Part Two
[ How I'm feeling|
Happy]
[ What I'm listening to| Lana Del Rey - Blue Jeans
Title: The devil wears Prada, Gucci, and sometimes Dior (2/3)
Pairings: Reita/Ruki
Warnings: Just language and sexual situations as always.
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Sequel to Don't hesitate & go but could be read as a stand-alone.
Summary: "I'm the devil and for some reason you still want me." Ruki's whispered words against his hip that long ago night had been like fire against his skin, hot and sensual. But the words themselves, what they alluded to, had had Reita holding Ruki away from him, pulling fingers through sweat soaked hair until Ruki was looking up at him as he knelt in front of Reita, ready to defile him.
"And to think I passed that offer up for this." Ruki tossed the magazine across the table and it slid to hit Reita's glass of orange juice and nearly toppled it over. Reita hissed and caught the glass before it fell, shaking his head at Ruki.
Reita watched Ruki flitting around the kitchen, unusually domestic this morning as he flipped a golden brown pancake out of the pan and onto a plate and then slid across the floor to the refrigerator in his ridiculously expensive Stanley Lewis socks, the ones Reita had sent out to Italy for because Ruki had drooled over a catalog of them for an entire week. The things he did for love.
Reita had to admit that Ruki looked a pleasing mix of seductive and adorable in a half-buttoned white dress shirt, underwear, colorful socks and nothing else as he poured himself a glass of milk and tried to balance two plates of pancakes in the crook of one arm. Reita began to stand to help him with the plates, but Ruki gave him a sharp glare that had him sitting right back down.
"Enjoy what I slaved over the stove to make you." Ruki's voice was full of sarcasm as he set down a warm plate stacked high with pancakes in front of Reita but there was a smug smile on Ruki's face, a smile that let Reita know that he was damn well pleased with himself and his efforts. He knew how much Ruki hated cooking unless it was spaghetti, probably because that was the only thing he could cook without burning or setting the kitchen on fire, but Ruki also knew how much Reita loved pancakes. The gesture wasn't lost on Reita and he admired the surprisingly fluffy pancakes as he drizzled syrup on them. Not only did they look edible, they looked delectable.
Ruki sat down with a huff across the table and began dousing his own pancakes in butter and syrup as Reita cut into his pile and took a bite he couldn't deny was a bit tentative....knowing Ruki, that was always the safest course when trying one of his dishes for the first time.
"They're delicious," Reita approved around a mouthful and smiled as Ruki scrunched up his nose in a look of disgust, but held back the protests Reita could see itching to escape that pretty pursed mouth. Reita knew how much Ruki hated him talking with his mouth full, so he did it every chance he could.
Being in an actual relationship with Ruki now didn't automatically mean some of the teasing and bad habits they both had would disappear. After all, Ruki's clothes were taking up Reita's entire closet, and he was spending most every night cleaning strands of dark hair from the bathtub drain, and Ruki still hadn't learned to chew gum with his mouth closed. Reita visibly winced as the sound of imagined gum chewing suddenly filled his ears.
"It isn't that bad," Ruki suddenly said and Reita realized that he was frowning down at the magazine Ruki had thrown at him earlier. Ruki's face was on the cover, dark and half shrouded with some sort of veil, as per usual for these fashion magazines. He had never understood some of the odd outfits their designers stuffed them into.
In Reita's opinion, Ruki looked flawless during whatever photo shoot he happened to be in, whether it was for something local or international, fashion or music related, but he could sense Ruki's disapproval of the current issue of this particular fashion spread.
"I could have done an international interview, but I was caught up in gauze and stupid fucking lace for these people," Ruki grumbled under his breath, stabbing his fork down into the top of his mountain of pancakes and then sawing it into sections in a way that Reita found a bit violent.
"You usually like gauze and stupid fucking lace," Reita chanced the tease and was surprised when Ruki only shrugged and continued putting meticulously cut up pieces of pancake into his mouth.
"You're never satisfied no matter what you're featured in. You realize this don't you?" Reita sighed and took a long swallow of orange juice as he eyed Ruki across the table. He hated when Ruki was in a shitty mood after the sort of night they had shared last night. His room was going to have to be cleaned....maybe even redecorated after they had desecrated every surface of it up until only a few hours ago. Maybe that was Ruki's problem, lack of sleep, and he merely needed to go back to bed for a few more hours.
