami's shirt, half-yanking it off him, half-using it to drag him backwards to Kagami's bed and not letting go until they both tumbled down) and Kagami could still smell the soap on Tendou's skin, could taste the last of the thin sheen of water from the shower along the column of his throat every time he moved down Tendou's body.
Even now it was easy to get caught up in Tendou or to worry about making a mistake--one wrong scrape of his teeth along Tendou's length or one wrong twist of his fingers inside Tendou and he wasn't entirely sure Tendou wouldn't look at him with that condescending, tired look, like maybe Kagami wasn't worth his time after all.
But, like everything worthwhile in Kagami's life, he grabbed onto it with both hands and put all of himself into it, rewarded with a pleased hum from Tendou as Kagami went further down on him. It wasn't long before Tendou's hands were in his hair again, directing him where Tendou wanted and he was pushing languidly against Kagami's fingers, one of his feet nudging Kagami's side with waning patience.
"Don't be slow," Tendou warned, stretching his long, long limbs out, situating himself more comfortably.
"Preparation of the food is important, but wasted if you never enjoy the meal?" Kagami asked with a flash of a grin as he sat up and reached for the nightstand. (Or, he thought, if your boyfriend gets impatient with you and leaves before you can serve him his plate, going home to make his own dinner instead, even if he sometimes kind of deserves to be driven crazy by Kagami taking his time, too.)
"You're learning," Tendou said, pleased smile as bright as the sun. Kagami couldn't help feeling a little overwhelmed by it, a little grateful when Tendou leaned over to help him. They rolled the condom on with practiced ease and Tendou's hands spreading an extra layer of the cool gel on him remind Kagami how much he wanted this, how much Tendou wanted this, too, from the way he kissed Kagami again with a hunger that was always startling.
Kagami pushed him back after a moment, Tendou letting him, relaxed against the pillows and sheets of Kagami's bed and probably knew he was the hottest, most infuriating, most amazing, craziest thing Kagami had ever seen in his life. He lifted his knees to wrap around Kagami's hips, pulling him forward faster than intended, but Kagami couldn't fight this. Tendou was perfect and so hot and so slick and so tight as he slid in that it was--and he didn't care about how cliche this was or if Tendou's ego grew further--like staring into the sun, like being blinded by its shining.
Kagami would have liked to stop just for a moment, just long enough to catch his breath and let Tendou adjust, just long enough that his heart didn't feel like a drum beating loudly enough in his own ears to drown everything else out, but Tendou was impossible to ignore. He didn't even seem to be breathing hard, his head tipped back and eyes half-lidded while he stared impassively at Kagami, waiting for something in that unreadable way of his.
Or at least mostly unreadable, Kagami was getting better--he moved, pulling back and pushing forward slowly, an inch at a time, and knew he was right when Tendou's fingers dug harder into his arm, probably hard enough to leave bruises by morning, and wouldn't let him go. They moved together, so easily once they understood each other (once Kagami understood Tendou and he hoped that Tendou finally understood him, too), one of Tendou's hands on Kagami's back to hold him in close, the other between their bodies to slide around his own length, Kagami's joining him a few strokes later.
Their pace built steadily, Tendou arching up against him and his legs wound tightly around Kagami and still so hot and so good and Kagami dizzily thought that Tendou did this on purpose probably because he thought it was amusing to melt Kagami's brain right out of his skull and reduce him to nothing but pure impulse and need for Tendou, Kagami rocking back and forth, their fingers tangled in each other's on Tendou's cock, moving at the same speed as Kagami's thrusts, until he could feel Tendou shuddering against him and knowing that, knowing what he was sharing with Tendou was enough that, a few moments and one more time Tendou breathed his name like that (deliberate, so deliberate and it undid him), and it all exploded in white behind Kagami's eyes, too.
(He was pretty sure that it probably wasn't always like this--not this amazing, not this perfect, not this addicting--with other people, none of the people he'd dated before had really even come close to anything like this, not that he had really gotten far enough with them to find out, but Kagami knew that it was just... Tendou that made things this way. Sometimes he wondered if it was more that Tendou was Tendou, so of course everything was perfect, or if Kagami was really that far gone on him. It was kind of a surreal thought, being so in love with Tendou that Kagami really did think he was perfect. ....he didn't think Tendou would like that idea any more than he did, it would be weird.)
