[The 69 Challenge, numbers 6-8] aka. another attempt at being productive
Remember the 69 Challenge? The one izkariote started March this year and finished all in the same month? Right. I posted once and once again and then stopped posting altogether. I'm actually still trying to write for it, but I'm such a failure that I'd start drabbles and stop a few sentences short of finishing them. So as a result, the endings - once I do get around to writing them - really suck. I've been holding back on posting the ones I managed to finish, hoping that I'd find some way to salvage the endings, but what the hell. I've decided to just throw these out now and do better (and write shorter pieces, damnit) next time.
Warning: Long-winded narratives ahead. I plead temporary insanity.
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6. An arrangement in black leather. (Hunter X Hunter, Kuroro x Kurapika, PG-13)
Note: I'd like to point out that I utterly fail at writing sex scenes on horizontal surfaces. I'm embarrassed posting this, but it was inspired by izkariote's massage table, and she deserves to know exactly what that thing made me do. Title taken from the September 15, 2005 theme of the 31_days LJ community.
In matters that would need them to make decisions as a pair, they’d learned that it was best to give way when it came to topics that the other knew more about. Kurapika, for example, was the higher authority on archaeology and ancient artifacts. While Kuroro knew more about that field than most laymen due to the nature of his profession, Kurapika’s interest in the subject and his work with the Hunter Association had led him to specialize in it. Kuroro thus could not beat his younger partner should someone test them on their knowledge of history, and he almost always left the task of verifying the authenticity of his targets to the blond.
Kuroro’s strengths on the other hand leaned more towards the practical side. He was better at stealing, of course, and at carrying out his nefarious schemes. He was also the better cook, the better dresser, the better interior designer - anything that had to do with daily aesthetics and the maintenance of a household. It was just a step shy of admitting that he had no fashion sense whatsoever, but Kurapika had long since decided to defer to the man whenever they went out shopping for clothes or furniture. Even if he had particular preferences, he always ended up getting the things that Kuroro pointed out for him, anyway.
And Kuroro did have an expert eye for colors and shapes. He always chose clothes that looked good on the two of them, and yet were as comfortable as if they’ve been custom-made with the softest fabrics. His numerous estates looked like showpieces right out of interior designing magazines, and it was a testament to his good taste that he picked most of the furniture himself. In any case, it was less troublesome to go against Kuroro’s decisions regarding the arrangement of the television in relation to the sofa - why fix the routine when it wasn’t broken?
But when Kurapika came home one day to find something… bulky and flat and rectangular and monstrously black occupying the previously empty corner in the recreation room, he just had to ask.
“It’s a massage table,” Kuroro explained cheerfully in response to Kurapika’s wide-eyed stare.
“I… had a feeling that it’s something like that, but what do we need it for?” he asked faintly.
“For massages, of course.” Kuroro paused in the middle of unwrapping bottles of scented oil. Kurapika blinked. There were more than a dozen of the little glass bottles - certainly more than what he thought would be needed for a simple massage.
“I did mention once that I worked as a masseuse, right? Or have you forgotten?”
“No, but I didn’t think you were serious.”
“I was. That was when I learned how to work with shouko, you know. This thing was on sale, anyway, and I got it for half the original price.” Kuroro finished placing the bottles on a side table - it also had a big pile of towels on the lower rack - and turned to face him, grinning disarmingly. “I can give you one right now. A massage, I mean. Work the day’s aches and pains away,” he added.
Kurapika narrowed his eyes. Something in his partner’s smile looked just a bit too innocent. Then again, he remembered how Kuroro had freed his nen after it had been sealed by his brother. If what Kuroro was telling him about the source of his knowledge was true, then maybe that bit about him working as a masseuse wasn’t just a joke, too.
“All right,” he said finally, tentatively offering a lopsided smile of his own before warily clambering onto the massage table. He had to admit, he was curious to see how well Kuroro would do as a masseuse. “Prove that this purchase is justified, then.”
Of course, a full massage session would require him to remove his clothes. That should have been enough to warn him. But Kuroro really turned out to be a skillful masseuse - he used his knowledge of the body’s pressure points and worked out knots in his muscles that Kurapika didn’t even know he had, making him feel as if he was melting into the cool black leather in blissful relaxation, and by the time he realized that the man’s fingers were touching him down there he was already too far gone to get angry about being tricked.
If Kurapika had remembered that Kuroro’s idea of breaking in new furniture was to have wild, passionate sex on said furniture, he wouldn’t have agreed to the massage so readily.
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7. Treat him like a lady. (Untitled original series, Shori x Wei, PG-13)
Note: Title’s from the July 21, 2006 theme of 31_days. The Ministry of State Security (abbreviated as MSS) is the closest thing I could find that resembled a Chinese FBI, and I figured that it’d be the one agency that would persistently be going after Wei for all the assassinations he’s done in Asia.
Shori wasn’t in the habit of brooding over personal problems while at work. He liked to keep his personal life and his job separate, because he believed that letting the two mix would be suicidal - or not conducive to his mental health, at the very least - so he always tried not to think about his personal problems while he was working.
Not that he had that many personal problems to brood over, in any case; his problems, if there happened to be any, tended to stem from his workplace, like… Cassie trying to trick him into getting his ear pierced, or Captain Haddon ordering him to pace out his report writing when all he wanted to do was to finish it in one go, or the FBI liaisons hounding him about keeping his ward in line - those sorts of problems, the sort that got solved if he nipped them in the bud before they could become even more problematic, or, failing that, the sort that went away as long as he gathered a mountain of work and hid behind it.
However, there were some problems that just begged mulling over. Like his relationship with his aforementioned ward, for instance. Meeting Wei had forced him to reevaluate some of his principles, the way he viewed the rest of the world, the things that he took for granted, and last but certainly not the least - his sexual orientation. Those issues had already been dealt with after long periods spent brooding, so Shori wasn’t about to go back to them and the pain of overturning his identity to accommodate the changes, but now… now there was a new issue to deal with.
He was being topped by a boy seven years his junior. Topped - not just once, or twice, or even half the time like how he assumed normal give-and-take gay relationships worked. He was being topped all the time.
He could deal with being gay. He could deal with having a contract killer for a boyfriend. Heck, he had been fending off various countries’ demands to have Wei tried for the people he had killed, and if that wasn’t an indication of his ability to adapt (from mild-mannered consultant to the one person in the task force who could outmaneuver China’s Ministry of State Security and get away with it), he didn’t know what was. He thought he could deal with Wei’s perverted tastes in bed, too, but as Cassie had cheerfully pointed out the other day, his manhood was taking a beating, one that it might never recover from if he failed to find his place in their relationship.
But it wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried. Shori scowled at his computer screen and ignored the heat rising up his face as the thought reminded him of his disastrous attempts to assert control. Oh yes, he’d tried - he’d tried fighting back, only to have Wei overpower him with embarrassing ease. He’d tried Cassie’s suggestion, which was to act and sound like the dominant, and while the boy did yield to him at that time, the sex had felt awkward, almost forced. And anyway, Shori wasn’t going to try that approach ever again - Wei got control back for the next few times, even subjecting him to the ball gag and leather restraints treatment. It was almost as if the assassin had been punishing him for daring to take control…
Shori scowled again. Should he try to refuse the boy’s advances? He was Wei’s legal guardian after all. He could actually ground the kid if he misbehaved - No. Shori cut the thought off before it could finish. It was ridiculous to even think that he could discipline the Chinese assassin like a normal teenager. Or maybe he could move to HQ for a few days, let the boy’s seemingly relentless libido cool down… No. Wei would probably just hunt him down and do even more Unspeakable Things to him. Or maybe he could try asking nice-
“Have you tried taking him on a date?”
Shori jumped. His left elbow banged against his computer keyboard, and his right elbow knocked some folders off the stacks of books and files he’d placed all around his desk in an effort to ward against the inquisitiveness of a certain nosy lieutenant. He scrambled to pick up the fallen files, but his flailing arms knocked even more stacks over, causing an even bigger mess and a loud racket. Shori forced himself to stop moving, sat back down in his chair, turned around - and found himself looking up at the captain.
He flushed as he realized that Haddon had caught him slacking off on the job.
“Sorry, sir - was thinking of something else - won’t happen again -”
Allen Haddon waved his flustered apology aside. “You’re thinking about Wei, aren’t you?”
Dimly Shori registered that he was gaping quite rudely, but something in him chirped that he didn’t have the psychological capacity for propriety at the moment. Bits of the first question drifted back to him now that his mind wasn’t so preoccupied, and his brain stalled as it processed both questions in conjunction and struggled to decide between the need to answer his superior and the urge to properly give vent to his horror at finding out that even the captain knew that he was being topped by a teenager.
Haddon leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You were brooding,” the man said apologetically. “Normally I wouldn’t intrude, but you looked like you could use a bit of advice.”
“Ah,” Shori croaked.
“And I know you well enough to say that only a really serious problem can distract you from your work,” Haddon added.
“Oh.”
“Such as a problem regarding your self-esteem, perhaps?”
