FicAlert! PoT> a i (Silver Pair) PG-15(ish) Pt6
Title: a i
Author: Everlind
Wordcount 50 600+
Pairing: Ohtori/Shishido (Silver Pair)
Rating: PG-15
Warnings: Drama, very mild gore, questionable ethical issues, attempts at humor, hopefully not too much OOCness. Oshitari. Kite (and his tight purple pants).
Summary: 'Can you make a robot love a human? But isn't the question: can you make a human love a robot?' (A.I. Artificial Intelligence by Steven Spielberg)
Disclaimer: The Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi. This story is based on characters and the universe of The Prince of Tennis, no money is being made from it.
Notes: For hazelandnuts at silver_swap 2010-2011.
a i
They sleep together from then on. Mostly in a sort of puppyish heap, not necessarily embracing, just a tangle of limbs and warm bodies, breathing in perfectly synchronized unison.
There's never a touch other than comfort and ease, gentle holding. It drives him crazy.
Shishido finds himself waking up in need of cold showers. His dreams are velvet dark, of cool sheets under his back and heated skin against his front. A mouth across his own and hands tangling in his hair.
The desire to take more makes him edgy and restless.
Worse is that he knows Choutarou wants more, too. Yet all they do is cuddle, and watch each other with greedy, starving eyes.
Everything will be fine one moment, they'll just be talking and Shishido will be answering something and there'll be no response because Choutarou is staring at his mouth, as if deeply contemplating all the other uses it could serve besides idle conversation.
It's stupid and silly that they don't, when they both want it and it leaves Shishido half-crazed to go through longing so violent he's sick to his stomach and yet find himself frightened what it might mean if they gave in. It's remains scary. Choutarou still is what he is and everything about it is wrong. There's a law against it just as sure as there's a law against tampering with possible soul blueprints and the law that states that your ass is going down if you unleash a non-Three Laws conform android on the world.
And yet, when they curl together just so and Shishido gets to bury his face against Choutarou's hot, soft skin, everything about is right.
He wishes Choutarou would just fucking kiss him already.
When he does, finally, it is yet again not as he imagined it would happen.
It happens kinda unannounced and natural, no big fuss. They're in bed, Shishido flush against Choutarou's broad back, right arm tucked through the hollow of Choutarou's neck. His right hand his palm-up, unfurled as he dozes off.
And Choutarou tips his head into that palm and kisses the ravaged center of it.
Shishido manages to hyperventilate and stop breathing all at once. By the time he has harnessed enough rational brain-power to open his mouth and say something about it, Choutarou has dropped of to sleep, lips still parted on the scar.
He's left hot and squirming, wanting to gnaw in aggravation on Choutarou's shoulder, because what kind of asshole does that?
But he lies still, body aching for more, breathing in and out until the other rolls away in his sleep, leaving his arms free. Shishido doesn't move, but stares at his kissed palm in wonder, fingers curling closed carefully as if he'd like to trap it there safe and maybe to look at once in a while like you'd do with a caught butterfly.
***
It becomes a sort of game. One which's only rule seems to be: it is forbidden for this to make any fucking sort of sense at all. Oh, and maybe, let's re-visit the adolescent era of intense sexual frustration. You know the kind. Oh yeah.
For days after Shishido'd swear he can feel that one elusive press of lips on his body. His palms tingles, as if world stopped right there in his scarred hand. Like a damn blushing teenager, he even catches himself being reluctant to wash it -what if all the traces went down the drain? Forever?! That bad. The only thing that kinda tops that is he pressing his own lips there, too, curious to see if he can re-discover the taste of Choutarou's mouth. He sticks his hands under the water right after, soaping them up and telling himself that acting like one doesn't mean he is the girl.
Not. at. all.
Dammit.
The bottom line is that he cherishes that one chaste kiss, but also realizes that it was just that -a kiss on the palm of his hand. Which was given while Choutarou was admittedly very sleepy, so it might've been nearly a unconscious gesture.
So he mentally kicks his own ass when he finds himself smiling lovingly at his hand and tries to get on with his life.
But it happens again, this time with no mistake.
Shishido is sitting at the table in the kitchen, rifling through his mail. There's a lot of junk in it, possibly misplaced by the mailman: a few travel catalogues and leaflets with airplane, train and bus info. He can't quite figure it out why it's in there, only that there's no plastic sleeve around it, nor an addressee mentioned anywhere.
As he's puzzling over it Choutarou walks by, stands by his side for a moment, jean-clad hip against Shishido's shoulder as he watches him turn pages. After a moment he stoops and presses his mouth to Shishido's forehead, sweet and intimate, before going about his business (which seems to be none at all, as he leaves the kitchen as empty-handed as he came in). Leaving him nailed to his chair by that kiss, thunderstruck as a slow, belated blush creeps up his neckline to his cheeks.
His stomach is doing somersaults, spastically churning his lunch into a mess as he walks into the living room after having sat on his chair for another half an hour before he dared to reach up and touch his forehead, disbelieving. Choutarou is on the couch with a sketchbook, studiously busy. The pencil whirls in furious lines over the paper, more so when an answering blush stains his cheeks, too, as Shishido leans in the doorway and looks at him, arms crossed and a 'Well?' pasted between his eyebrows.
It's easy to act cocky and none too impressed, but it still takes him a while before he can walk confidently into the room to go stand behind Choutarou. The pencil hitches as he rests his hands on those shoulders, thumbs ghosting up into the hair at his nape and down again, coaxingly almost. Then he presses his face there, lips catching clumsily as he imagines what else he might be doing to Choutarou other than just standing behind him as he kisses his neck. But he keeps his face there, nose rubbing before he breathes, "Don't be a tease."
Choutarou's voice is husky, thick. "I'm not teasing."
Shishido puts his head next to his, leaning over the back of the couch. "Heh. Sure."
"I'm not," Choutarou repeats, cheek bunching as he smiles a little. "Yet."
Pinching his sides leads to a rather high-pitched yip and Shishido keeps tickling him until he shrieks his submission -ticklish, how is it even possible? Choutarou grabs and hauls him over the back of the couch and they lie there, struggling and fingers seeking out vulnerable parts. Shishido starts to laugh as he sits down on his lower stomach, an excellent position to reach his ribs and sides and neck and Choutarou yells and gasps and giggles again which causes Shishido to loose his momentum as to tease him. Before he knows it he's on the receiving end and he's laughing, laughing so hard it hurts and Choutarou with him, head back and full-throated and Shishido thinks it's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard.
When they lie in a panting, muttering heap, Shishido realizes it's the first time he's ever heard him laugh.