Kagami was actually sort of impressed with himself immediately after--he managed to slide out of and off of Tendou with a decent amount of gracefulness, grabbed the tissues from the nightstand for clean-up, and slid off the condom to dispose of it with perfect aim at the wastebasket, even managed to smile at Tendou with the wattage totally turned down so that he didn't look like a lovestruck idiot. (Tendou still gave him a weird look anyway, that Get your feelings away from me look that he still got sometimes. It wasn't that Tendou hadn't come a long way in the last few months, but that much social inexperience didn't resolve itself right away. Sometimes Tendou seemed to still think that he could deny his feelings and Kagami didn't really know what to say to that anymore--he'd made himself clear enough already--so he just let it slide.)
"Stop that," Tendou said icily, except it didn't work so well when he still had that relaxed, sleepy look of having just finished, his hair still in an artful disarray around his head. "Right now."
"Right, right, sure," Kagami promised and then smiled at Tendou even goofier and leaned over to try to lightly kiss his shoulder, even reach out to touch him gently, maybe cuddle with him a little--
The look on Tendou's face had been totally worth it, even when he shoved Kagami over the side of the bed and told him to stay there, while he went to take a shower. Which he did, at least until he heard Tendou's footsteps fade and the water turn on in the bathroom and then he got up to go make tea while waiting for his turn at the shower, and not even caring that Tendou would probably be back to criticize his choice of tea, no matter what he chose. (Even though it wasn't like Kagami had the instant stuff around. Anymore.)
Tendou was still Tendou, he was still crazy, but he was a lot easier to read when you realized a few things and paid attention to him. Kagami might be slow and a little unsure sometimes, but he would eventually figure these things out and he would always do what he thought was the right thing. That was more than enough for them.
Fandom: Kamen Rider Kabuto
Pairings: Kagami/Tendou
Rating: Somewhere between R and NC-17.
Warnings/spoilers: Post-series, at least some casual spoilers.
Author's Notes: So!, I thought, I've had a rough week. I'll write a short pwp for myself, who's not cheered up by porn? Except, it took them almost 2500 words to even just get to the makeouts and then another 1500 words to wrap things up, and it's only my second fic in the fandom, so I'm still nervous as hell about getting them right but hopefully this is a bit closer to how I generally see them. (The problem, of course, being that you could make a case for switching around which one of them is the clueless one sometimes. orz) ....still half-pwp, but it kind of grew at least something resembling characterization around that.
Shut up.
(Also, the style of this is done deliberately. Shut up.)
Paying Attention
It had surprised Kagami how much easier it was to read Tendou than he'd originally thought, once he had started to pay attention.
Certain moods had always been difficult to miss; when Tendou was staring at you with icy coldness because you just admitted that you honestly sometimes liked those microwavable meals with the cellophane wrap that you peeled back before you set it on high for three minutes, it wasn't hard to figure out why you were being ignored for the rest of the evening. Or when Tendou got up and left because you were too tired from a long day at work to do much more than flop onto your own sofa with a beer and maybe, if you had maybe just a little smidge of energy left, you might actually reach over to get the remote and turn on the television, it wasn't hard to understand why he was in a bad mood the next day and kept making pointed comments about how lazy you were.
(It wasn't that Kagami was trying to ignore him, but unlike Tendou, mere mortals could only do so much before they had to pass out in a dead sleep, sorry.)
But it had taken him an embarrassingly long time to figure out certain other behaviors of Tendou. Which was sort of okay, though, because Kagami had also figured out that Tendou wasn't aware of half of them himself.
*
It started when Tendou had been kind of especially obnoxious about snatching away the finishing move against a rogue Worm they'd fought together. Most of the Worm left after Negishi's defeat hadn't been interested in continuing their cause, they'd kept to themselves and not made any trouble so the Riders had left them alone in return, but a few stragglers still kept mimicking and killing people, so they still kept fighting. It was rare, usually one of them was enough, and Kagami had volunteered to go (since Tendou had been implying that was wasn't doing the work he was supposed to be doing again) but Tendou had followed him anyway.