But Reita knew it was more than just lack of sleep that had Ruki's mood teetering dangerously close to pissed off. Right now Ruki was merely irritated, but things were known to escalate with Ruki on days like this. In a few hours, they would stop by the studio to drop off the newest sheet music to Aoi who was holed away mixing some of the songs for the next album. And then Reita would drop Ruki off for the doctor's appointment Reita couldn't bring himself to sit in on.
"Just be glad you have an expensive face," Reita muttered, looking over the cover of the magazine again, to the perfect lines of Ruki's face, pale against the black backdrop behind him. Ruki could be inhumanely attractive even when he was sick and tired, or at least he was in Reita's eyes. Even the tired glance Ruki gave him across the table was alluring in an offbeat sort of way.
"Is that your way of calling me beautiful?" Ruki asked with a raised eyebrow and Reita shrugged. He'd called Ruki much more to a chorus of scoffing and as predicted, Ruki rolled his eyes at him and slipped a forkful of pancake into his mouth.
"You see this face?" Reita pointed to his own face with his fork and laughed when Ruki only scowled at him from across the table. He was determined to get a reaction out of Ruki that wasn't pissy, but Ruki seemed intent on keep a dark cloud over his head.
Ruki dug his fingers into his bed tousled hair and mussed it even more as he ate, the gesture full of frustration, not at Reita, but at his situation. Reita knew this without a doubt, because he wanted to do the same thing, pull his hair out at the ends and slam his fist down on the table at the unfairness of everything.
"This isn't a front page face at all. It's why it's covered half the time." Reita made a silly face at Ruki to drive his point home, but Ruki only tched and looked away, stabbing into his pancakes in that murderous way he'd been doing since they had sat down to breakfast.
"I like your face," Ruki muttered beneath his breath, and though Reita heard the utterance, and it had his heart hammering just a bit harder for a moment because Ruki was a rare one for compliments outside of the bedroom, he pretended he didn't hear it. Ruki seemed content to pretend he hadn't uttered it either as he sat back in his chair and continued abusing his plate of pancakes distractedly.
"We could have used that extra publicity. Sometimes I hate this weakness that I have...." Ruki trailed off, and seemed to think for a moment, holding his fork mid-air, as if searching for the right words to describe his very expensive addiction.
"For brand name everything?" Reita finished for him with a sly grin. Ruki stuck out his tongue at him, an uncharacteristically childish gesture, and Reita couldn't help but laugh. The almost coy, but knowing smile that Ruki tried to hide as he cut into the rest of his pancakes had Reita's pulse bounding against his neck. Maybe there was hope after all of a morning that wasn't a total wreck.
"How's your back this morning?" It was a question that was asked tentatively, and with a practiced air of nonchalance. Ruki wrinkled up his nose but said nothing, only continued to eat, his eyes avoiding Reita's concerned gaze.
Reita had been through this enough by now the last few months to know the procedure to follow when bringing this subject up. Some days Ruki would only glare at him and not answer him, meaning his back was killing him and it was in Reita's best interest to go about his own business, and some days he would only shrug and that meant that his back was hurting him, but he wasn't against Reita comforting him.
Last night had been one of those nights. Ruki had been working in his sketchbook for hours while Reita flitted around his apartment, cooking himself a late dinner, watching a few television shows, and then taking a long, relaxing shower. When he'd gotten out of the shower, Ruki had still had his nose buried in the sketchbook, and he'd thought about wandering off back to the living room to catch another television drama to give Ruki a little more time alone with his pen and paper, when he'd caught Ruki rubbing a hand down his back and wincing.
"It's hurting you," Reita had noted quietly from the doorway and Ruki had only nodded without looking up from his sketchbook. It had been a taciturn consent for comfort, a green light that Reita had always felt relief from. He had always wished that Ruki would let him help him more, but he knew that Ruki's walls were still strong, and Reita hadn't yet torn them all down. But he would eventually. He would tear them down slowly until there was nothing left to separate them and Ruki would have nothing else to hide behind.