***
The easel is angled towards the urban-ravaged panorama. It's a jagged, blackened cement outline, with neon dotting it. Yet the canvas shows misty mountains, with a glimpse of an early morning ocean between the peaks.
"Huh," Shishido goes, grinning a little. "Accurate."
Choutarou dabs his brush against his cheek, leaving a green smear. "I'm not painting Tokyo," he says.
Scrubbing with his sleeve at the paint, Shishido snorts. "Really? I wouldn't have guessed." He peers closer. It's awfully detailed for something made-up. "How'd you come up with this? It's beautiful."
The praise leaves a visible glow, but he shrugs and admits. "I saw it in one of those catalogues. Eidetic memory does the rest."
Shishido nods and steps back inside to fetch the stack of catalogues. He idly turns pages, actually reading what he sees there, eyebrows lifting. They're not even locations outside of Japan.
When he finally finds the photo Choutarou is churning out flawlessly thanks to his super-computer brain -with a few touches of his own, granted- Shishido reads the information that goes with it.
Something clicks into place.
"Would you like to go on vacation to Kōchi?"
***
"I don't know," Choutarou murmurs as they both bend over the small circled block of text. "It's kinda…" he shrugs.
"Creepy?" Shishido goes.
"Awfully convenient," Choutarou says instead. "It's like someone planned this trip out for us."
"Or maybe some loser just dropped info intended for someone else accidentally in our mailbox," Shishido counters.
"What if it is a trap?" Choutarou whispers, avoiding his eyes right then.
That makes him glance up. "For what? Us?"
When Choutarou nods, slowly, Shishido remembers that's he's in a position to be considered one of the dangerous kind of criminals out there, with Choutarou skimming the edge of 'illegal weapon of mass destruction'. It's none to far fetched either, after numerous blood-stained 'bumps' in the road of robotic sciences a non-Three Law conform android is comfortably up there in the niche of nation-wide mass hysteria.
"Well, why the hell would they bother to plan out a nice and cozy vacation when they know where we live? Instead of presenting us with brochures they'd bust in guns blazing," Shishido points out. "Shoot my brains out if I resist. Try in your case."
"That's not funny," Choutarou whispers.
"You're bullet-proof. Mostly," Shishido adds, grinning.
"Don't!" Choutarou hisses. "Don't joke about it," he says.
There's a terse silence. Shishido opens his gob to fumble out an apology that isn't one, but gets the intention across.
"I'm not talking about me being an android," Choutarou interrupts before he can embarrass himself.
Shishido's perishable, delicate human body often seems to upset Choutarou in the weirdest ways. Sighing, he taps Choutarou's ankle under the table with his foot.
"Point was we'd be dead already," Shishido says.
They discuss the matter a little longer, but in the end Shishido gets his way and rings up the number in the contact ad. Turns out to be a small, tiny little house tucked away deep in the forests and mountains, at half an hour from a teeny tiny rural village. It's not so much for rent as it is up for sale, but the old man agrees to renting it out to them for three weeks, at a very agreeable price if they fix some minor things around the place.
It's a golden deal.
Too good to be true, almost.
***
The days leading up to their departure both of them hardly sleep.
A little of it is nerves over the whole rather odd situation. But a lot of it, most of it and in Shishido's case nearly all of it, is the marrow-deep knowledge that the waiting will end there.
Maybe that's strange or weird, that they'd need to go someplace for this to happen, what they both want most.
And want a lot.
They're still playing their game, but it's almost practice now. The touches are deliberate and lingering and the little chaste kisses move away from relatively safe zones (though Shishido begins to suspect Choutarou could kiss the tip of his nose and leave him squirming).
Three days before they have to leave Choutarou kisses the inside of his leg, just above the knee he's bandaging after a rather rough game of tennis. It's a hot, open-mouth press there, that stays. Shishido's jaw drops open a little bit at how naughty that looks, in a disturbingly sweet way.
Two days before they have to leave Shishido gets fed up enough to open his mouth on Choutarou's neck, tasting him there, the salty tang and the skin. And he kisses him there, over and over until Choutarou is so much as putty pressed into the corner of the couch, eyes lidded.
A day before they have to leave, Choutarou stops him as he comes fresh out of the shower, eyes intent. Placing his large hands at either side of his ribs, he holds him and leans in to nuzzle a small kiss at the pulse-point in his chest, which leaves it in a galloping flutter of disbelief. After, he sits between spread knees on the ground, Choutarou ruffling his hair dry.
The night before they have to leave, Shishido finds himself on his back, panting as Choutarou does it again and again, going as far as to open mouth and catch his heartbeat on the flat of his tongue.
They don't sleep much at all.
***
Most of the planning went into figuring out how to get there.
By car seemed the most obvious and convenient way, but before long Shishido decided to make do entirely by public transport. They have time for it and he thinks Choutarou might enjoy it more, the experience of traveling like that. As they partly get away to be rid of the restrictions snaring them, but mostly him, this seems like a good way to do it.
It's a long trip. They wake up at the crack of dawn, or rather, they leave bed at the crack of dawn. It's a tangle of lingering hands and rubbing limbs. Shishido can't believe they're touching like this, so intimately familiar and yet haven't really done anything.
Dawn is just a hazy smear at the east when they head for the train station. Shishido feels bleary around the edges, but Choutarou is wide-eyed to soak it all up. The OLs in their suits and high heels and briefcases seem to confuse him as much as chaotic soup of traffic does. So near to the station it becomes quite the adventure to dodge and wind and slip through the crowds of people. Knowing how it all works, technically, is way different from being in the middle of it and having a crotchety obaasan shove her plastic shopping bags into your stomach to steal some space.
The first train is a crowded bustle, packed with dapper salary men and loud teenagers.
But the second train is easier. They have a seat, Choutarou by the window, nose nearly smashed up against it as he peers outside. The landscape rushes by. It's rice paddies and maples and waving fields one moment, iron and concrete buildings next. People, lots of different people. Some girls board and flutter their lashes at Choutarou, who kinda looks confused. Shishido smiles behind his hand.
There's nothing that shows Choutarou for being anything other than human, and very so at that. He's polite when they move through the crowds, apologizing in the wake of Shishido's elbowing advance. His mouth curves when an older sister crosses their path, pulling along a chain of three younger siblings, lined up like ducklings. His lashes flutter at the onslaught of food and drinks being sold at the station, looking left and right to see what is on display.
The further they travel south, the more lush natures becomes There are rows of trees bearing citrus fruits, endless stretches of rice paddies with the sun spilling low and rich over them. Choutarou sits watching it all, taking it in like as though the visuals ease a sort of starvation.