Shori’s ears burned with mortification. Of course the captain would be sharp enough to tell when one of his subordinates was having problems of the really personal kind. He just wished that there was a handy hole that he could disappear into.
“So? Have you tried taking him on a date?” Haddon repeated gently.
“No,” Shori mumbled. “The thought has never crossed my mind.”
The older man nodded as if he’d been expecting the answer.
“You’d know better than anyone else that he didn’t have a normal childhood. He views the world differently and he probably has a different set of rules for how he does things…”
Damn right he’d know better than anyone else. Wasn’t that what he had been doing all this time, making sure that the boy got a better hand than what he had been dealt with? What was the captain getting at if he already knew that?
“… Perhaps the reason he’s the way he is now is because he doesn’t know of any other way to express his love?”
For someone trying to impart wisdom that could save someone else’s self-esteem, Allen Haddon sounded incredibly uncertain. But as the query slowly sank in and the dubious, embarrassed expression on Shori’s face was replaced by dawning comprehension - embarrassed comprehension, but comprehension nonetheless - Haddon straightened and smiled knowingly.
“Have fun showing him how it should be done,” the captain said, and with one last encouraging pat on Shori’s shoulder as a parting shot, sauntered away with the satisfied air of a man who’d done his good deed for the day.
If he had been thinking more clearly Shori would have found it unnerving that the older man knew exactly what to say. More than that, he should have thought it exceedingly strange that Haddon even knew about his problems with Wei, considering that only Cassandra Borden had an exact idea of the intimacy between him and the Chinese assassin. If he had been less distracted he would have given more effort to following that thought to the most likely conclusion - that someone had obviously ratted on him. He knew, he just knew that his coworkers had been giving him funny looks for several weeks now, and that he wasn’t being paranoid about the sniggering, and the blushing and the giggling from the female members of the task force.
Someone was going to get it. But not right now. Right now he was too busy picking at the captain’s innocently-delivered question, using it to unravel his bafflement over Wei’s aggressive behavior. Captain Haddon had lit the metaphorical fire, and Shori’s report was forgotten for the moment as he brainstormed and schemed and felt everything falling into place…
Shori set his plans into motion the next week.
Monday evening after Wei cornered him against the kitchen counter, Shori threw his rulebook of decorum out the window, sucked all his guts in to prepare for his first charge, pushed Wei’s hands aside, and touched himself in time with the boy’s movements. The action freed Wei to let his hands wander wherever he wanted, and while it was entirely out of Shori’s comfort zone, it produced the most favorable reaction that he could have hoped for.
Wei was bewildered, and a bewildered Wei was a good thing. It meant that the assassin wasn’t in complete control anymore, and Shori could more easily catch him off guard.
Tuesday morning, Shori woke to find Wei’s arms curled possessively around him, and Wei’s dark eyes languidly watching him with a half-lidded gaze. He leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss against the other’s lips instead of half-heartedly grumbling and pulling away like he usually did, and scrambled out of bed before the boy could recover from his surprise. He had time to cook breakfast that morning because Wei wasn’t feeling as grabby as usual.
Wednesday afternoon after he got off from work, Shori went to the supermarket and stocked up on ingredients. He went home, called Cassie over and pointed her and Wei in the direction of the Playstation 3. Then, while they were happily preoccupied trying to kick each other’s butts with whatever video game they had chosen, he sequestered himself in the kitchen and cooked a nice, family-style dinner made up of Wei’s favorite foods.
It was just as well that Cassie could act like such a child sometimes. Her antics successfully coaxed Wei to act his true age for once.
On Thursday the papers he’d filed the previous week were approved. They documented a request to have the mandatory outdoor surveillance on one Lin Wei Tien lifted for a period of two hours, and another request to allow the boy to handle firearms in a nearby recreational shooting facility. That same afternoon Shori brought Wei to a local shooting range and set the assassin loose to do whatever he wanted, unsupervised, for two whole hours - barring anything illegal, of course. Shori amused himself by watching Wei trounce a few of the establishment’s regulars, who thought that it would be fun to bully the Chinese kid into a shooting match.
If it seemed strange that a teenager would possess mastery-level shooting skills, there was no one around who would be inclined to take note of it.
Friday night after they’d gone to bed, Shori wrapped his arms around Wei in an embrace that he hoped inspired feelings of safety and shelter. He chose that particular gesture because normally it would be the other way around - Wei clinging to him like an overeager puppy or a really affectionate cat, and him being on his guard for the slightest move that might preclude Wei trying to get into his pants again. He wasn’t sure how the teen reacted; he didn’t dare look down, afraid that Wei might see his nervousness, but the gesture must have worked because the boy relaxed completely after only a few seconds of stiffness.
That, and the assassin didn’t even try to take advantage of the new position.
Saturday was the day when Shori carried out Captain Haddon’s original suggestion… He took Wei out on a date. And yes, he went for the traditional, tried-and-true method: romantic dinner for two at a restaurant that he’d carefully chosen after a stringent selection process. The place had to be quiet and classy, but not too snobby; he didn’t want his companion to feel out of his depth. The food had to be excellent, but not too expensive; he didn’t want Wei to think that he was being bribed. The staff had to be engaging and tolerant - Shori didn’t want to have to deal with homophobes - but not overly pushy or chatty, because one wrong move might trigger any one of Wei’s assassin quirks. The last thing that Shori needed was for the boy to accidentally stab a waiter with one of his acupuncture needles, and he spent the entire time making sure that everything went smoothly… In fact, he was too busy being anxious that he couldn’t even remember the dishes that they ate.
But their date was normal, by “normal” standards. Nothing untoward happened. All the waiters escaped the evening unharmed, and Shori could tell that Wei enjoyed the experience, if only for the chance to be allowed out after dark. Still, he didn’t think that a simple date could be so tiring. He felt as if he’d been pulling consecutive all-nighters, and by the time they got back to their apartment he was just about ready to stagger to bed.
Unfortunately, his boyfriend had other ideas. Wei stopped him at the doorway to the bedroom, with a hand on his chest and dark eyes seeking his own. Shori thought briefly about refusing - he really was tired, physically, and even mentally, because the point of his plan was to get him on top for once, and here was Wei being his usual self. Maybe it was an exercise in futility.
So instead, he sighed and caught the kiss he already knew was coming. A thought flitted through his mind, about this being the most damnable proof that he’d had the deed done to him for far too many times - he already knew what was coming, and he already knew what to do. Hands, carefully undoing buttons and zippers, helping to undress the both of them. Feet, stepping in concert, tracing an oft-used path to the bed. Teeth worrying his lower lip, and tongue tracing a path down his neck. Shori already knew what was coming and he already knew what to do, but rather than becoming used to it, Wei’s actions never failed to make him respond.
That was probably the most embarrassing thing of all. He could stew for hours about being topped by a younger man, he’d struggle and complain when subjected to Wei’s kinks, but at the end of it all, he couldn’t say that he disliked it and still be honest. Even now he was already getting turned on, when they haven’t started doing anything yet…
Shori blinked. Why haven’t they done anything yet? Following the usual pattern of things, Wei should have done something by now. Like, tie his hands to the headboard. Or maneuver him into any of a number of back-breaking positions. Give him a blowjob first, if the assassin was feeling generous - anything that involved dealing with parts below the belt. But so far they were just fumbling and groping at each other. Wei’s movements were quite intense, though, almost desperate, needy…
When the idea hit, it hit with a force approximately equal to Captain Haddon’s suggestion, the revelation that started it all. Shori took all of two seconds to decide. Just one action was all it would take to give him his answer, really. If the answer was a no, then the worst that could happen couldn’t be worse than being tied up and left alone in his room with a vibrator up his ass.
Shori propped himself up on his elbows and rolled to one side, and gently but firmly pushed Wei down so that the teen would be the one lying on his back. Then he dipped his head and claimed the boy’s lips, slid his right hand past the waistband of the other’s underpants…
Wei didn’t fight back. The counterattack Shori expected never came. And minutes later he was taking the role he'd wanted all this time, watching Wei try to suppress his shuddering, wondering if this was what he looked like whenever he succumbed to the younger man’s advances - skin flushed with heat, eyes glazed over with lust, mouth open and panting. It was the first time he’d seen Wei with his face stripped of all pretense and restraint, leaving an expression that he’d only ever seen glimpses of, an expression that belonged to the affection-starved young man he knew was hiding somewhere behind the precocious and efficiently deadly masks of his assassin persona.
It would be for a while yet before Shori could say for certain that his plan had worked - exactly a week, in fact, which was the average span of time it usually took Wei to carry out his countermeasures against Shori’s “insubordinations”. But the captain was right after all; it seemed that Wei responded more positively to traditional courtship methods than to any of Shori’s attempts to emulate his assertiveness. In that case, they needed to go on more dates. And he might have to get the boy to understand that sex wasn’t the only way by which they could keep their relationship afloat. It was going to be hard work, showing the younger man “how it should be done,” but if handling Wei as if he were a lady was the best way by which Shori could become the man in their relationship, then he’d have to start recalling his parents’ embarrassing lessons on how to go about courting a girl.