When Gatack's double caliburs crackled with the energy of a Rider Cutting, easily in position to do a final strike against the rogue Worm, Kabuto took the chance to slide between them with a powerful Rider Kick to its head. He landed gracefully, the explosion backlighting him dramatically and Kabuto's faceless mask staring in Kagami's direction.
"Oi, Tendou...."
Kagami was never sure how he did it, but somehow Kabuto's mask positively radiated superiority. "You were too messy, you should conserve your energy more, make your moves more worthy of the fight. I can handle the Worm, because I'm the one who--"
Maybe on another day, Kagami would have risen to the bait--it wasn't like they needed to be hyper-efficient fighters anymore, there were a handful left at best now, they could afford to play around a little more, Kagami swore the Gatack Zecter liked to play with its prey before finally destroying it and he indulged that sometimes--but he'd been tired. And it was really, really not the first time Kagami had compared Tendou's posturing to a childish need to be superior.
"Jeez," he snapped, only half-noticing that he'd cut Tendou off. "You're like a--" Like a little kid trying to impress everyone on the schoolyard playground he'd been about to say.
Kabuto dissolved around Tendou, the Kabuto Zecter buzzing merrily off into the sky, and Kagami was glad that the Gatack Zecter stuck around a few moments longer, it wouldn't have been a good idea to let Tendou see the tired, wry smile he'd had to fight down.
Even across the empty field where they'd battled the Worm, Tendou's eyes were electric and sharp, watching him carefully. "Like a what?"
Kagami let Gatack go, suddenly wondering why Tendou was even there. Usually, Kagami just shrugged whenever Tendou did something strange--Tendou was Tendou. No matter how much he'd finally come to understand about the guy, he was still kind of mystifying and bizarrely complicated and Kagami thought he was maybe doing it a little bit on purpose sometimes. He often showed up wherever Kagami was (or had somehow gotten there first, which Kagami still thought he was also totally doing on purpose) seemingly just to make a point of showing how great and wonderful he was.
Like a--
Like a little kid who wants to show off how great they are, Kagami thought again. (He'd often suspected that, for all Tendou was a genius at many things, he was a little slow in the social development department.) Like a little kid who wanted to show off how great they were to the person whom they--
".....nothing," he finally settled on, turning the new thought over in his head.
It wasn't that he didn't know he was attracted to Tendou and that Tendou was attracted to him. There'd been too many moments where they nearly came together, too many moments when Kagami had almost reached out to touch Tendou, to kiss him, to hold him in an embrace when he was falling apart, and Tendou hadn't pushed him away.. They'd always been interrupted and Kagami hadn't brought it up later because he suspected Tendou wasn't ready to admit it yet, that he had accepted Kagami's friendship (finally, Kagami thought) but that was different from the something more that they were headed towards. And there was no schedule for this, they had plenty of time, besides.
It also wasn't anything new to realize that Tendou had a competitive streak and hated to not be the best at everything in the room. The best on the planet, really. He made a point of showing off and making sure Kagami knew how great he was.
But, Kagami wondered suddenly, was it that Tendou... was it that Tendou wanted everyone to know he was the best or that he wanted Kagami to know that he was the best? Eventually Kagami decided that it was both, but that was enough to realize that maybe Tendou was trying to get his attention and Kagami thought that he wasn't doing that on purpose, not consciously.
Tendou had been extra sharp and critical the entire way back to La Salle, but Kagami hadn't minded. He'd kept the new little insight to himself for awhile, simply paying more attention to Tendou from then on.
*
So when Tendou--out of the clear blue, with no warning whatsoever--had been in a bad mood nearly a week later, Kagami was smart enough to know that Tendou wanted him to figure something out, but wasn't going to say it directly to him. He'd tried the direct approach--why couldn't Tendou simply tell him what the problem was so he could fix it?
Tendou had given him an annoyed, closed-off look, arms loosely crossed while he stared at Kagami over the counter at La Salle. "There are things you need to figure out for yourself," he'd said coldly.