Ruki had said nothing as Reita went about collecting the lavender and peppermint oil Ruki kept in the bottom drawer of his bureau for when the medication wasn't helping. Reita knew how much Ruki hated to depend on the little white pain pills that sat on his nightstand so every chance he was allowed, he helped Ruki in the only way he knew how.
Ruki, usually too full of words, had been unusually quiet as he put aside his sketchbook and splayed himself out on his stomach in the middle of the bed. Reita had straddled his waist, making sure to keep his weight off of Ruki's body so as not to cause him any more pain than he was already in and pushed the light hoodie up and out of the way.
Reita had then set about coating his hands in the oils and then spreading them across the expanse of Ruki's smooth back. Ruki's skin had been flushed and warm beneath his palms as he massaged the oils into it. Reita's fingers had traced the ridges of erotic bone, down to Ruki's waist line slowly, his mind bringing up mental pictures of the bones of Ruki's spine and what was currently going on inside of his body, the way the bones of Ruki's vertebrae were rubbing together painfully.
Reita brought these pictures up as he soothed Ruki's back with the oils until he couldn't imagine the pain Ruki was going through any longer and began focusing on the way Ruki sighed softly when he did something particularly pleasing. Reita rubbed his thumb gently over the back of Ruki's neck and smiled when Ruki's skin erupted in goosebumps. Ruki's hips had pressed up between Reita's legs as his thumb trailed back down Ruki's spine and things had become just a bit hazy for Reita then, too erotic for mental images of Ruki's skeleton.
"My leg is numb," Ruki had mumbled into the bed and Reita had promptly slid off of him and stretched out beside him on the bed, body thrumming with pent up lust. Ruki frequently complained of one of his legs going numb from the renegade vertebrae in his back and many times, Reita had slipped his hand beneath a table, or slid his hand under Ruki's jacket, out of sight, to massage his leg until feeling came back to it.
Reita had always hated and loved the bones of Ruki's body. He loved them because they were a part of Ruki, and it was something only he had ever been allowed to share with Ruki, this subtle comfort, this secret they shared together, and he hated Ruki's bones for being weak, for putting Ruki through hell. The pain had only just started back up a few months ago. They had both thought the surgery from years back would be the last one, but it seemed Ruki's spine wasn't done torturing him just yet. They had been warned it could happen again, but they hadn't really believed it would, like children hiding their eyes and pretending they were invisible. Horrible things didn't happen twice in children's worlds.
"I thought I was done with this," Ruki had whispered against Reita's neck as Reita had pulled Ruki into his body and curled around him. He had spent the entire night taking the pain from Ruki and making it his own.
"Let's go back to bed," Reita suddenly suggested, pulling himself from the memories of last night, and setting down fork and knife in his already empty plate. Ruki was only halfway through his pancakes, slow and refined eater that he was, but he mirrored Reita and set his fork and knife down in an almost comically mechanical way.
Hell, they could spare one another a few more hours of mind-numbing sex before Ruki had to spend the rest of the afternoon signing consent forms and laying down his autograph agreeing not to sue the hospital in the case of his death on the operating table. Reita's heart seized up for just the slightest moment as that thought inched across his mind, before Ruki looked up at him and that very real possibility was once again....something outside of their world, something unreal until they left this apartment.
"Is that an invitation or a challenge?" Ruki asked, face serious as he stared at Reita over the expanse of table, condiment bottles, and useless centerpiece he'd allowed Ruki to decorate his table with.
"Does it matter?" Reita rose an eyebrow that was definitely more challenging than invitation and Reita couldn't have been fast enough to dodge Ruki as he pushed his chair back and came sliding in those damnable rainbow socks around the table into Reita's arms.
**********
"Can we not talk about it?" Ruki muttered as he slid into the passenger seat of Reita's car and slammed the door closed. It was nearing evening and Reita had been idling the car in the pick up zone of the hospital for the last hour. He'd been honked at and cursed at until he threw a very unpleasant gesture to the line of cars behind him and yelled back at them to go the hell around. He refused to shuffle into the waiting room and he refused to wait in the parking lot so that Ruki could walk out and start panicking. Reita had already been the shittiest of boyfriends, too scared to face the white coats with Ruki. Ruki crossed his arms over his chest and turned to look at Reita behind dark sunglasses that swallowed half of his face.