He’d just have to pray that the analogy never makes its way to Wei’s ears, because if it did, then… actually, he didn’t dare imagine what would happen to him if Wei ever realized what was happening. For the moment, at least, he didn’t have to brood over that particular problem anymore, and it was back to juggling work-related problems…
Monday morning, the week after he enforced his 7-Step Plan For Topping Wei Without Fear Of Retaliation, Shori breezed into headquarters and immediately dived into the work that he’d failed to finish because of all the brooding he’d done in the past couple of weeks. His mood had improved vastly and his coworkers could see it, and Captain Haddon even gave him a discreet thumbs-up from his office, but that was the only special gesture he noticed and acknowledged with a tiny, grateful smile. He was so engrossed with his work that he missed several bemused glances being thrown his way, and he didn’t hear Cassie creeping up on him until it was too late.
“You’re looking cheerful this morning.”
Shori managed to stop himself from jumping this time, probably because he was still in too good of a mood to be provoked into reacting negatively. “Hello to you, too,” he replied without taking his eyes and his hands off his computer. “Do you need me for anything?”
“Like I said, you look cheerful,” Cassie repeated. “Did anything good happen this past weekend?”
It was the lieutenant’s nonchalant tone and the careful way she phrased her question that told him there was something wrong. The normal inquisitive Cassie would have sounded like a hyperactive toddler trying to annoy her parents into answering; this Cassie was trying - unsuccessfully - to be subtle and understated.
Shori remembered the side glances and the knowing smirks of the past few weeks, and he vaguely recalled promising himself that he was going to root out the source of all the rumors that must be flying about the office totally unchecked by the people directly involved. He blinked at the waiting lieutenant, cocked his head ever so slightly to the right, and in a flash of insight wondered why she was so eager to know the reason behind the drastic change in his mood.
There was probably an office pool - on what, he had a feeling he knew, but didn’t really want confirmed. And knowing Cassie, she was most likely in the thick of it - could be why it felt to him like she had a vested interest in whatever answer she was waiting for him to give.
Well, two can play at the subtle game.
Shori blinked again, wiped his face blank of the insane grin that threatened to break out, and then quite deliberately shook his head.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he murmured in as deadpan of a voice as he could manage under the circumstances. He was rewarded by the girl giving him a puzzled frown. Shori turned his chair around to face his desk and pretended to go back to work.
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Cassie walk away, still wearing that puzzled frown. A co-worker called out, asking a question Shori couldn’t quite catch, and Cassie shrugged a negative reply.
Shori smirked. Unfortunately, it was inevitable that the girl - and by proximity, everyone else - would find out about what happened, but for the moment he was going to enjoy watching them scratch their heads over his behavior. It was their turn to brood now.
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8. Cure for the itch. (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, implied Akihiko x Minato, PG-13)
Note: Or in this case, it's literally the cure for a certain imaginary status ailment. I totally made it up for my nefarious purposes. OTL
It happened occasionally; Tartarus would suddenly shift just as they were ascending the stairs to get to the next level, and the team would find themselves separated on the next floor. Akihiko couldn’t say exactly how it happened - one second they’d be climbing the stairs, and the next he’d be all alone in a hallway. Fortunately they’d already experienced it several times so that all of them knew what to do in such a situation - call Fuuka so the girl would know their location, and then forge ahead and try to find that floor’s terminal or the stairs as quickly as possible. They’d never had any problems regrouping that way, and they were in the Fourth Block, not really high enough that they’d have trouble fighting Shadows on their own - and look, Tartarus screwed up this time - Akihiko rounded the corner and found himself standing nose-to-nose with their young squad leader.
“You okay?”
Minato nodded wordlessly; it wasn’t wise to talk too much in the tower as Shadows were attracted by noise and movement.
“Akihiko-senpai, are you all right?” Fuuka’s voice sounded unearthly in his ear, her normally soft tone magnified and strengthened by Juno’s power.
“Yes. Minato’s with me. Have you found the others?”
“I’ve found them, and Ken-kun and Junpei-kun are together, but - hold on.”
Akihiko kept his guard up while he waited for the girl to finish her scan of the floor; beside him Minato was doing the same, sharp blue eyes scanning the surrounding darkness for the glowing red eyes of an approaching Shadow.
“This is worrying,” Fuuka reported back after a few seconds of silence. “Their way to the stairs is blocked by several groups of Shadows. Junpei-kun shouldn’t have a problem, but Ken-kun doesn’t have enough experience yet.”
Akihiko and Minato exchanged concerned glances, and the younger boy raised his hand to finger his earpiece as he asked, “Are they in any danger?”
“They shouldn’t be,” the girl replied. “I think I can guide them past the bigger groups, but I’ll have to focus on them, and I won’t be able to support the two of you. Minato-kun, will you and Akihiko-senpai be all right on your own?”
“We’ll be fine,” the junior replied even without having to consult his companion - not that Akihiko would have taken offense at the prompt answer. The two of them were easily among the more powerful members of SEES, Akihiko for his greater experience and Minato for his unique ability to summon multiple Personas. Akihiko had to revise his earlier thought; Tartarus didn’t really screw up - if the team had to be separated into pairs he’d have preferred that either himself or Minato ended up going with Ken. Junpei was an able fighter, but he specialized too much on physical attacks and couldn’t be counted on for stealth. Instead of guiding the middle schooler past danger he’d be more likely to stumble into a Shadow and engage in unnecessary battle.
“Just concentrate on getting them to the stairs,” Akihiko added encouragingly for Fuuka’s benefit. If she was too busy worrying about them she might get distracted and fail to support the other two properly.
“All right. I’ll talk to you again after you’ve regrouped safely,” Fuuka said reluctantly, and the connection cut off.
“Let’s go,” he said quietly, and they set off with Minato taking point as usual. The junior’s sword gave him a longer reach, and a quick lunge at the back of an unsuspecting Shadow was often enough to send their enemies reeling, disorienting them and giving the Persona-users time to summon their counterparts. They had an easy time of it following that arrangement for the first three corridors, defeating three groups of Shadows effortlessly between the two of them, until they rounded a corner and spotted a single Shadow loitering right in the middle of the hallway.
Lone Shadows were troublesome; instead of being easier to deal with they usually turn out to be stronger than entire groups of the weaker ones. Mitsuru had speculated about the possibility of predation among the Shadows - maybe the weaker Shadows didn’t want to group with the stronger ones for fear of getting devoured. It made sense; their most difficult encounters in Tartarus - outside of the floor Guardians - had been with single Shadows. They didn’t have a full team right now, and it would be wiser to find a way to get around the one in front of them, but…
“There’s no other way,” Minato whispered. “We’ve already checked all the rooms and corridors behind us.”
“No terminal, and no stairs,” Akihiko continued grimly. He sighed and tightened the straps on his gloves. “Think you can sneak up on it before it sees us?”
The other boy nodded tersely; his eyes were already narrowing as he watched for the moment when the Shadow would turn the other way.
When it happened, it happened quickly - Akihiko followed as closely as he dared as Minato rose from his crouch and darted forward on silent feet, and even before he could position himself favorably the junior had already reached their target and scored a direct hit on its side. The Shadow squealed and turned to face them, and that was when Akihiko began to think that it would have been better if they’d tried to make a run for it.
The Shadow was tiny, barely a foot high, and it looked like the Cupid type that so loved to flock together in groups of four or five. Why it would be alone like this wasn’t readily apparent - despite carrying a golden bow and arrows whose points looked extremely sharp, it didn’t look as fierce or as threatening as most of the Shadows they’d fought up until this point. Akihiko stared at it warily, unwilling to rush it. He couldn’t remember encountering this particular Shadow before, and Fuuka wasn’t there to help them analyze its attributes. But they couldn’t tarry too long or the advantage they’d gained by ambushing it would be lost.
Minato growled a challenge, and out of the corner of his eyes Akihiko saw the younger boy sheathe his sword and reach for his Evoker - but whatever Persona Minato was planning to summon, Akihiko didn’t see it. Nor was the boy able to use his Evoker - the Shadow was faster. Akihiko, still watching it closely saw it do a little fluttering hop. Then it aimed its weapon at the other boy, holding the bow in a peculiar diagonal stance. Akihiko felt his unease grow exponentially - he’d seen this attack before.
“Minato, look out!”
-----
His head felt fuzzy, and his nerves were tingling pleasantly… He couldn’t seem to move his limbs, though, and his arms fell slack by his side. His hand was holding something vaguely gun-shaped, something called an Evoker… what… was an Evoker? It had to be important, if he was holding it so carefully, but… it didn’t matter now.
None of it mattered, not the weight of the saber on his hip, or the darkness encroaching on the edges of his eyesight, not even the heavy pressure of someone’s hands on his shoulders, and the insistent, anxious voice yelling in his ear. There was something… he wanted… someone… he needed to watch…
Oh, good… the yelling stopped, and the hands lifted from his shoulders - but they returned a second later to hold the sides of his head. Something pressed against his lips, pushed past his teeth, touched against his tongue -
Akihiko-senpai was kissing him.