On the seat between them, their fingers touch and curl together.
***
They have to hitchhike. It really is the middle of nowhere.
Giant Camphor trees rear mighty above their heads where they are dropped off at a dubiously deserted gravel path. There's moss and vines on the trunks of the trees and birds chirping everywhere.
Choutarou tips his head back and breathes in, while Shishido scowls at the dodgy scribble of a map the old coot mailed him a few days ago.
"There should be a trail nearby," he murmurs, peering over the edge of the printout and seeing none.
Still smiling, Choutarou points uphill. "Let's go that way," he says, starting to hoist bags up his shoulders, along with a violin case and his huge maps to hold artworks in them. At least he carries it all himself.
Rolling his eye at the display, Shishido tugs at the rim of his cap, shading his eyes. Then he gathers up his own luggage and they start up the trail.
They do find the house… cabin, rather. It's kind of perched next to a rocky stretch of mountain, roof alive with tufts of grass and small plants. They wade through high grass to get there, smelling earthy, rich forest. There's the tang of the ocean in there, salty and fresh, but it is fleeting on the air and mostly overpowered by the jungle they seem to be in. Small white butterflies skitter around an overgrown monster of a rose-bush and there's an orange tree, too.
It's a ramshackle thing, in need of a lot more than some minor fixings. But Shishido loves it instantly. It doesn't make any sense, it's run down and in the middle of nowhere and there's nothing there. Nothing but them that is.
And maybe that's all it takes.
Inside proves to be as old as the outside. Furled leaves pile into the corners and tatami mats fray where the years of passage have worn them thin. But it is not unsalvageable. It's mostly one huge room and a smaller one, screened off by sliding doors, then an opening leading to a kitchen and finally a bathroom, with a deep stone bath. There also seems to be quite some storage space to tuck things away. Enough that even if they had brought all their belongings they'd have storage room to spare.
Shishido realizes he's picturing him… them, living there.
When Choutarou's arms sneak around him from behind and a kiss is dropped on his crown, he knows that Choutarou is thinking about exactly the same thing.
***
There's a tense moment when they find the futon and shake it free of dust. Their eyes meet over the blanket and Shishido feels his chest screw as tight as a vice with nerves. In the end they drape it over a chair in the kitchen to let the mustiness air out.
They go for a walk instead.
Shishido doesn't think he's ever been somewhere as green and wild before. They follow a barely visible trail, or rather Shishido follows Choutarou's tall form as the latter rather eagerly hurries ahead, as though every single damn Camphor tree and brambly undergrowth is worth staring at the way he does -mouth parted and eyes wide like he needs to have studied all of them. Today.
"Have you any idea where you're going?" Shishido mutters after a while. He bats at an insect, drawn to his blood.
"Down this trail!" Choutarou laughs, using tree-roots as steps as he clambers down a rather steep hillside. Ocean winks in the distance. It's not undoable, but there's plenty of ground to cover to reach it -enough to get spectacularly lost in. And all he has is the sketchy map from the main road to their cabin.
Shishido looks at him and then back over his shoulder the way they came from. "I should've installed GPS on you before we went," he grumbles. He's not fast enough to duck the clump of grass thrown at him.
It's warm and sweltering and humid. Shishido fans his face with his cap. He's hot and sweating and he's kinda starting to hope they'll find the ocean soon. Eventually he takes of his shirt and tucks it through his belt loops. The weak little breeze there is feels good on his skin. It's the end of the rainy season and today is dry, but the steam rising off the forest suggests a recent squall of considerable size.
Still, it's nice.
Shishido never thought he could feel so calm and happy to be hiking through the forest like this, with a film of water covering his body and the sun heavy on the back of his neck when the treetops let it through. It probably has something to do with Choutarou (and a lot with Choutarou's bare torso after he follows his example) and his curiosity. He peers into bushes where small animals skitter about, reaches to let his finger pads linger over fuzzy moss crusted into the bark of the trees. He tips his head up, smiling to the skies.
He moves around, perfectly human. Knowing full well all of it is semi-organic artificial components and how they have been attached and made to work doesn't help Shishido in seeing any evidence to the contrary. His skin flexes and moves, muscles stretch between his shoulder blades. He breathes, an aesthetic aspect mostly, helping only to power minor functions. Bluish veins run under his skin, now raised due to the heat, even though cutting him wouldn't show a single drop of blood. Yet he can blush and flush, a complex chemical reaction that took years to develop, and sweat. His mouth was wet on Shishido's chest this morning and his eyes gleam. He knows how it works. But he remembers the soft, fleshy side of his body and the swell of his thigh and the hard slats of ribs, his arching hips.
By now he has to admit that Choutarou could probably look less human than he does and Shishido'd still feel that dizzying rush in his lower belly when he lets his eyes linger on the dip of his spine above his waistband.
He has his own mannerisms and pattern of speech (horrifyingly polite at that, the dork), and his voice took on a coloring that was distinctly him. His eyes show emotion and he blushes in his own distinct way -two dark patches on his cheeks as opposed to Shishido, whose flush spreads all the way down his chest. He has hobbies and interests, aversion to certain things and moral belief in others. Technically he could operate on a higher lever, but instead he reasons and behaves like a human does.
He dreams.
He feels.
He loves.
Shishido walks a small distance behind him, hands deep in his pockets and shakes his head to himself.
He truly did it.
The first to succeed. But maybe also beyond that. It's not just perfect AI and perfect emphatic, emotional aware AI at that. There is a soul in there.
Choutarou is a person, a human being despite his hand-crafted artificial body.
Maybe there are no degrees in AI. Maybe once you actually get there, in the metaphysical realm and manage to make a spark there -you just get this, a someone.
If that is the case, Shishido thinks, then the research his colleagues are conducting, scientists all over the world hoping to wield the discovery for whatever purposes -are doomed to fail. Even if it is world-domination through AI-driven tennis playing androids, or whatever.
Before long robots of Choutarou's AI caliber will have to be recognized for what they are -human. It's inevitable. All minor categories in a social setting have been so. By bloody and horrifying means that usually accompany these revolutions -wars, slavery, attempts at genocide and much more than he wants to think of.
Were he any less selfish, then Choutarou would be the catalyst for this, to ensure that any other AI-driven androids to spring forth out of science won't have to suffer needlessly for decades, for longer even.
Were he a better person, he might insist on it.
Instead Shishido watches Choutarou be completely free to be himself and lets his mind linger on how it might be to live here.
With him.
***
Choutarou is careful in the ocean, only ankle deep in.