"I wasn't going to ask." Reita shrugged, wishing he could see Ruki's eyes instead of his own reflection thrown back to him on a glossy surface, his face warped, the lines of his mouth turned down so far he reminded himself of a sad clown. And then his face was gone as Ruki turned away and stared straight ahead, pulling the hood of his jacket down over his head like a mourning shroud.
Reita was reminded of their first real date as they sat across from each other later that night, separated by a fine white cloth he was almost afraid to eat on because he knew he was going to drop something on it and stain it.
Ruki was pretending to be disinterested, or maybe he was checking to see if there was anything between his perfect white teeth as he took a sip of blood red wine and then stared at the glass pensively with his teeth bared.
"Are you glaring at the wine or at me?" Reita asked with a chuckle and he knew that Ruki had merely been lost in his own thoughts when Ruki immediately rearranged his face, his glare disappearing behind the wine glass and his eyes settling on Reita apologetically.
"It's too strong, too dry," Ruki lied and set his glass down in favor of the steak the waiter had placed in front of him ten minutes ago. Reita hadn't even been sure Ruki noticed his food had arrived.
"I'll order something sweeter," Reita suggested, unsurprised when Ruki waved his hand in the air flippantly and began cutting up his steak in much the same fashion as he had his pancakes that morning, distractedly....angrily.
"It's going to be okay," Reita wanted to mutter as he tipped back the rest of his own glass of wine and began refilling it again. Neither of them were driving tonight so he was free to go wild, or least inebriate himself to the point of blissful ignorance. He didn't know if it would be alright because nothing was ever guaranteed in this life of theirs, and he knew Ruki was going to have a panic attack on the way to the hospital tomorrow and Reita wouldn't be able to hold his hand through it because he wouldn't be there.
"You don't have to come. My parents will be there," Ruki had told him earlier as he had packed an overnight bag for his stay at the hospital and stored it in a corner of Reita's bedroom.
"I'll be there." Reita had forced the words out, thick like honey through resisting lips. Ruki knew his phobia of hospitals, the hives Reita broke out into when stepping into one of those sterilized places. The fact that his boyfriend was heading there to be cut open and dissected on a cold metal table left an even more bitter taste for hospitals in Reita's mouth.
"I don't want you to come." Another lie. Ruki had chewed his lip raw as he had packed that Louis Vuitton bag full to the brim of things he wouldn't need at all. When Ruki had turned his back to pull more shirts from the hangers in his closet, Reita had taken out one of the three sticks of deodorant and the orange scented candle Ruki had tossed into the bag and replaced them on his dresser.
"I will," Reita had argued, helping to fold a few of the shirts Ruki had handed him.
"I don't want to see you there, so don't come," Ruki had growled, grabbing the neatly folded shirts from Reita's hands and stuffing them angrily into the bag until Reita grabbed his hands and held them tight. Ruki had only struggled for a moment, before he gave up and looked at Reita with an expression that needed no words. He was terrified.
Reita had stopped the argument then and there, pushing aside the duffel bag and pulling Ruki into his arms. Ruki had melted against him and hid his face in Reita's chest, and Reita had let him, stroking his hair and giving him the silence he needed because he understood fear and the need for comfort without words better than anyone. Reita understood that Ruki's fear of the surgery and Ruki's fear of him and what they were allowing to grow between them was almost one in the same then.
Reita had pretended not to notice when his shirt became just the barest hint of damp and when Ruki pulled away and rearranged himself, Reita had turned a blind eye to his momentary loss of control. Ruki was never weak, even when it came to unpredictable surgeries, and men he reluctantly trusted to hold his emotions and keep them secret.
Sometimes, Reita imagined that Ruki's pain went deeper than the faulty mechanics of the bones in his back or the unholiness of stores when they didn't have Ruki's size in the pair of shoes that Ruki wanted desperately. Sometimes, he imagined Ruki's pain was still that old biting fear of what ifs that Ruki clung to as hard as he clung to Reita these days. When Ruki looked up at him, lips parting as if to say something, to let slip the real reason for his emotional warfare....Reita believed his imaginings were right. It was what kept Reita going, what kept him pushing behind Ruki like a stubborn mule.