Minato’s senses rebooted instantaneously at the realization, and he opened his mouth, but before he could do more than gasp, the other boy pulled away.
“My attacks aren’t working! You have to use one of your Personas - anything except Electricity and Strike will do!”
… Anything except Electricity and Strike, huh?
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There was a reason why everyone at SEES followed Minato’s lead when it came to Shadow extermination, even the more experienced seniors - he was just that good at killing the things. His arsenal of Personas meant that he wasn’t limited to a single strength or weakness, and thus could adapt to any situation with frightening ease. He was the main reason why they’ve managed to get so far up the tower in only a few months, and Akihiko believed as did everyone else that his survival was paramount for their purpose of getting rid of Tartarus and the Dark Hour once and for all. That was why he’d stepped in front of the other boy, protecting him against the Shadow’s arrows instead of finding another way to attack, and the reason why he didn’t move away now when Minato brought his Evoker up to the side of his head - he’d be damned if their leader got injured in the middle of summoning his Persona.
Instead Akihiko hunched his head down and to the side to give the junior a clear line of sight. His hands were still on the other’s shoulders, and he felt the shudder that ran through Minato’s body as the shot rang out. It was followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass, and then an ear-splitting roar as Thanatos materialized out of the shards of Minato’s psyche.
Thanatos? He can’t be thinking… Oh shi-
The senior squeezed his eyes shut, but the blinding light of the Persona’s most devastating spell still leaked through his closed eyelids. He didn’t even have time to cover his ears, and the Shadow probably didn’t know what hit it, either. He straightened and turned around after the echoes of the attack had died away and Thanatos’s outline had faded from view.
Only a sad-looking cloud of soot remained of the unfortunate Shadow, and even that dissipated into the air rather quickly.
Akihiko raised an eyebrow. “Megidola? Bit of an overkill, isn’t it?” His ears were still ringing from being so close to the blast.
“I figured that too much is better than not enough in this case,” Minato explained sheepishly.
“Well, good thinking. That type of Shadow can learn to block against attacks that fail to kill it in one blow. When my attacks stopped working I had to resort to using Tarunda against it.” He reached back and, with a grunt of pain, plucked out an arrow that had sunk itself into his left shoulder. “Good thing that its power wasn’t that high to begin with,” he added wryly.
Minato blinked at the sight of the tiny golden arrow, no longer than one of their fingers. Its point was covered in Akihiko’s blood. His eyes widened, and he turned the older boy around to look at his back.
“Senpai… are you all right? You look like a pincushion.”
Akihiko almost laughed out aloud at the uncharacteristic look of panic on the other boy’ face.
“It’s not that bad. Like I said, I managed to weaken its attacks. They don’t go that deep. Wait, I can do this myself,” he objected as Minato started carefully pulling out the other arrows.
“Even you can’t see out the back of your head, senpai. Let me,” the younger boy insisted. “Hariti could use the experience.”
Akihiko recognized the argument for the excuse that it really was, but he let the issue drop when he recalled that Hariti was the Persona that Minato used for healing. Having several Personas was good, but it can’t be easy, making sure that all of them received equal amounts of experience. So he stayed quiet while his back was tended to, and sighed and gave his heartfelt thanks after the spell closed his wounds.
“Senpai, you’ve fought that type of Shadow before, haven’t you?”
The senior winced. “Yeah. Three years ago. Shinji and I ran into one of the same type outside Tartarus. I can’t believe I forgot about it.”
“And… the kiss…?”
“Oh, damn.”
If the subject matter wasn’t so delicate Akihiko would have been highly amused. Minato didn’t fluster easily, and to see him so uncomfortable and uneasy was a rare sight indeed. But he himself was already flushing at the reminder of the kiss, which in the heat of battle had felt like nothing, but now seemed so outrageous an action.
“Look, I’m sorry about that. It was the only thing I knew that would snap you out of it,” he explained. “That Shadow did some kind of enchantment on you. It seems to be a variation of the Charm spells, but it takes longer to wear off, and Charmdi and Patra, even Amrita won’t work against it. I don’t know of any item we currently have that can cure it, either.”
“Oh. It did feel different from being Charmed. But how did you find out about the cure?”
There was a pinched quality to the junior’s voice, and Akihiko began to truly worry that Minato might be mad at him. He cursed whatever it was that created Tartarus’s gloomy hallways; it was too dark to see the other’s face to check his expression.
“Shinji was the one who figured it out. Don’t ask me how he came to think of kissing in the middle of battle, though - he never explained it to me properly.”
“Shinjiro-senpai kissed you?” Minato asked bemusedly.
“I think it was because he ran out of things to try. He even socked me in the face. He had a mean right hook… the swelling wouldn’t go down for days afterward.”
The junior laughed. His humor was infectious; Akihiko grinned, partly in relief that the younger boy didn’t seem to be angry, and partly at the memory of what his old friend had done.
“I guess it’s funny in retrospect. I had a hell of a time explaining how I got the black eye and the swollen cheek, though.”
Minato opened his mouth to reply, but then they rounded another corner and spotted their destination. “Ah, there’s the stairs,” he pointed out instead. They hurried toward it, eager to get out of the dark - Tartarus’s stairways all glowed with some sort of inner light, almost looking like beacons amongst the darkness and the blood-splattered corridors of the tower.
“They don’t seem to be here yet,” Akihiko muttered when they entered the room and found no one waiting for them.
“Should we go look for them?”
The senior shook his head. “It’s too easy to miss each other in these corridors. We should wait - if they don’t get here within the next few minutes we can try calling Fuuka. She’ll tell us if they need our help.”
But they weren’t content to just wait - within seconds of making the decision both had taken up lookout positions at the entrance of the room. If the other members of their team got into trouble nearby, they could hear it and rush to their aid more quickly.
“So…” Akihiko began after a minute or so of terse waiting, “are we okay, or do I have to beg for your forgiveness?”
Minato gave him a sideways look - he looked surprised at the question. “I’m not angry. You had to do it. It’s not like you meant anything by it, right?”
“Right.” The senior left it at that… the younger boy didn’t have to know that Akihiko didn’t find kissing him as repulsive as he would have thought - in fact, it reminded him of better times with Shinjiro, before he left SEES and everything that happened after, and before he fell at Strega’s hands.
“And thanks, by the way, for - for bringing me back to my senses.”
“It’s no big deal,” Akihiko replied sincerely, while inwardly he ruefully admired Minato’s fortitude and altruism - here he was having decidedly strange thoughts, and the other boy had to go and thank him.
“We should warn the others about that Shadow,” Minato added.
“Yeah. I can’t imagine Junpei or Ken taking it better than you did without prior explanation…”
Akihiko groaned as he suddenly realized something.
“Actually… I don’t suppose we can avoid telling them the details? Junpei’s sure to make a big deal out of this. We’ll be in for a lot of ribbing before this is over.”
Minato grimaced. “The report’s unavoidable. And Mitsuru-senpai will surely want to know why you haven’t told us until now.”
“I guess it’s impossible after all…”
“Hey, you guys!”
The breathless call - not quite a shout but a still bit too loud for comfort - came from down the hall, and they turned to see Junpei and Ken hurrying towards them. Akihiko breathed a sigh of relief to see the both of them alive and uninjured. Then his earpiece gave a hiss of static as Fuuka reestablished her connection with them.
“Oh, thank god the both of you are all right,” the girl murmured.
Junpei staggered to a halt beside them, and Ken set the butt of his spear down on the floor for a breather.
“Man, I hate it when that happens,” Junpei groaned. “I swear this tower’s got it in for us.”
“We can talk later,” Minato said quietly. “We’ve already been on this floor for more than ten minutes. I’m surprised the Reaper hasn’t appeared yet.”
As if his words were the trigger, the eerie sound of chain links clinking against each other suddenly started up, back the way where Akihiko and Minato had come from.
“I sense Death!” Fuuka cried out in warning.
Junpei groaned again and threw a half-hearted glare at his classmate. “You just had to say it, didn’t you?”
Fortunately they’d already found the stairs; they only had to climb it and get on to the next floor. For some reason, the Reaper never went into the rooms where the stairs were located - maybe it was wary of the warm light that emanated from the marble steps. They scrambled up the one in front of them now without bothering to hide their haste, and tried not to take too long cleaning out the next few floors of Shadows - one close encounter with the Reaper per sortie was already more than what any of them could handle.
-----
Akihiko had hoped that their brush with Tartarus’s most feared denizen had tempered Junpei’s usual high spirits, but the junior was as irrepressible as ever. True to his prediction, the younger boy reacted to their story in typical Junpei-like fashion, laughing so long and so hard that he had to be slapped on the back to stop him from choking on his own laughter. Akihiko readily obliged - although his slaps may have been more like a forceful pounding than any soothing back-rubbing - and gamely resigned himself to a week more or so of crude jokes from Junpei and odd looks from Ken and the girls. It should stop once the novelty of the incident wore off, or so Minato said to him dolefully a couple of days later.