Standing next to him, Shishido licks the salt from his lips. The breeze ruffles his hair away from his forehead. Above, the skies are steely gray with rain. Before it crashes down the temperature will rise wet and unbearable.
They walk the length of the small cape, after Shishido plants a branch in the pebbly sand to mark where they came out of the forest.
"So?" Shishido asks after a while.
"What?"
"The ocean. Like the smell?" he clarifies.
Choutarou takes the seashell Shishido once brought him out his pocket, tosses it at him. Catching it one handed, he grins a little, rolls it over the palm of his hand.
"I don't know how to thank you," he murmurs, voice distant.
"Whatever for?" Shishido demands, frowning.
"How many people would so this for something that's not real?" Choutarou says softly. He swallows, throat bobbing.
Shishido stops walking, suddenly angry. "I'm not hauling your ass all the way out here for you to whine about being artificial."
"I-"
"No, shut up," Shishido snarls savagely and takes two steps to close the distance between them. "Enough," he hisses, breath ragged and then he grabs a handful of Choutarou's hair to force him closer so he can finally kiss him and end this madness.
It's not nice. Shishido is rather brutal and the kiss isn't so much as their mouths meeting as it his him trying to punch some sense into Choutarou's head with his own. He draws back, teeth bared. Choutarou blinks, shocked.
Not quite like he imagined that, either.
Dammit.
He turns, intending to stomp back the way they came from, fume for a while.
Before he can fully turn, however, hands reach for him and draw him back, frantic and sudden and then his mouth is brushed -lightly. It's a small peck. Almost chaste if Choutarou didn't pull back a moment to squeeze his eyes shut and bite his bottom lip as he inhales shakily.
"Oh god," he breathes.
Shishido tip-toes, following that mouth, and kisses back, and again, and again until Choutarou's hands are in his hair, angling his head for more. Just that first, pressing is all, still pecks until their lips start to cling, more so when Shishido parts his on a small noise when he feels a hand on the side of his body, thumb slanted along his lower rib and the rest of that hand splayed hot like a brand.
They have touched before. They've put their mouths on each other before, but this, lips yielding against each other and the heat of another mouth, the taste of it, the fullness of their lips and hot exhales is the most erotic damn thing they have ever done to one other. The natural curves of their lips catch and fit together, just so, Choutarou's fuller than his own, and the bottom one swollen and soft when Shishido suckles lightly on it.
The world is quiet, the ocean still.
Choutarou is trying to touch him everywhere at once: the hand on his waist running mindlessly along his back, knuckles brushing sweetly up Shishido's throat to his jaw, his chin and they gasp, both, when Shishido opens his lips and a hand on his hip clenches convulsively when their tongues meet. He pulls back before it can become more than just that, lips shining and eyes dark.
"Shishido-san, are you-"
A sharp bite at his neck brings him up short, jumping. "If you ask whether I am sure, I'm kicking your ass."
"A-alright," Choutarou whispers, looking at him and looking at him and just looking and Shishido could die happy now, having seen that.
"And call me Ryou," he adds, before wrapping his arms around Choutarou's neck and dragging him down.
It feels right. Their lips slack and accepting and the heat of it when he can feel Choutarou's tongue against his own, tasting and there, inside of his mouth. Their bare chests brush and Shishido shudders and Choutarou smiles and gathers him closer for more, cupping his face as though to drink from Shishido's mouth, to breathe him in. Deep, searching kisses follow, slanting in hungrily before lifting away to breathe and rub their faces together just to dip down for more. Their lips linger, wet and moist and Shishido seems to burn, blood laced with ice-cold fire that leaves him humming and weak-kneed and wanting.
They pull back a little, just to smile and rub noses, before kissing again, because they can't seem to stop, not ever, please.
Shishido's heart beats loud and hard enough for the both of them.
***
It starts to pour as they hurry back.
Choutarou seemed perfectly ready to undress Shishido right there, and lie them down on their discarded clothes, rain notwithstanding.
Not that that doesn't seem like an absolutely brilliant -if scandalous- idea, but Shishido wants it to be perfect now. Everything has gone different than he thought it would and he's made so many mistakes and he's gotten so many things wrong before. But not this. Not now.
In a bed, safe and dry.
For a while Shishido doesn't think they'll make it back, not with hands lingering and reaching and rain soaked mouths seeking each other out for more. He'll be pressed against a tree, bark digging into his skin, thinking fuck it, I can't wait but then he knows why he's doing this and with whom and he'll take Choutarou's hand and lead him.
When the cabin finally looms through the rain, Shishido nearly cries with relief, since he can only stay virtuous for so long when Choutarou keeps touching him, murmuring things like 'I need you' and 'please' and 'Ryou', his name.
But it's a comfort to stumble inside and out of the rain. The interior is shaded in blues and grays, muted and dream-like. They find towels, which they take with the futon and sheets into the large main room, where their unpacked bags still sit. The sliding doors are opened and the patter of rain on grass and leaves loud.
They dry each other, pressing soft towels to one other's bodies, slowly undressing at the same time.
Calm and easy, even when Shishido fears his heart is making a valiant attempt to bridge the gap between the two of them, so it can go and stay within Choutarou. Who smiles and laughs softly, pressing his face to the visible flutter as he murmurs things that makes it pound even crazier and make Shishido blush harder.
Then it is like he dreamed, velvety and warm -twin cries of relief as they finally get to tumble skin-to-skin onto the cool, white sheets. Choutarou is impossibly warm on him, and Shishido could drown in the visceral pleasure of his weight on him, with hands in his hair and a mouth on his, kissing frantic and hot, never quite breaking it, not even when they murmur at one other, not when the rise and fall of their bodies change to match Shishido's pulse, and not even when they watch one other, eyes tied like their bodies at the very end with Choutarou saying his name over and over, like he was frightened, and Shishido answering, understanding and merciless.
It was everything he'd ever dreamed about. It was nothing like he'd ever dreamed about.
It was more.
It was simple.
It was terrifying and violent and sweet and gentle.
After, they lay in an exhausted heap with Shishido still on his back, boneless and Choutarou leaning half-over him, fingers tracing the lines of Shishido's face. The skies are still crashing down outside, and water hazes inside coolly to dust their bodies with a sheen. They skin clings hot, unwilling to relinquish the connection.
He leans down and kisses Shishido's cheek. "Now what?" he asks, question warm and fraught on his cheek.
Turning his head to brush their aching, abused mouths together, Shishido whispers. "Sleep. We'll worry about it tomorrow."
"Ryou," Choutarou says, sudden and choked.
Shishido pulls him down, curls his body up against him, breathes in. "I know," he says. "Me too."