Which might as well have been If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you., Kagami thought. (Not that he said it aloud. Not ever. He at least had that much sense.)
It had taken him another week to figure it out (Tendou had been acting weird because he wanted Kagami to move to an apartment closer to work and the restaurant and the Tendou household now that his lease was up, so that he could be around to help watch over Juka and Hiyori more, especially while Tendou was gone and how the hell was Kagami supposed to have guessed that?) and by then he'd spent a lot of time thinking about Tendou's behavior.
Like how much easier it would have been if Tendou had just been straightforward (nothing new there) or even just picked out whatever place he thought he wanted. But Tendou never did that, not really. He kept pushing and prodding until Kagami finally figured out what he wanted and just did it, but... Kagami didn't think he was doing that part on purpose, not really.
But it was like Tendou wanted him to just do something sometimes and....
Well. The next time Tendou had worn the sleeveless tank that showed off both his long, long arms and the sharp lines of his collarbone, along with the khaki pants that Kagami really kind of loved on him, the ones that made him think a whole lot of really impolite thoughts about Tendou's ass with the way it looked in those pants and those long, long legs of his, Kagami thought that maybe he really ought to just do something.
That was who he was, right? The kind of person who did what they thought was right and charged forward, even if they were an idiot about it.
*
There was never going to be a better opportunity. Tendou had spent the last hour implying that he was slow for not catching on to what he wanted (it was obvious what he had been getting at, since he was planning a trip to France and of course he'd want Kagami closer to his sisters to watch over them, even if Kagami was barely worthy of watching over Tendou's potted plants, much less his precious baby sisters, and that was totally clear what he'd been getting at, was the gist of what Kagami got out of his pointed barbs) and wearing that really low-cut t-shirt that Kagami liked and really didn't seem like he was going to stop any time soon.
So, when Tendou had leaned back against the front counter during a lull in the workday (Yumiko-san was on vacation and Hiyori had gone to the market--Kagami half-thought he wanted to go with her, at least she was reasonable in her criticisms--and the restaurant was quiet and empty for now) and started to say, "Even the smallest of plants that have trouble reaching the sunlight can--", Kagami decided it was the best possible moment he was going to get.
He'd stood up directly in front of Tendou and leaned forward to softly kiss him, just to make him shut up and because... because--
It was hardly more than a light touch of lips, a precursor for something more, but it was enough that Tendou froze in mid-sentence and blinked in shock at him.
Just for a moment. Then he'd recovered and his expression grew cloudy, not quite dangerous, but only a hair's breadth away. "Kagami, you..."
Kagami had had a whole explanation ready in his head. He liked Tendou and he had to tell him because Tendou was going to France soon and Kagami didn't need an answer right now, but he wanted Tendou to think about it seriously while he was gone and that he knew Tendou was his friend and it would be okay if Tendou really didn't want more, but Kagami knew that wasn't true, that he did want the same thing, so just think about it, all right?
Every last one of those thoughts flew out of Kagami's head while Tendou stared at him and what sounded like thunder boomed in the distance.
"I'm tired of waiting," he said simply instead. "So, Tendou...."
And Tendou was staring at him, eyes shuttered and unreadable, but obviously the wheels were turning in Tendou's head, like he was trying to figure out how exactly he was going to kill Kagami for this and was that the sound of buzzing he heard? Kagami was kind of thinking that maybe he should go, he didn't really want to find out if it was just the ringing in his own ears or the Kabuto Zecter coming when Tendou called, but his stomach had dropped somewhere to around floor level and he probably shouldn't leave without it and--
Something shifted in Tendou's expression, something softened just enough that the high-pitched whine in the back of Kagami's head that was urging him to call for the Gatack Zecter now now now right now faded, and Tendou didn't even seem ready to punch him in the face.
"Kagami..." he said in a low voice, which made Kagami think for a minute that he was going to be rejected and that was almost worse, despite that he knew he wasn't entirely wrong about this, and Tendou's hand curled loosely around his arm. "How long have you been planning that?"
Kagami held himself still and tried not to lean into Tendou, no matter how much he wanted to. "I didn't plan it." Tendou's look was sharp enough to make him almost step back. "But I've wanted to for a long time."