Privately the senior was just glad that that was all they would have to endure. It would have been much, much worse if it had happened with one of the girls.
Additional notes: How does Fuuka communicate with the team in Tartarus? I believe the in-game dialogue mentioned that electronics don't work during the Dark Hour, but it seemed to me that they had some sort of electronic communication system in place.
Warning: Long-winded narratives ahead. I plead temporary insanity.
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6. An arrangement in black leather. (Hunter X Hunter, Kuroro x Kurapika, PG-13)
Note: I'd like to point out that I utterly fail at writing sex scenes on horizontal surfaces. I'm embarrassed posting this, but it was inspired by izkariote's massage table, and she deserves to know exactly what that thing made me do. Title taken from the September 15, 2005 theme of the 31_days LJ community.
In matters that would need them to make decisions as a pair, they’d learned that it was best to give way when it came to topics that the other knew more about. Kurapika, for example, was the higher authority on archaeology and ancient artifacts. While Kuroro knew more about that field than most laymen due to the nature of his profession, Kurapika’s interest in the subject and his work with the Hunter Association had led him to specialize in it. Kuroro thus could not beat his younger partner should someone test them on their knowledge of history, and he almost always left the task of verifying the authenticity of his targets to the blond.
Kuroro’s strengths on the other hand leaned more towards the practical side. He was better at stealing, of course, and at carrying out his nefarious schemes. He was also the better cook, the better dresser, the better interior designer - anything that had to do with daily aesthetics and the maintenance of a household. It was just a step shy of admitting that he had no fashion sense whatsoever, but Kurapika had long since decided to defer to the man whenever they went out shopping for clothes or furniture. Even if he had particular preferences, he always ended up getting the things that Kuroro pointed out for him, anyway.
And Kuroro did have an expert eye for colors and shapes. He always chose clothes that looked good on the two of them, and yet were as comfortable as if they’ve been custom-made with the softest fabrics. His numerous estates looked like showpieces right out of interior designing magazines, and it was a testament to his good taste that he picked most of the furniture himself. In any case, it was less troublesome to go against Kuroro’s decisions regarding the arrangement of the television in relation to the sofa - why fix the routine when it wasn’t broken?
But when Kurapika came home one day to find something… bulky and flat and rectangular and monstrously black occupying the previously empty corner in the recreation room, he just had to ask.
“It’s a massage table,” Kuroro explained cheerfully in response to Kurapika’s wide-eyed stare.
“I… had a feeling that it’s something like that, but what do we need it for?” he asked faintly.
“For massages, of course.” Kuroro paused in the middle of unwrapping bottles of scented oil. Kurapika blinked. There were more than a dozen of the little glass bottles - certainly more than what he thought would be needed for a simple massage.
“I did mention once that I worked as a masseuse, right? Or have you forgotten?”
“No, but I didn’t think you were serious.”
“I was. That was when I learned how to work with shouko, you know. This thing was on sale, anyway, and I got it for half the original price.” Kuroro finished placing the bottles on a side table - it also had a big pile of towels on the lower rack - and turned to face him, grinning disarmingly. “I can give you one right now. A massage, I mean. Work the day’s aches and pains away,” he added.
Kurapika narrowed his eyes. Something in his partner’s smile looked just a bit too innocent. Then again, he remembered how Kuroro had freed his nen after it had been sealed by his brother. If what Kuroro was telling him about the source of his knowledge was true, then maybe that bit about him working as a masseuse wasn’t just a joke, too.
“All right,” he said finally, tentatively offering a lopsided smile of his own before warily clambering onto the massage table. He had to admit, he was curious to see how well Kuroro would do as a masseuse. “Prove that this purchase is justified, then.”
Of course, a full massage session would require him to remove his clothes. That should have been enough to warn him. But Kuroro really turned out to be a skillful masseuse - he used his knowledge of the body’s pressure points and worked out knots in his muscles that Kurapika didn’t even know he had, making him feel as if he was melting into the cool black leather in blissful relaxation, and by the time he realized that the man’s fingers were touching him down there he was already too far gone to get angry about being tricked.
If Kurapika had remembered that Kuroro’s idea of breaking in new furniture was to have wild, passionate sex on said furniture, he wouldn’t have agreed to the massage so readily.
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7. Treat him like a lady. (Untitled original series, Shori x Wei, PG-13)
Note: Title’s from the July 21, 2006 theme of 31_days. The Ministry of State Security (abbreviated as MSS) is the closest thing I could find that resembled a Chinese FBI, and I figured that it’d be the one agency that would persistently be going after Wei for all the assassinations he’s done in Asia.
Shori wasn’t in the habit of brooding over personal problems while at work. He liked to keep his personal life and his job separate, because he believed that letting the two mix would be suicidal - or not conducive to his mental health, at the very least - so he always tried not to think about his personal problems while he was working.
Not that he had that many personal problems to brood over, in any case; his problems, if there happened to be any, tended to stem from his workplace, like… Cassie trying to trick him into getting his ear pierced, or Captain Haddon ordering him to pace out his report writing when all he wanted to do was to finish it in one go, or the FBI liaisons hounding him about keeping his ward in line - those sorts of problems, the sort that got solved if he nipped them in the bud before they could become even more problematic, or, failing that, the sort that went away as long as he gathered a mountain of work and hid behind it.
However, there were some problems that just begged mulling over. Like his relationship with his aforementioned ward, for instance. Meeting Wei had forced him to reevaluate some of his principles, the way he viewed the rest of the world, the things that he took for granted, and last but certainly not the least - his sexual orientation. Those issues had already been dealt with after long periods spent brooding, so Shori wasn’t about to go back to them and the pain of overturning his identity to accommodate the changes, but now… now there was a new issue to deal with.
He was being topped by a boy seven years his junior. Topped - not just once, or twice, or even half the time like how he assumed normal give-and-take gay relationships worked. He was being topped all the time.
He could deal with being gay. He could deal with having a contract killer for a boyfriend. Heck, he had been fending off various countries’ demands to have Wei tried for the people he had killed, and if that wasn’t an indication of his ability to adapt (from mild-mannered consultant to the one person in the task force who could outmaneuver China’s Ministry of State Security and get away with it), he didn’t know what was. He thought he could deal with Wei’s perverted tastes in bed, too, but as Cassie had cheerfully pointed out the other day, his manhood was taking a beating, one that it might never recover from if he failed to find his place in their relationship.
But it wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried. Shori scowled at his computer screen and ignored the heat rising up his face as the thought reminded him of his disastrous attempts to assert control. Oh yes, he’d tried - he’d tried fighting back, only to have Wei overpower him with embarrassing ease. He’d tried Cassie’s suggestion, which was to act and sound like the dominant, and while the boy did yield to him at that time, the sex had felt awkward, almost forced. And anyway, Shori wasn’t going to try that approach ever again - Wei got control back for the next few times, even subjecting him to the ball gag and leather restraints treatment. It was almost as if the assassin had been punishing him for daring to take control…
Shori scowled again. Should he try to refuse the boy’s advances? He was Wei’s legal guardian after all. He could actually ground the kid if he misbehaved - No. Shori cut the thought off before it could finish. It was ridiculous to even think that he could discipline the Chinese assassin like a normal teenager. Or maybe he could move to HQ for a few days, let the boy’s seemingly relentless libido cool down… No. Wei would probably just hunt him down and do even more Unspeakable Things to him. Or maybe he could try asking nice-
“Have you tried taking him on a date?”
Shori jumped. His left elbow banged against his computer keyboard, and his right elbow knocked some folders off the stacks of books and files he’d placed all around his desk in an effort to ward against the inquisitiveness of a certain nosy lieutenant. He scrambled to pick up the fallen files, but his flailing arms knocked even more stacks over, causing an even bigger mess and a loud racket. Shori forced himself to stop moving, sat back down in his chair, turned around - and found himself looking up at the captain.
He flushed as he realized that Haddon had caught him slacking off on the job.
“Sorry, sir - was thinking of something else - won’t happen again -”
Allen Haddon waved his flustered apology aside. “You’re thinking about Wei, aren’t you?”
Dimly Shori registered that he was gaping quite rudely, but something in him chirped that he didn’t have the psychological capacity for propriety at the moment. Bits of the first question drifted back to him now that his mind wasn’t so preoccupied, and his brain stalled as it processed both questions in conjunction and struggled to decide between the need to answer his superior and the urge to properly give vent to his horror at finding out that even the captain knew that he was being topped by a teenager.
Haddon leaned closer and lowered his voice. “You were brooding,” the man said apologetically. “Normally I wouldn’t intrude, but you looked like you could use a bit of advice.”
“Ah,” Shori croaked.
“And I know you well enough to say that only a really serious problem can distract you from your work,” Haddon added.
“Oh.”
“Such as a problem regarding your self-esteem, perhaps?”
Shori’s ears burned with mortification. Of course the captain would be sharp enough to tell when one of his subordinates was having problems of the really personal kind. He just wished that there was a handy hole that he could disappear into.
“So? Have you tried taking him on a date?” Haddon repeated gently.
“No,” Shori mumbled. “The thought has never crossed my mind.”