....back to part 5! OR ...on to the final part!
Comment on last part, please.
Author: Everlind
Wordcount 50 600+
Pairing: Ohtori/Shishido (Silver Pair)
Rating: PG-15
Warnings: Drama, very mild gore, questionable ethical issues, attempts at humor, hopefully not too much OOCness. Oshitari. Kite (and his tight purple pants).
Summary: 'Can you make a robot love a human? But isn't the question: can you make a human love a robot?' (A.I. Artificial Intelligence by Steven Spielberg)
Disclaimer: The Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi. This story is based on characters and the universe of The Prince of Tennis, no money is being made from it.
Notes: For hazelandnuts at silver_swap 2010-2011.
a i
They sleep together from then on. Mostly in a sort of puppyish heap, not necessarily embracing, just a tangle of limbs and warm bodies, breathing in perfectly synchronized unison.
There's never a touch other than comfort and ease, gentle holding. It drives him crazy.
Shishido finds himself waking up in need of cold showers. His dreams are velvet dark, of cool sheets under his back and heated skin against his front. A mouth across his own and hands tangling in his hair.
The desire to take more makes him edgy and restless.
Worse is that he knows Choutarou wants more, too. Yet all they do is cuddle, and watch each other with greedy, starving eyes.
Everything will be fine one moment, they'll just be talking and Shishido will be answering something and there'll be no response because Choutarou is staring at his mouth, as if deeply contemplating all the other uses it could serve besides idle conversation.
It's stupid and silly that they don't, when they both want it and it leaves Shishido half-crazed to go through longing so violent he's sick to his stomach and yet find himself frightened what it might mean if they gave in. It's remains scary. Choutarou still is what he is and everything about it is wrong. There's a law against it just as sure as there's a law against tampering with possible soul blueprints and the law that states that your ass is going down if you unleash a non-Three Laws conform android on the world.
And yet, when they curl together just so and Shishido gets to bury his face against Choutarou's hot, soft skin, everything about is right.
He wishes Choutarou would just fucking kiss him already.
When he does, finally, it is yet again not as he imagined it would happen.
It happens kinda unannounced and natural, no big fuss. They're in bed, Shishido flush against Choutarou's broad back, right arm tucked through the hollow of Choutarou's neck. His right hand his palm-up, unfurled as he dozes off.
And Choutarou tips his head into that palm and kisses the ravaged center of it.
Shishido manages to hyperventilate and stop breathing all at once. By the time he has harnessed enough rational brain-power to open his mouth and say something about it, Choutarou has dropped of to sleep, lips still parted on the scar.
He's left hot and squirming, wanting to gnaw in aggravation on Choutarou's shoulder, because what kind of asshole does that?
But he lies still, body aching for more, breathing in and out until the other rolls away in his sleep, leaving his arms free. Shishido doesn't move, but stares at his kissed palm in wonder, fingers curling closed carefully as if he'd like to trap it there safe and maybe to look at once in a while like you'd do with a caught butterfly.
***
It becomes a sort of game. One which's only rule seems to be: it is forbidden for this to make any fucking sort of sense at all. Oh, and maybe, let's re-visit the adolescent era of intense sexual frustration. You know the kind. Oh yeah.
For days after Shishido'd swear he can feel that one elusive press of lips on his body. His palms tingles, as if world stopped right there in his scarred hand. Like a damn blushing teenager, he even catches himself being reluctant to wash it -what if all the traces went down the drain? Forever?! That bad. The only thing that kinda tops that is he pressing his own lips there, too, curious to see if he can re-discover the taste of Choutarou's mouth. He sticks his hands under the water right after, soaping them up and telling himself that acting like one doesn't mean he is the girl.
Not. at. all.
Dammit.
The bottom line is that he cherishes that one chaste kiss, but also realizes that it was just that -a kiss on the palm of his hand. Which was given while Choutarou was admittedly very sleepy, so it might've been nearly a unconscious gesture.
So he mentally kicks his own ass when he finds himself smiling lovingly at his hand and tries to get on with his life.
But it happens again, this time with no mistake.
Shishido is sitting at the table in the kitchen, rifling through his mail. There's a lot of junk in it, possibly misplaced by the mailman: a few travel catalogues and leaflets with airplane, train and bus info. He can't quite figure it out why it's in there, only that there's no plastic sleeve around it, nor an addressee mentioned anywhere.
As he's puzzling over it Choutarou walks by, stands by his side for a moment, jean-clad hip against Shishido's shoulder as he watches him turn pages. After a moment he stoops and presses his mouth to Shishido's forehead, sweet and intimate, before going about his business (which seems to be none at all, as he leaves the kitchen as empty-handed as he came in). Leaving him nailed to his chair by that kiss, thunderstruck as a slow, belated blush creeps up his neckline to his cheeks.
His stomach is doing somersaults, spastically churning his lunch into a mess as he walks into the living room after having sat on his chair for another half an hour before he dared to reach up and touch his forehead, disbelieving. Choutarou is on the couch with a sketchbook, studiously busy. The pencil whirls in furious lines over the paper, more so when an answering blush stains his cheeks, too, as Shishido leans in the doorway and looks at him, arms crossed and a 'Well?' pasted between his eyebrows.
It's easy to act cocky and none too impressed, but it still takes him a while before he can walk confidently into the room to go stand behind Choutarou. The pencil hitches as he rests his hands on those shoulders, thumbs ghosting up into the hair at his nape and down again, coaxingly almost. Then he presses his face there, lips catching clumsily as he imagines what else he might be doing to Choutarou other than just standing behind him as he kisses his neck. But he keeps his face there, nose rubbing before he breathes, "Don't be a tease."
Choutarou's voice is husky, thick. "I'm not teasing."
Shishido puts his head next to his, leaning over the back of the couch. "Heh. Sure."
"I'm not," Choutarou repeats, cheek bunching as he smiles a little. "Yet."
Pinching his sides leads to a rather high-pitched yip and Shishido keeps tickling him until he shrieks his submission -ticklish, how is it even possible? Choutarou grabs and hauls him over the back of the couch and they lie there, struggling and fingers seeking out vulnerable parts. Shishido starts to laugh as he sits down on his lower stomach, an excellent position to reach his ribs and sides and neck and Choutarou yells and gasps and giggles again which causes Shishido to loose his momentum as to tease him. Before he knows it he's on the receiving end and he's laughing, laughing so hard it hurts and Choutarou with him, head back and full-throated and Shishido thinks it's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard.
When they lie in a panting, muttering heap, Shishido realizes it's the first time he's ever heard him laugh.