Reita would bring Ruki to the hospital in the morning, and he'd give Ruki's parents the reigns after that, respecting Ruki's demand for him to go home and wait until the surgery was over, but he couldn't stop Reita from coming to visit him afterwards, and that he would do despite his own fears because love did that to a person. Love forced a person to face fears and do the unexpected and to sacrifice for the one that meant more than their own comfort.
Reita had been counting victories like some people with a compulsive disorder counted cracks in the sidewalk, obsessively. It had become a ritual of sorts. Their first dinner together had been the very first victory. The first time Ruki had allowed him to hold his hand in public, a very distinct second victory, and they went on from there until Reita had begun to believe that they were finally constructing something between each other that seemed solid. Solid with Ruki had once been a foreign term, but Reita had stubbornly refused to back down, and he was reaping his rewards with the struggles in a way that was natural now. All good things came with some sort of struggle in Reita's opinion.
Tonight, Ruki looked as he had the first night they'd sat down in public to a dinner alone together, all nerves and fidgeting hands and roaming gaze as if cameras were lurking somewhere in the darkness of the restaurant. Though that long ago night, the nervousness had been because Ruki was afraid of scarier monsters than doctors in white coats. Reita had been the monster that night.
"I have something for you," Reita spoke now more to the table than to Ruki and inwardly winced as the sound of knife and fork scraping against glass immediately went silent. The only thing Reita could hear now was the low sound of violins in the background and the soft murmur of the other patrons in the restaurant, hidden behind booths and secluded in their own corners.
The lighting was low in this place, accentuated by the flickering of the candle in the middle of their table, to create a romance Ruki usually scoffed at. Reita had never been a romantic either, but he'd always walked by this place and remembered wondering what it would be like to bring Ruki into this place, and he remembered the feeling he had gotten when he finally had. He felt it now, that breathless sort of exhilaration with the slight bitter undertone of terror that somehow balanced his nerves. He'd been sure Ruki would laugh and turn on his heel that night, but he'd stayed, his knuckles bone white as he gripped the edge of the table and tried in vain to keep eye contact with Reita.
Ruki's face in the candle light was unreadable now as Reita brought out the slender, rectangular box from it's hiding place in his inner coat pocket. Reita shrugged awkwardly and slid the black box over pristine white table cloth to Ruki. Ruki stared at him a moment longer before his gaze flitted down to the box and immaculately manicured hands came up from under the table and picked at the gold ribbon snaking around the box.
"I hope this isn't a proposal," Ruki quipped as he hid his face behind a curtain of hair and stripped the ribbon away. Reita laughed and was glad when Ruki looked up at him with a comfortable grin. It was a sign that had Reita letting out his held breath in a relieved rush.
"Oh..." The soft utterance that slipped from between Ruki's lips was one of surprise. Ruki slid the silver bracelet from the box and let it lay over his fingers as he turned his hand this way and that way slightly so that the candle light glinted off of it prettily.
"It's a charm bracelet," Reita felt the need to point out though it was obvious that was what it was with it's little dangling charms. He had added three charms to the bracelet already; a black music note, a tiny dog that reminded Reita of Ruki's little demon dogs, and a studded microphone. Ruki held the bracelet close to the candle and fingered the little charms, a small smile playing on his lips that had Reita biting the inside of his cheek to keep his grin in check, otherwise it might have taken over his entire face.
"Reita, you didn't have to-" Ruki began, but Reita cut in quickly.
"You can wear it to the hospital and even if they make you take it off, you'll have it after the surgery. Think of it like a lucky charm or a talisman." Reita reached out and Ruki let him take the bracelet from him and put it around his wrist. Reita mentally noted another small victory for the books as Ruki admired the bracelet and the irritation and uneasiness from before seemed to bleed from the room.
All throughout dinner Reita noticed the way Ruki couldn't keep the grin from his face and his wrist stayed on display at the end of the table so that when the waiter came by to pick up their plates and set down another bottle of wine, Ruki made sure to flash the bracelet in a boastful way that for once, Reita didn't roll his eyes at.