The older man nodded as if he’d been expecting the answer.
“You’d know better than anyone else that he didn’t have a normal childhood. He views the world differently and he probably has a different set of rules for how he does things…”
Damn right he’d know better than anyone else. Wasn’t that what he had been doing all this time, making sure that the boy got a better hand than what he had been dealt with? What was the captain getting at if he already knew that?
“… Perhaps the reason he’s the way he is now is because he doesn’t know of any other way to express his love?”
For someone trying to impart wisdom that could save someone else’s self-esteem, Allen Haddon sounded incredibly uncertain. But as the query slowly sank in and the dubious, embarrassed expression on Shori’s face was replaced by dawning comprehension - embarrassed comprehension, but comprehension nonetheless - Haddon straightened and smiled knowingly.
“Have fun showing him how it should be done,” the captain said, and with one last encouraging pat on Shori’s shoulder as a parting shot, sauntered away with the satisfied air of a man who’d done his good deed for the day.
If he had been thinking more clearly Shori would have found it unnerving that the older man knew exactly what to say. More than that, he should have thought it exceedingly strange that Haddon even knew about his problems with Wei, considering that only Cassandra Borden had an exact idea of the intimacy between him and the Chinese assassin. If he had been less distracted he would have given more effort to following that thought to the most likely conclusion - that someone had obviously ratted on him. He knew, he just knew that his coworkers had been giving him funny looks for several weeks now, and that he wasn’t being paranoid about the sniggering, and the blushing and the giggling from the female members of the task force.
Someone was going to get it. But not right now. Right now he was too busy picking at the captain’s innocently-delivered question, using it to unravel his bafflement over Wei’s aggressive behavior. Captain Haddon had lit the metaphorical fire, and Shori’s report was forgotten for the moment as he brainstormed and schemed and felt everything falling into place…
Shori set his plans into motion the next week.
Monday evening after Wei cornered him against the kitchen counter, Shori threw his rulebook of decorum out the window, sucked all his guts in to prepare for his first charge, pushed Wei’s hands aside, and touched himself in time with the boy’s movements. The action freed Wei to let his hands wander wherever he wanted, and while it was entirely out of Shori’s comfort zone, it produced the most favorable reaction that he could have hoped for.
Wei was bewildered, and a bewildered Wei was a good thing. It meant that the assassin wasn’t in complete control anymore, and Shori could more easily catch him off guard.
Tuesday morning, Shori woke to find Wei’s arms curled possessively around him, and Wei’s dark eyes languidly watching him with a half-lidded gaze. He leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss against the other’s lips instead of half-heartedly grumbling and pulling away like he usually did, and scrambled out of bed before the boy could recover from his surprise. He had time to cook breakfast that morning because Wei wasn’t feeling as grabby as usual.
Wednesday afternoon after he got off from work, Shori went to the supermarket and stocked up on ingredients. He went home, called Cassie over and pointed her and Wei in the direction of the Playstation 3. Then, while they were happily preoccupied trying to kick each other’s butts with whatever video game they had chosen, he sequestered himself in the kitchen and cooked a nice, family-style dinner made up of Wei’s favorite foods.
It was just as well that Cassie could act like such a child sometimes. Her antics successfully coaxed Wei to act his true age for once.
On Thursday the papers he’d filed the previous week were approved. They documented a request to have the mandatory outdoor surveillance on one Lin Wei Tien lifted for a period of two hours, and another request to allow the boy to handle firearms in a nearby recreational shooting facility. That same afternoon Shori brought Wei to a local shooting range and set the assassin loose to do whatever he wanted, unsupervised, for two whole hours - barring anything illegal, of course. Shori amused himself by watching Wei trounce a few of the establishment’s regulars, who thought that it would be fun to bully the Chinese kid into a shooting match.
If it seemed strange that a teenager would possess mastery-level shooting skills, there was no one around who would be inclined to take note of it.
Friday night after they’d gone to bed, Shori wrapped his arms around Wei in an embrace that he hoped inspired feelings of safety and shelter. He chose that particular gesture because normally it would be the other way around - Wei clinging to him like an overeager puppy or a really affectionate cat, and him being on his guard for the slightest move that might preclude Wei trying to get into his pants again. He wasn’t sure how the teen reacted; he didn’t dare look down, afraid that Wei might see his nervousness, but the gesture must have worked because the boy relaxed completely after only a few seconds of stiffness.
That, and the assassin didn’t even try to take advantage of the new position.
Saturday was the day when Shori carried out Captain Haddon’s original suggestion… He took Wei out on a date. And yes, he went for the traditional, tried-and-true method: romantic dinner for two at a restaurant that he’d carefully chosen after a stringent selection process. The place had to be quiet and classy, but not too snobby; he didn’t want his companion to feel out of his depth. The food had to be excellent, but not too expensive; he didn’t want Wei to think that he was being bribed. The staff had to be engaging and tolerant - Shori didn’t want to have to deal with homophobes - but not overly pushy or chatty, because one wrong move might trigger any one of Wei’s assassin quirks. The last thing that Shori needed was for the boy to accidentally stab a waiter with one of his acupuncture needles, and he spent the entire time making sure that everything went smoothly… In fact, he was too busy being anxious that he couldn’t even remember the dishes that they ate.
But their date was normal, by “normal” standards. Nothing untoward happened. All the waiters escaped the evening unharmed, and Shori could tell that Wei enjoyed the experience, if only for the chance to be allowed out after dark. Still, he didn’t think that a simple date could be so tiring. He felt as if he’d been pulling consecutive all-nighters, and by the time they got back to their apartment he was just about ready to stagger to bed.
Unfortunately, his boyfriend had other ideas. Wei stopped him at the doorway to the bedroom, with a hand on his chest and dark eyes seeking his own. Shori thought briefly about refusing - he really was tired, physically, and even mentally, because the point of his plan was to get him on top for once, and here was Wei being his usual self. Maybe it was an exercise in futility.
So instead, he sighed and caught the kiss he already knew was coming. A thought flitted through his mind, about this being the most damnable proof that he’d had the deed done to him for far too many times - he already knew what was coming, and he already knew what to do. Hands, carefully undoing buttons and zippers, helping to undress the both of them. Feet, stepping in concert, tracing an oft-used path to the bed. Teeth worrying his lower lip, and tongue tracing a path down his neck. Shori already knew what was coming and he already knew what to do, but rather than becoming used to it, Wei’s actions never failed to make him respond.
That was probably the most embarrassing thing of all. He could stew for hours about being topped by a younger man, he’d struggle and complain when subjected to Wei’s kinks, but at the end of it all, he couldn’t say that he disliked it and still be honest. Even now he was already getting turned on, when they haven’t started doing anything yet…
Shori blinked. Why haven’t they done anything yet? Following the usual pattern of things, Wei should have done something by now. Like, tie his hands to the headboard. Or maneuver him into any of a number of back-breaking positions. Give him a blowjob first, if the assassin was feeling generous - anything that involved dealing with parts below the belt. But so far they were just fumbling and groping at each other. Wei’s movements were quite intense, though, almost desperate, needy…
When the idea hit, it hit with a force approximately equal to Captain Haddon’s suggestion, the revelation that started it all. Shori took all of two seconds to decide. Just one action was all it would take to give him his answer, really. If the answer was a no, then the worst that could happen couldn’t be worse than being tied up and left alone in his room with a vibrator up his ass.
Shori propped himself up on his elbows and rolled to one side, and gently but firmly pushed Wei down so that the teen would be the one lying on his back. Then he dipped his head and claimed the boy’s lips, slid his right hand past the waistband of the other’s underpants…
Wei didn’t fight back. The counterattack Shori expected never came. And minutes later he was taking the role he'd wanted all this time, watching Wei try to suppress his shuddering, wondering if this was what he looked like whenever he succumbed to the younger man’s advances - skin flushed with heat, eyes glazed over with lust, mouth open and panting. It was the first time he’d seen Wei with his face stripped of all pretense and restraint, leaving an expression that he’d only ever seen glimpses of, an expression that belonged to the affection-starved young man he knew was hiding somewhere behind the precocious and efficiently deadly masks of his assassin persona.
It would be for a while yet before Shori could say for certain that his plan had worked - exactly a week, in fact, which was the average span of time it usually took Wei to carry out his countermeasures against Shori’s “insubordinations”. But the captain was right after all; it seemed that Wei responded more positively to traditional courtship methods than to any of Shori’s attempts to emulate his assertiveness. In that case, they needed to go on more dates. And he might have to get the boy to understand that sex wasn’t the only way by which they could keep their relationship afloat. It was going to be hard work, showing the younger man “how it should be done,” but if handling Wei as if he were a lady was the best way by which Shori could become the man in their relationship, then he’d have to start recalling his parents’ embarrassing lessons on how to go about courting a girl.