***
The easel is angled towards the urban-ravaged panorama. It's a jagged, blackened cement outline, with neon dotting it. Yet the canvas shows misty mountains, with a glimpse of an early morning ocean between the peaks.
"Huh," Shishido goes, grinning a little. "Accurate."
Choutarou dabs his brush against his cheek, leaving a green smear. "I'm not painting Tokyo," he says.
Scrubbing with his sleeve at the paint, Shishido snorts. "Really? I wouldn't have guessed." He peers closer. It's awfully detailed for something made-up. "How'd you come up with this? It's beautiful."
The praise leaves a visible glow, but he shrugs and admits. "I saw it in one of those catalogues. Eidetic memory does the rest."
Shishido nods and steps back inside to fetch the stack of catalogues. He idly turns pages, actually reading what he sees there, eyebrows lifting. They're not even locations outside of Japan.
When he finally finds the photo Choutarou is churning out flawlessly thanks to his super-computer brain -with a few touches of his own, granted- Shishido reads the information that goes with it.
Something clicks into place.
"Would you like to go on vacation to Kōchi?"
***
"I don't know," Choutarou murmurs as they both bend over the small circled block of text. "It's kinda…" he shrugs.
"Creepy?" Shishido goes.
"Awfully convenient," Choutarou says instead. "It's like someone planned this trip out for us."
"Or maybe some loser just dropped info intended for someone else accidentally in our mailbox," Shishido counters.
"What if it is a trap?" Choutarou whispers, avoiding his eyes right then.
That makes him glance up. "For what? Us?"
When Choutarou nods, slowly, Shishido remembers that's he's in a position to be considered one of the dangerous kind of criminals out there, with Choutarou skimming the edge of 'illegal weapon of mass destruction'. It's none to far fetched either, after numerous blood-stained 'bumps' in the road of robotic sciences a non-Three Law conform android is comfortably up there in the niche of nation-wide mass hysteria.
"Well, why the hell would they bother to plan out a nice and cozy vacation when they know where we live? Instead of presenting us with brochures they'd bust in guns blazing," Shishido points out. "Shoot my brains out if I resist. Try in your case."
"That's not funny," Choutarou whispers.
"You're bullet-proof. Mostly," Shishido adds, grinning.
"Don't!" Choutarou hisses. "Don't joke about it," he says.
There's a terse silence. Shishido opens his gob to fumble out an apology that isn't one, but gets the intention across.
"I'm not talking about me being an android," Choutarou interrupts before he can embarrass himself.
Shishido's perishable, delicate human body often seems to upset Choutarou in the weirdest ways. Sighing, he taps Choutarou's ankle under the table with his foot.
"Point was we'd be dead already," Shishido says.
They discuss the matter a little longer, but in the end Shishido gets his way and rings up the number in the contact ad. Turns out to be a small, tiny little house tucked away deep in the forests and mountains, at half an hour from a teeny tiny rural village. It's not so much for rent as it is up for sale, but the old man agrees to renting it out to them for three weeks, at a very agreeable price if they fix some minor things around the place.
It's a golden deal.
Too good to be true, almost.
***
The days leading up to their departure both of them hardly sleep.
A little of it is nerves over the whole rather odd situation. But a lot of it, most of it and in Shishido's case nearly all of it, is the marrow-deep knowledge that the waiting will end there.
Maybe that's strange or weird, that they'd need to go someplace for this to happen, what they both want most.
And want a lot.
They're still playing their game, but it's almost practice now. The touches are deliberate and lingering and the little chaste kisses move away from relatively safe zones (though Shishido begins to suspect Choutarou could kiss the tip of his nose and leave him squirming).
Three days before they have to leave Choutarou kisses the inside of his leg, just above the knee he's bandaging after a rather rough game of tennis. It's a hot, open-mouth press there, that stays. Shishido's jaw drops open a little bit at how naughty that looks, in a disturbingly sweet way.
Two days before they have to leave Shishido gets fed up enough to open his mouth on Choutarou's neck, tasting him there, the salty tang and the skin. And he kisses him there, over and over until Choutarou is so much as putty pressed into the corner of the couch, eyes lidded.
A day before they have to leave, Choutarou stops him as he comes fresh out of the shower, eyes intent. Placing his large hands at either side of his ribs, he holds him and leans in to nuzzle a small kiss at the pulse-point in his chest, which leaves it in a galloping flutter of disbelief. After, he sits between spread knees on the ground, Choutarou ruffling his hair dry.
The night before they have to leave, Shishido finds himself on his back, panting as Choutarou does it again and again, going as far as to open mouth and catch his heartbeat on the flat of his tongue.
They don't sleep much at all.
***
Most of the planning went into figuring out how to get there.
By car seemed the most obvious and convenient way, but before long Shishido decided to make do entirely by public transport. They have time for it and he thinks Choutarou might enjoy it more, the experience of traveling like that. As they partly get away to be rid of the restrictions snaring them, but mostly him, this seems like a good way to do it.
It's a long trip. They wake up at the crack of dawn, or rather, they leave bed at the crack of dawn. It's a tangle of lingering hands and rubbing limbs. Shishido can't believe they're touching like this, so intimately familiar and yet haven't really done anything.
Dawn is just a hazy smear at the east when they head for the train station. Shishido feels bleary around the edges, but Choutarou is wide-eyed to soak it all up. The OLs in their suits and high heels and briefcases seem to confuse him as much as chaotic soup of traffic does. So near to the station it becomes quite the adventure to dodge and wind and slip through the crowds of people. Knowing how it all works, technically, is way different from being in the middle of it and having a crotchety obaasan shove her plastic shopping bags into your stomach to steal some space.
The first train is a crowded bustle, packed with dapper salary men and loud teenagers.
But the second train is easier. They have a seat, Choutarou by the window, nose nearly smashed up against it as he peers outside. The landscape rushes by. It's rice paddies and maples and waving fields one moment, iron and concrete buildings next. People, lots of different people. Some girls board and flutter their lashes at Choutarou, who kinda looks confused. Shishido smiles behind his hand.
There's nothing that shows Choutarou for being anything other than human, and very so at that. He's polite when they move through the crowds, apologizing in the wake of Shishido's elbowing advance. His mouth curves when an older sister crosses their path, pulling along a chain of three younger siblings, lined up like ducklings. His lashes flutter at the onslaught of food and drinks being sold at the station, looking left and right to see what is on display.
The further they travel south, the more lush natures becomes There are rows of trees bearing citrus fruits, endless stretches of rice paddies with the sun spilling low and rich over them. Choutarou sits watching it all, taking it in like as though the visuals ease a sort of starvation.
On the seat between them, their fingers touch and curl together.