Then, like it was in slow motion, Tendou relaxed and whatever had been propping Kagami up seemed to melt away so that he was pulled flush up against Tendou, within easy reach for Tendou to continue the kiss, opening up against Kagami when he kissed back.
"You're slow," Tendou murmured against him, which Kagami knew was true, but at least he wasn't the only one.
*
Once he'd figured out that Tendou had always been pushing him into just doing what Kagami thought was right and what he really wanted instead of trying to just guess what Tendou was getting at, things progressed a whole lot more smoothly. Kagami still felt like Tendou gave him the world's biggest headache sometimes, but at least there were new benefits to dealing with him now. Especially since Tendou seemed to approve when Kagami didn't hesitate with him and paid proper attention to him. He didn't like being ignored and it was surprisingly not as difficult to get Tendou in a good mood as Kagami had used to think.
Their first time had been nerve-wracking for Kagami, he'd tried to plan for everything he could think of--he made sure he had supplies on hand (because he did not have to be a genius to realize that Tendou would have had a royal fit if Kagami tried to get anywhere without a condom) and prepared his heart and mind for it (not that he thought Tendou would really hold it against him if he made a mistake or he was bad at this, but Kagami really did not want to mess up with this, not with Tendou)--but once he'd actually been touching Tendou, actually been kissing him and allowed to touch wherever he wanted and granting the same in return, it had been almost easy. Well, sort of.
It hadn't really taken him long to realize that Tendou liked to fuck like he liked to cook--everything had its time and place, every move was exquisitely graceful and never wasted, no time spent without purpose, but never a single step skipped or slid over. It was about an expression of passion as much as it was about the pure sensations of it. It was impossible not to be swept up with Tendou, he was intoxicating.
(Not that Kagami would ever tell him that, Tendou had enough of an ego already, but he was kind of sure Tendou knew anyway.)
Tendou's hands fisted tightly in his hair to pull him down for another bruising kiss and it hurt a little, but not enough to distract him away from the feeling of Tendou's mouth against his, of Tendou's knee pressing insistently upwards along Kagami's own leg. Their clothes were half-scattered across the floor (the first time, he'd been a little surprised that Tendou hadn't neatly folded them and put them away, instead he'd grabbed the front of Kagami's shirt, half-yanking it off him, half-using it to drag him backwards to Kagami's bed and not letting go until they both tumbled down) and Kagami could still smell the soap on Tendou's skin, could taste the last of the thin sheen of water from the shower along the column of his throat every time he moved down Tendou's body.
Even now it was easy to get caught up in Tendou or to worry about making a mistake--one wrong scrape of his teeth along Tendou's length or one wrong twist of his fingers inside Tendou and he wasn't entirely sure Tendou wouldn't look at him with that condescending, tired look, like maybe Kagami wasn't worth his time after all.
But, like everything worthwhile in Kagami's life, he grabbed onto it with both hands and put all of himself into it, rewarded with a pleased hum from Tendou as Kagami went further down on him. It wasn't long before Tendou's hands were in his hair again, directing him where Tendou wanted and he was pushing languidly against Kagami's fingers, one of his feet nudging Kagami's side with waning patience.
"Don't be slow," Tendou warned, stretching his long, long limbs out, situating himself more comfortably.
"Preparation of the food is important, but wasted if you never enjoy the meal?" Kagami asked with a flash of a grin as he sat up and reached for the nightstand. (Or, he thought, if your boyfriend gets impatient with you and leaves before you can serve him his plate, going home to make his own dinner instead, even if he sometimes kind of deserves to be driven crazy by Kagami taking his time, too.)
"You're learning," Tendou said, pleased smile as bright as the sun. Kagami couldn't help feeling a little overwhelmed by it, a little grateful when Tendou leaned over to help him. They rolled the condom on with practiced ease and Tendou's hands spreading an extra layer of the cool gel on him remind Kagami how much he wanted this, how much Tendou wanted this, too, from the way he kissed Kagami again with a hunger that was always startling.