He’d just have to pray that the analogy never makes its way to Wei’s ears, because if it did, then… actually, he didn’t dare imagine what would happen to him if Wei ever realized what was happening. For the moment, at least, he didn’t have to brood over that particular problem anymore, and it was back to juggling work-related problems…
Monday morning, the week after he enforced his 7-Step Plan For Topping Wei Without Fear Of Retaliation, Shori breezed into headquarters and immediately dived into the work that he’d failed to finish because of all the brooding he’d done in the past couple of weeks. His mood had improved vastly and his coworkers could see it, and Captain Haddon even gave him a discreet thumbs-up from his office, but that was the only special gesture he noticed and acknowledged with a tiny, grateful smile. He was so engrossed with his work that he missed several bemused glances being thrown his way, and he didn’t hear Cassie creeping up on him until it was too late.
“You’re looking cheerful this morning.”
Shori managed to stop himself from jumping this time, probably because he was still in too good of a mood to be provoked into reacting negatively. “Hello to you, too,” he replied without taking his eyes and his hands off his computer. “Do you need me for anything?”
“Like I said, you look cheerful,” Cassie repeated. “Did anything good happen this past weekend?”
It was the lieutenant’s nonchalant tone and the careful way she phrased her question that told him there was something wrong. The normal inquisitive Cassie would have sounded like a hyperactive toddler trying to annoy her parents into answering; this Cassie was trying - unsuccessfully - to be subtle and understated.
Shori remembered the side glances and the knowing smirks of the past few weeks, and he vaguely recalled promising himself that he was going to root out the source of all the rumors that must be flying about the office totally unchecked by the people directly involved. He blinked at the waiting lieutenant, cocked his head ever so slightly to the right, and in a flash of insight wondered why she was so eager to know the reason behind the drastic change in his mood.
There was probably an office pool - on what, he had a feeling he knew, but didn’t really want confirmed. And knowing Cassie, she was most likely in the thick of it - could be why it felt to him like she had a vested interest in whatever answer she was waiting for him to give.
Well, two can play at the subtle game.
Shori blinked again, wiped his face blank of the insane grin that threatened to break out, and then quite deliberately shook his head.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he murmured in as deadpan of a voice as he could manage under the circumstances. He was rewarded by the girl giving him a puzzled frown. Shori turned his chair around to face his desk and pretended to go back to work.
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Cassie walk away, still wearing that puzzled frown. A co-worker called out, asking a question Shori couldn’t quite catch, and Cassie shrugged a negative reply.
Shori smirked. Unfortunately, it was inevitable that the girl - and by proximity, everyone else - would find out about what happened, but for the moment he was going to enjoy watching them scratch their heads over his behavior. It was their turn to brood now.
----------
8. Cure for the itch. (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, implied Akihiko x Minato, PG-13)
Note: Or in this case, it's literally the cure for a certain imaginary status ailment. I totally made it up for my nefarious purposes. OTL
It happened occasionally; Tartarus would suddenly shift just as they were ascending the stairs to get to the next level, and the team would find themselves separated on the next floor. Akihiko couldn’t say exactly how it happened - one second they’d be climbing the stairs, and the next he’d be all alone in a hallway. Fortunately they’d already experienced it several times so that all of them knew what to do in such a situation - call Fuuka so the girl would know their location, and then forge ahead and try to find that floor’s terminal or the stairs as quickly as possible. They’d never had any problems regrouping that way, and they were in the Fourth Block, not really high enough that they’d have trouble fighting Shadows on their own - and look, Tartarus screwed up this time - Akihiko rounded the corner and found himself standing nose-to-nose with their young squad leader.
“You okay?”
Minato nodded wordlessly; it wasn’t wise to talk too much in the tower as Shadows were attracted by noise and movement.
“Akihiko-senpai, are you all right?” Fuuka’s voice sounded unearthly in his ear, her normally soft tone magnified and strengthened by Juno’s power.
“Yes. Minato’s with me. Have you found the others?”
“I’ve found them, and Ken-kun and Junpei-kun are together, but - hold on.”
Akihiko kept his guard up while he waited for the girl to finish her scan of the floor; beside him Minato was doing the same, sharp blue eyes scanning the surrounding darkness for the glowing red eyes of an approaching Shadow.
“This is worrying,” Fuuka reported back after a few seconds of silence. “Their way to the stairs is blocked by several groups of Shadows. Junpei-kun shouldn’t have a problem, but Ken-kun doesn’t have enough experience yet.”
Akihiko and Minato exchanged concerned glances, and the younger boy raised his hand to finger his earpiece as he asked, “Are they in any danger?”
“They shouldn’t be,” the girl replied. “I think I can guide them past the bigger groups, but I’ll have to focus on them, and I won’t be able to support the two of you. Minato-kun, will you and Akihiko-senpai be all right on your own?”
“We’ll be fine,” the junior replied even without having to consult his companion - not that Akihiko would have taken offense at the prompt answer. The two of them were easily among the more powerful members of SEES, Akihiko for his greater experience and Minato for his unique ability to summon multiple Personas. Akihiko had to revise his earlier thought; Tartarus didn’t really screw up - if the team had to be separated into pairs he’d have preferred that either himself or Minato ended up going with Ken. Junpei was an able fighter, but he specialized too much on physical attacks and couldn’t be counted on for stealth. Instead of guiding the middle schooler past danger he’d be more likely to stumble into a Shadow and engage in unnecessary battle.
“Just concentrate on getting them to the stairs,” Akihiko added encouragingly for Fuuka’s benefit. If she was too busy worrying about them she might get distracted and fail to support the other two properly.
“All right. I’ll talk to you again after you’ve regrouped safely,” Fuuka said reluctantly, and the connection cut off.
“Let’s go,” he said quietly, and they set off with Minato taking point as usual. The junior’s sword gave him a longer reach, and a quick lunge at the back of an unsuspecting Shadow was often enough to send their enemies reeling, disorienting them and giving the Persona-users time to summon their counterparts. They had an easy time of it following that arrangement for the first three corridors, defeating three groups of Shadows effortlessly between the two of them, until they rounded a corner and spotted a single Shadow loitering right in the middle of the hallway.
Lone Shadows were troublesome; instead of being easier to deal with they usually turn out to be stronger than entire groups of the weaker ones. Mitsuru had speculated about the possibility of predation among the Shadows - maybe the weaker Shadows didn’t want to group with the stronger ones for fear of getting devoured. It made sense; their most difficult encounters in Tartarus - outside of the floor Guardians - had been with single Shadows. They didn’t have a full team right now, and it would be wiser to find a way to get around the one in front of them, but…
“There’s no other way,” Minato whispered. “We’ve already checked all the rooms and corridors behind us.”
“No terminal, and no stairs,” Akihiko continued grimly. He sighed and tightened the straps on his gloves. “Think you can sneak up on it before it sees us?”
The other boy nodded tersely; his eyes were already narrowing as he watched for the moment when the Shadow would turn the other way.
When it happened, it happened quickly - Akihiko followed as closely as he dared as Minato rose from his crouch and darted forward on silent feet, and even before he could position himself favorably the junior had already reached their target and scored a direct hit on its side. The Shadow squealed and turned to face them, and that was when Akihiko began to think that it would have been better if they’d tried to make a run for it.
The Shadow was tiny, barely a foot high, and it looked like the Cupid type that so loved to flock together in groups of four or five. Why it would be alone like this wasn’t readily apparent - despite carrying a golden bow and arrows whose points looked extremely sharp, it didn’t look as fierce or as threatening as most of the Shadows they’d fought up until this point. Akihiko stared at it warily, unwilling to rush it. He couldn’t remember encountering this particular Shadow before, and Fuuka wasn’t there to help them analyze its attributes. But they couldn’t tarry too long or the advantage they’d gained by ambushing it would be lost.
Minato growled a challenge, and out of the corner of his eyes Akihiko saw the younger boy sheathe his sword and reach for his Evoker - but whatever Persona Minato was planning to summon, Akihiko didn’t see it. Nor was the boy able to use his Evoker - the Shadow was faster. Akihiko, still watching it closely saw it do a little fluttering hop. Then it aimed its weapon at the other boy, holding the bow in a peculiar diagonal stance. Akihiko felt his unease grow exponentially - he’d seen this attack before.
“Minato, look out!”
-----
His head felt fuzzy, and his nerves were tingling pleasantly… He couldn’t seem to move his limbs, though, and his arms fell slack by his side. His hand was holding something vaguely gun-shaped, something called an Evoker… what… was an Evoker? It had to be important, if he was holding it so carefully, but… it didn’t matter now.
None of it mattered, not the weight of the saber on his hip, or the darkness encroaching on the edges of his eyesight, not even the heavy pressure of someone’s hands on his shoulders, and the insistent, anxious voice yelling in his ear. There was something… he wanted… someone… he needed to watch…
Oh, good… the yelling stopped, and the hands lifted from his shoulders - but they returned a second later to hold the sides of his head. Something pressed against his lips, pushed past his teeth, touched against his tongue -
Akihiko-senpai was kissing him.
Minato’s senses rebooted instantaneously at the realization, and he opened his mouth, but before he could do more than gasp, the other boy pulled away.
“My attacks aren’t working! You have to use one of your Personas - anything except Electricity and Strike will do!”