***
They have to hitchhike. It really is the middle of nowhere.
Giant Camphor trees rear mighty above their heads where they are dropped off at a dubiously deserted gravel path. There's moss and vines on the trunks of the trees and birds chirping everywhere.
Choutarou tips his head back and breathes in, while Shishido scowls at the dodgy scribble of a map the old coot mailed him a few days ago.
"There should be a trail nearby," he murmurs, peering over the edge of the printout and seeing none.
Still smiling, Choutarou points uphill. "Let's go that way," he says, starting to hoist bags up his shoulders, along with a violin case and his huge maps to hold artworks in them. At least he carries it all himself.
Rolling his eye at the display, Shishido tugs at the rim of his cap, shading his eyes. Then he gathers up his own luggage and they start up the trail.
They do find the house… cabin, rather. It's kind of perched next to a rocky stretch of mountain, roof alive with tufts of grass and small plants. They wade through high grass to get there, smelling earthy, rich forest. There's the tang of the ocean in there, salty and fresh, but it is fleeting on the air and mostly overpowered by the jungle they seem to be in. Small white butterflies skitter around an overgrown monster of a rose-bush and there's an orange tree, too.
It's a ramshackle thing, in need of a lot more than some minor fixings. But Shishido loves it instantly. It doesn't make any sense, it's run down and in the middle of nowhere and there's nothing there. Nothing but them that is.
And maybe that's all it takes.
Inside proves to be as old as the outside. Furled leaves pile into the corners and tatami mats fray where the years of passage have worn them thin. But it is not unsalvageable. It's mostly one huge room and a smaller one, screened off by sliding doors, then an opening leading to a kitchen and finally a bathroom, with a deep stone bath. There also seems to be quite some storage space to tuck things away. Enough that even if they had brought all their belongings they'd have storage room to spare.
Shishido realizes he's picturing him… them, living there.
When Choutarou's arms sneak around him from behind and a kiss is dropped on his crown, he knows that Choutarou is thinking about exactly the same thing.
***
There's a tense moment when they find the futon and shake it free of dust. Their eyes meet over the blanket and Shishido feels his chest screw as tight as a vice with nerves. In the end they drape it over a chair in the kitchen to let the mustiness air out.
They go for a walk instead.
Shishido doesn't think he's ever been somewhere as green and wild before. They follow a barely visible trail, or rather Shishido follows Choutarou's tall form as the latter rather eagerly hurries ahead, as though every single damn Camphor tree and brambly undergrowth is worth staring at the way he does -mouth parted and eyes wide like he needs to have studied all of them. Today.
"Have you any idea where you're going?" Shishido mutters after a while. He bats at an insect, drawn to his blood.
"Down this trail!" Choutarou laughs, using tree-roots as steps as he clambers down a rather steep hillside. Ocean winks in the distance. It's not undoable, but there's plenty of ground to cover to reach it -enough to get spectacularly lost in. And all he has is the sketchy map from the main road to their cabin.
Shishido looks at him and then back over his shoulder the way they came from. "I should've installed GPS on you before we went," he grumbles. He's not fast enough to duck the clump of grass thrown at him.
It's warm and sweltering and humid. Shishido fans his face with his cap. He's hot and sweating and he's kinda starting to hope they'll find the ocean soon. Eventually he takes of his shirt and tucks it through his belt loops. The weak little breeze there is feels good on his skin. It's the end of the rainy season and today is dry, but the steam rising off the forest suggests a recent squall of considerable size.
Still, it's nice.
Shishido never thought he could feel so calm and happy to be hiking through the forest like this, with a film of water covering his body and the sun heavy on the back of his neck when the treetops let it through. It probably has something to do with Choutarou (and a lot with Choutarou's bare torso after he follows his example) and his curiosity. He peers into bushes where small animals skitter about, reaches to let his finger pads linger over fuzzy moss crusted into the bark of the trees. He tips his head up, smiling to the skies.
He moves around, perfectly human. Knowing full well all of it is semi-organic artificial components and how they have been attached and made to work doesn't help Shishido in seeing any evidence to the contrary. His skin flexes and moves, muscles stretch between his shoulder blades. He breathes, an aesthetic aspect mostly, helping only to power minor functions. Bluish veins run under his skin, now raised due to the heat, even though cutting him wouldn't show a single drop of blood. Yet he can blush and flush, a complex chemical reaction that took years to develop, and sweat. His mouth was wet on Shishido's chest this morning and his eyes gleam. He knows how it works. But he remembers the soft, fleshy side of his body and the swell of his thigh and the hard slats of ribs, his arching hips.
By now he has to admit that Choutarou could probably look less human than he does and Shishido'd still feel that dizzying rush in his lower belly when he lets his eyes linger on the dip of his spine above his waistband.
He has his own mannerisms and pattern of speech (horrifyingly polite at that, the dork), and his voice took on a coloring that was distinctly him. His eyes show emotion and he blushes in his own distinct way -two dark patches on his cheeks as opposed to Shishido, whose flush spreads all the way down his chest. He has hobbies and interests, aversion to certain things and moral belief in others. Technically he could operate on a higher lever, but instead he reasons and behaves like a human does.
He dreams.
He feels.
He loves.
Shishido walks a small distance behind him, hands deep in his pockets and shakes his head to himself.
He truly did it.
The first to succeed. But maybe also beyond that. It's not just perfect AI and perfect emphatic, emotional aware AI at that. There is a soul in there.
Choutarou is a person, a human being despite his hand-crafted artificial body.
Maybe there are no degrees in AI. Maybe once you actually get there, in the metaphysical realm and manage to make a spark there -you just get this, a someone.
If that is the case, Shishido thinks, then the research his colleagues are conducting, scientists all over the world hoping to wield the discovery for whatever purposes -are doomed to fail. Even if it is world-domination through AI-driven tennis playing androids, or whatever.
Before long robots of Choutarou's AI caliber will have to be recognized for what they are -human. It's inevitable. All minor categories in a social setting have been so. By bloody and horrifying means that usually accompany these revolutions -wars, slavery, attempts at genocide and much more than he wants to think of.
Were he any less selfish, then Choutarou would be the catalyst for this, to ensure that any other AI-driven androids to spring forth out of science won't have to suffer needlessly for decades, for longer even.
Were he a better person, he might insist on it.
Instead Shishido watches Choutarou be completely free to be himself and lets his mind linger on how it might be to live here.
With him.
***
Choutarou is careful in the ocean, only ankle deep in.
Standing next to him, Shishido licks the salt from his lips. The breeze ruffles his hair away from his forehead. Above, the skies are steely gray with rain. Before it crashes down the temperature will rise wet and unbearable.