Kagami pushed him back after a moment, Tendou letting him, relaxed against the pillows and sheets of Kagami's bed and probably knew he was the hottest, most infuriating, most amazing, craziest thing Kagami had ever seen in his life. He lifted his knees to wrap around Kagami's hips, pulling him forward faster than intended, but Kagami couldn't fight this. Tendou was perfect and so hot and so slick and so tight as he slid in that it was--and he didn't care about how cliche this was or if Tendou's ego grew further--like staring into the sun, like being blinded by its shining.
Kagami would have liked to stop just for a moment, just long enough to catch his breath and let Tendou adjust, just long enough that his heart didn't feel like a drum beating loudly enough in his own ears to drown everything else out, but Tendou was impossible to ignore. He didn't even seem to be breathing hard, his head tipped back and eyes half-lidded while he stared impassively at Kagami, waiting for something in that unreadable way of his.
Or at least mostly unreadable, Kagami was getting better--he moved, pulling back and pushing forward slowly, an inch at a time, and knew he was right when Tendou's fingers dug harder into his arm, probably hard enough to leave bruises by morning, and wouldn't let him go. They moved together, so easily once they understood each other (once Kagami understood Tendou and he hoped that Tendou finally understood him, too), one of Tendou's hands on Kagami's back to hold him in close, the other between their bodies to slide around his own length, Kagami's joining him a few strokes later.
Their pace built steadily, Tendou arching up against him and his legs wound tightly around Kagami and still so hot and so good and Kagami dizzily thought that Tendou did this on purpose probably because he thought it was amusing to melt Kagami's brain right out of his skull and reduce him to nothing but pure impulse and need for Tendou, Kagami rocking back and forth, their fingers tangled in each other's on Tendou's cock, moving at the same speed as Kagami's thrusts, until he could feel Tendou shuddering against him and knowing that, knowing what he was sharing with Tendou was enough that, a few moments and one more time Tendou breathed his name like that (deliberate, so deliberate and it undid him), and it all exploded in white behind Kagami's eyes, too.
(He was pretty sure that it probably wasn't always like this--not this amazing, not this perfect, not this addicting--with other people, none of the people he'd dated before had really even come close to anything like this, not that he had really gotten far enough with them to find out, but Kagami knew that it was just... Tendou that made things this way. Sometimes he wondered if it was more that Tendou was Tendou, so of course everything was perfect, or if Kagami was really that far gone on him. It was kind of a surreal thought, being so in love with Tendou that Kagami really did think he was perfect. ....he didn't think Tendou would like that idea any more than he did, it would be weird.)
Kagami was actually sort of impressed with himself immediately after--he managed to slide out of and off of Tendou with a decent amount of gracefulness, grabbed the tissues from the nightstand for clean-up, and slid off the condom to dispose of it with perfect aim at the wastebasket, even managed to smile at Tendou with the wattage totally turned down so that he didn't look like a lovestruck idiot. (Tendou still gave him a weird look anyway, that Get your feelings away from me look that he still got sometimes. It wasn't that Tendou hadn't come a long way in the last few months, but that much social inexperience didn't resolve itself right away. Sometimes Tendou seemed to still think that he could deny his feelings and Kagami didn't really know what to say to that anymore--he'd made himself clear enough already--so he just let it slide.)
"Stop that," Tendou said icily, except it didn't work so well when he still had that relaxed, sleepy look of having just finished, his hair still in an artful disarray around his head. "Right now."
"Right, right, sure," Kagami promised and then smiled at Tendou even goofier and leaned over to try to lightly kiss his shoulder, even reach out to touch him gently, maybe cuddle with him a little--
The look on Tendou's face had been totally worth it, even when he shoved Kagami over the side of the bed and told him to stay there, while he went to take a shower. Which he did, at least until he heard Tendou's footsteps fade and the water turn on in the bathroom and then he got up to go make tea while waiting for his turn at the shower, and not even caring that Tendou would probably be back to criticize his choice of tea, no matter what he chose. (Even though it wasn't like Kagami had the instant stuff around. Anymore.)
Tendou was still Tendou, he was still crazy, but he was a lot easier to read when you realized a few things and paid attention to him. Kagami might be slow and a little unsure sometimes, but he would eventually figure these things out and he would always do what he thought was the right thing. That was more than enough for them.