… Anything except Electricity and Strike, huh?
-----
There was a reason why everyone at SEES followed Minato’s lead when it came to Shadow extermination, even the more experienced seniors - he was just that good at killing the things. His arsenal of Personas meant that he wasn’t limited to a single strength or weakness, and thus could adapt to any situation with frightening ease. He was the main reason why they’ve managed to get so far up the tower in only a few months, and Akihiko believed as did everyone else that his survival was paramount for their purpose of getting rid of Tartarus and the Dark Hour once and for all. That was why he’d stepped in front of the other boy, protecting him against the Shadow’s arrows instead of finding another way to attack, and the reason why he didn’t move away now when Minato brought his Evoker up to the side of his head - he’d be damned if their leader got injured in the middle of summoning his Persona.
Instead Akihiko hunched his head down and to the side to give the junior a clear line of sight. His hands were still on the other’s shoulders, and he felt the shudder that ran through Minato’s body as the shot rang out. It was followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass, and then an ear-splitting roar as Thanatos materialized out of the shards of Minato’s psyche.
Thanatos? He can’t be thinking… Oh shi-
The senior squeezed his eyes shut, but the blinding light of the Persona’s most devastating spell still leaked through his closed eyelids. He didn’t even have time to cover his ears, and the Shadow probably didn’t know what hit it, either. He straightened and turned around after the echoes of the attack had died away and Thanatos’s outline had faded from view.
Only a sad-looking cloud of soot remained of the unfortunate Shadow, and even that dissipated into the air rather quickly.
Akihiko raised an eyebrow. “Megidola? Bit of an overkill, isn’t it?” His ears were still ringing from being so close to the blast.
“I figured that too much is better than not enough in this case,” Minato explained sheepishly.
“Well, good thinking. That type of Shadow can learn to block against attacks that fail to kill it in one blow. When my attacks stopped working I had to resort to using Tarunda against it.” He reached back and, with a grunt of pain, plucked out an arrow that had sunk itself into his left shoulder. “Good thing that its power wasn’t that high to begin with,” he added wryly.
Minato blinked at the sight of the tiny golden arrow, no longer than one of their fingers. Its point was covered in Akihiko’s blood. His eyes widened, and he turned the older boy around to look at his back.
“Senpai… are you all right? You look like a pincushion.”
Akihiko almost laughed out aloud at the uncharacteristic look of panic on the other boy’ face.
“It’s not that bad. Like I said, I managed to weaken its attacks. They don’t go that deep. Wait, I can do this myself,” he objected as Minato started carefully pulling out the other arrows.
“Even you can’t see out the back of your head, senpai. Let me,” the younger boy insisted. “Hariti could use the experience.”
Akihiko recognized the argument for the excuse that it really was, but he let the issue drop when he recalled that Hariti was the Persona that Minato used for healing. Having several Personas was good, but it can’t be easy, making sure that all of them received equal amounts of experience. So he stayed quiet while his back was tended to, and sighed and gave his heartfelt thanks after the spell closed his wounds.
“Senpai, you’ve fought that type of Shadow before, haven’t you?”
The senior winced. “Yeah. Three years ago. Shinji and I ran into one of the same type outside Tartarus. I can’t believe I forgot about it.”
“And… the kiss…?”
“Oh, damn.”
If the subject matter wasn’t so delicate Akihiko would have been highly amused. Minato didn’t fluster easily, and to see him so uncomfortable and uneasy was a rare sight indeed. But he himself was already flushing at the reminder of the kiss, which in the heat of battle had felt like nothing, but now seemed so outrageous an action.
“Look, I’m sorry about that. It was the only thing I knew that would snap you out of it,” he explained. “That Shadow did some kind of enchantment on you. It seems to be a variation of the Charm spells, but it takes longer to wear off, and Charmdi and Patra, even Amrita won’t work against it. I don’t know of any item we currently have that can cure it, either.”
“Oh. It did feel different from being Charmed. But how did you find out about the cure?”
There was a pinched quality to the junior’s voice, and Akihiko began to truly worry that Minato might be mad at him. He cursed whatever it was that created Tartarus’s gloomy hallways; it was too dark to see the other’s face to check his expression.
“Shinji was the one who figured it out. Don’t ask me how he came to think of kissing in the middle of battle, though - he never explained it to me properly.”
“Shinjiro-senpai kissed you?” Minato asked bemusedly.
“I think it was because he ran out of things to try. He even socked me in the face. He had a mean right hook… the swelling wouldn’t go down for days afterward.”
The junior laughed. His humor was infectious; Akihiko grinned, partly in relief that the younger boy didn’t seem to be angry, and partly at the memory of what his old friend had done.
“I guess it’s funny in retrospect. I had a hell of a time explaining how I got the black eye and the swollen cheek, though.”
Minato opened his mouth to reply, but then they rounded another corner and spotted their destination. “Ah, there’s the stairs,” he pointed out instead. They hurried toward it, eager to get out of the dark - Tartarus’s stairways all glowed with some sort of inner light, almost looking like beacons amongst the darkness and the blood-splattered corridors of the tower.
“They don’t seem to be here yet,” Akihiko muttered when they entered the room and found no one waiting for them.
“Should we go look for them?”
The senior shook his head. “It’s too easy to miss each other in these corridors. We should wait - if they don’t get here within the next few minutes we can try calling Fuuka. She’ll tell us if they need our help.”
But they weren’t content to just wait - within seconds of making the decision both had taken up lookout positions at the entrance of the room. If the other members of their team got into trouble nearby, they could hear it and rush to their aid more quickly.
“So…” Akihiko began after a minute or so of terse waiting, “are we okay, or do I have to beg for your forgiveness?”
Minato gave him a sideways look - he looked surprised at the question. “I’m not angry. You had to do it. It’s not like you meant anything by it, right?”
“Right.” The senior left it at that… the younger boy didn’t have to know that Akihiko didn’t find kissing him as repulsive as he would have thought - in fact, it reminded him of better times with Shinjiro, before he left SEES and everything that happened after, and before he fell at Strega’s hands.
“And thanks, by the way, for - for bringing me back to my senses.”
“It’s no big deal,” Akihiko replied sincerely, while inwardly he ruefully admired Minato’s fortitude and altruism - here he was having decidedly strange thoughts, and the other boy had to go and thank him.
“We should warn the others about that Shadow,” Minato added.
“Yeah. I can’t imagine Junpei or Ken taking it better than you did without prior explanation…”
Akihiko groaned as he suddenly realized something.
“Actually… I don’t suppose we can avoid telling them the details? Junpei’s sure to make a big deal out of this. We’ll be in for a lot of ribbing before this is over.”
Minato grimaced. “The report’s unavoidable. And Mitsuru-senpai will surely want to know why you haven’t told us until now.”
“I guess it’s impossible after all…”
“Hey, you guys!”
The breathless call - not quite a shout but a still bit too loud for comfort - came from down the hall, and they turned to see Junpei and Ken hurrying towards them. Akihiko breathed a sigh of relief to see the both of them alive and uninjured. Then his earpiece gave a hiss of static as Fuuka reestablished her connection with them.
“Oh, thank god the both of you are all right,” the girl murmured.
Junpei staggered to a halt beside them, and Ken set the butt of his spear down on the floor for a breather.
“Man, I hate it when that happens,” Junpei groaned. “I swear this tower’s got it in for us.”
“We can talk later,” Minato said quietly. “We’ve already been on this floor for more than ten minutes. I’m surprised the Reaper hasn’t appeared yet.”
As if his words were the trigger, the eerie sound of chain links clinking against each other suddenly started up, back the way where Akihiko and Minato had come from.
“I sense Death!” Fuuka cried out in warning.
Junpei groaned again and threw a half-hearted glare at his classmate. “You just had to say it, didn’t you?”
Fortunately they’d already found the stairs; they only had to climb it and get on to the next floor. For some reason, the Reaper never went into the rooms where the stairs were located - maybe it was wary of the warm light that emanated from the marble steps. They scrambled up the one in front of them now without bothering to hide their haste, and tried not to take too long cleaning out the next few floors of Shadows - one close encounter with the Reaper per sortie was already more than what any of them could handle.
-----
Akihiko had hoped that their brush with Tartarus’s most feared denizen had tempered Junpei’s usual high spirits, but the junior was as irrepressible as ever. True to his prediction, the younger boy reacted to their story in typical Junpei-like fashion, laughing so long and so hard that he had to be slapped on the back to stop him from choking on his own laughter. Akihiko readily obliged - although his slaps may have been more like a forceful pounding than any soothing back-rubbing - and gamely resigned himself to a week more or so of crude jokes from Junpei and odd looks from Ken and the girls. It should stop once the novelty of the incident wore off, or so Minato said to him dolefully a couple of days later.
Privately the senior was just glad that that was all they would have to endure. It would have been much, much worse if it had happened with one of the girls.
Additional notes: How does Fuuka communicate with the team in Tartarus? I believe the in-game dialogue mentioned that electronics don't work during the Dark Hour, but it seemed to me that they had some sort of electronic communication system in place.