They walk the length of the small cape, after Shishido plants a branch in the pebbly sand to mark where they came out of the forest.
"So?" Shishido asks after a while.
"What?"
"The ocean. Like the smell?" he clarifies.
Choutarou takes the seashell Shishido once brought him out his pocket, tosses it at him. Catching it one handed, he grins a little, rolls it over the palm of his hand.
"I don't know how to thank you," he murmurs, voice distant.
"Whatever for?" Shishido demands, frowning.
"How many people would so this for something that's not real?" Choutarou says softly. He swallows, throat bobbing.
Shishido stops walking, suddenly angry. "I'm not hauling your ass all the way out here for you to whine about being artificial."
"I-"
"No, shut up," Shishido snarls savagely and takes two steps to close the distance between them. "Enough," he hisses, breath ragged and then he grabs a handful of Choutarou's hair to force him closer so he can finally kiss him and end this madness.
It's not nice. Shishido is rather brutal and the kiss isn't so much as their mouths meeting as it his him trying to punch some sense into Choutarou's head with his own. He draws back, teeth bared. Choutarou blinks, shocked.
Not quite like he imagined that, either.
Dammit.
He turns, intending to stomp back the way they came from, fume for a while.
Before he can fully turn, however, hands reach for him and draw him back, frantic and sudden and then his mouth is brushed -lightly. It's a small peck. Almost chaste if Choutarou didn't pull back a moment to squeeze his eyes shut and bite his bottom lip as he inhales shakily.
"Oh god," he breathes.
Shishido tip-toes, following that mouth, and kisses back, and again, and again until Choutarou's hands are in his hair, angling his head for more. Just that first, pressing is all, still pecks until their lips start to cling, more so when Shishido parts his on a small noise when he feels a hand on the side of his body, thumb slanted along his lower rib and the rest of that hand splayed hot like a brand.
They have touched before. They've put their mouths on each other before, but this, lips yielding against each other and the heat of another mouth, the taste of it, the fullness of their lips and hot exhales is the most erotic damn thing they have ever done to one other. The natural curves of their lips catch and fit together, just so, Choutarou's fuller than his own, and the bottom one swollen and soft when Shishido suckles lightly on it.
The world is quiet, the ocean still.
Choutarou is trying to touch him everywhere at once: the hand on his waist running mindlessly along his back, knuckles brushing sweetly up Shishido's throat to his jaw, his chin and they gasp, both, when Shishido opens his lips and a hand on his hip clenches convulsively when their tongues meet. He pulls back before it can become more than just that, lips shining and eyes dark.
"Shishido-san, are you-"
A sharp bite at his neck brings him up short, jumping. "If you ask whether I am sure, I'm kicking your ass."
"A-alright," Choutarou whispers, looking at him and looking at him and just looking and Shishido could die happy now, having seen that.
"And call me Ryou," he adds, before wrapping his arms around Choutarou's neck and dragging him down.
It feels right. Their lips slack and accepting and the heat of it when he can feel Choutarou's tongue against his own, tasting and there, inside of his mouth. Their bare chests brush and Shishido shudders and Choutarou smiles and gathers him closer for more, cupping his face as though to drink from Shishido's mouth, to breathe him in. Deep, searching kisses follow, slanting in hungrily before lifting away to breathe and rub their faces together just to dip down for more. Their lips linger, wet and moist and Shishido seems to burn, blood laced with ice-cold fire that leaves him humming and weak-kneed and wanting.
They pull back a little, just to smile and rub noses, before kissing again, because they can't seem to stop, not ever, please.
Shishido's heart beats loud and hard enough for the both of them.
***
It starts to pour as they hurry back.
Choutarou seemed perfectly ready to undress Shishido right there, and lie them down on their discarded clothes, rain notwithstanding.
Not that that doesn't seem like an absolutely brilliant -if scandalous- idea, but Shishido wants it to be perfect now. Everything has gone different than he thought it would and he's made so many mistakes and he's gotten so many things wrong before. But not this. Not now.
In a bed, safe and dry.
For a while Shishido doesn't think they'll make it back, not with hands lingering and reaching and rain soaked mouths seeking each other out for more. He'll be pressed against a tree, bark digging into his skin, thinking fuck it, I can't wait but then he knows why he's doing this and with whom and he'll take Choutarou's hand and lead him.
When the cabin finally looms through the rain, Shishido nearly cries with relief, since he can only stay virtuous for so long when Choutarou keeps touching him, murmuring things like 'I need you' and 'please' and 'Ryou', his name.
But it's a comfort to stumble inside and out of the rain. The interior is shaded in blues and grays, muted and dream-like. They find towels, which they take with the futon and sheets into the large main room, where their unpacked bags still sit. The sliding doors are opened and the patter of rain on grass and leaves loud.
They dry each other, pressing soft towels to one other's bodies, slowly undressing at the same time.
Calm and easy, even when Shishido fears his heart is making a valiant attempt to bridge the gap between the two of them, so it can go and stay within Choutarou. Who smiles and laughs softly, pressing his face to the visible flutter as he murmurs things that makes it pound even crazier and make Shishido blush harder.
Then it is like he dreamed, velvety and warm -twin cries of relief as they finally get to tumble skin-to-skin onto the cool, white sheets. Choutarou is impossibly warm on him, and Shishido could drown in the visceral pleasure of his weight on him, with hands in his hair and a mouth on his, kissing frantic and hot, never quite breaking it, not even when they murmur at one other, not when the rise and fall of their bodies change to match Shishido's pulse, and not even when they watch one other, eyes tied like their bodies at the very end with Choutarou saying his name over and over, like he was frightened, and Shishido answering, understanding and merciless.
It was everything he'd ever dreamed about. It was nothing like he'd ever dreamed about.
It was more.
It was simple.
It was terrifying and violent and sweet and gentle.
After, they lay in an exhausted heap with Shishido still on his back, boneless and Choutarou leaning half-over him, fingers tracing the lines of Shishido's face. The skies are still crashing down outside, and water hazes inside coolly to dust their bodies with a sheen. They skin clings hot, unwilling to relinquish the connection.
He leans down and kisses Shishido's cheek. "Now what?" he asks, question warm and fraught on his cheek.
Turning his head to brush their aching, abused mouths together, Shishido whispers. "Sleep. We'll worry about it tomorrow."
"Ryou," Choutarou says, sudden and choked.
Shishido pulls him down, curls his body up against him, breathes in. "I know," he says. "Me too."
....back to part 5! OR ...on to the final part!
Comment on last part, please.