**********
"Why do you say things like that?" Reita asked, flinching as Ruki blew a stream of smoke in his direction and glared at him from the corner of his eye. Reita waved the smoke away from his face as the streetlight above them caught the silver of the charm bracelet around Ruki's wrist and it winked at Reita.
"Well it's true," Ruki said around the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth as he dug around in the pockets of his jeans. Reita reached out, hoping Ruki didn't decide to be a bitch and slap him out of irritation and slid the cellphone from Ruki's back pocket. He let his fingers linger for only a second, knowing not to push his luck. Ruki uttered a brusque "Thank you" as he snatched the phone from Reita's hand and began dialing their ride for the night with unsteady fingers. Reita hadn't stopped Ruki from ordering a third bottle of wine because they'd needed it in that moment, but the alcohol was relaxing them as much as it was firing them up for a familiar argument.
"I wish you weren't so fucking self conscious," Reita muttered it beneath his breath, an absent-minded sort of comment because he meant it but then he didn't mean it really. Maybe it was the anger talking or maybe it was something deeper than that even. But either way, he knew those words should have never left his mouth because suddenly, Ruki's phone was hitting the concrete pavement, the crunch of plastic and glass loud in Reita's ears, and the next moment he was pushed against the wall behind him with a force one wouldn't expect coming from such a small man. But then Ruki was a giant in that body of his most of the time.
"Don't you ever fucking say that again," Ruki growled, finger too close to Reita's face for his own comfort....his ownpride. For a split moment, Reita wanted to release the anger he usually held down. He wanted to rant and rave and even push against Ruki as Ruki had done to him countless times in some ridiculous emotional warfare.
Reita's breath came in angry pants, and his nostrils flared, yet he remained still, held against the wall by one of Ruki's hands and he calmly.....very deliberately pushed Ruki's wrist away from his face. A quiet warning.
The charms that hit his fingers as Ruki's hand snapped back and away as if burned, had Reita's breath easing and he forced himself to look at Ruki, to really look and not see red, but see the face that he cared about, the face that was currently turning away from him, retreating. Reita watched Ruki's back for a long moment before he pushed himself away from the wall, but stayed frozen in place, unwilling to move until Ruki did. The usual stance of sitting ducks, of children playing grown up, playing games with one another.
"You would fuck him again if you had the chance," Ruki muttered, breaking all their silent rules, bringing up ghosts like they were old friends.
"Ruki-" Reita breathed softly, but Ruki turned on him and he braced himself for another round but Ruki only looked at him with an expression that was almost helpless, defeated, anger teeming just under the surface.
"Don't even try to deny it. He gave you whatever it was that I couldn't. And if he offered again, you'd be at his feet," Ruki spat.
"Because I'm just a cold, heartless bitch. You probably both laughed at me behind my back as you....fucked......in that bed." Ruki bit down hard into his bottom lip until Reita was sure he would draw blood. Ruki bit down until he gasped and slowly lowered himself down to the concrete and crouched there as if standing had become too much for him suddenly. It reminded Reita of the night Ruki had knelt at his chair and kissed salt from his face in a tenderness that had left Reita weak. They had both been weak that night, just as they were now.
Reita watched with a sort of fascinated horror as Ruki buried his head in his hands and his shoulders shook just the slightest. This was the first time they'd ever spoken Reita's sins aloud since that day on the steps, and this made those sins real, and though Reita hadn't felt as shitty as he did now about it given Ruki's disposition towards him at the time and knowing the lessons he had needed to learn....he felt if he cut into his own chest right now, it would feel much better than the raw hurt that was digging into him slowly.
It had only been once, but one time equaled a thousand times in a lover's eyes.
Ruki had always been more than a passing fuck, but it had taken a raw slap in the face for Ruki to see how fragile things were between them, how easily things could have fallen apart. Reita supposed that Ruki had seen himself replaced like yesterday's old garbage as he listened to the sounds of betrayal coming through the thin hotel walls. Though Reita had thought about Ruki that night as the man who'd played his body like a familiar instrument had confirmed.
"You couldn't stop thinking about him the entire time." The words had been thrown down with a careless shrug, common sense because Reita was an open book, full of cluttered words that barely meant any sense to the people who tried to read him. But he had read Reita perfectly and Reita had loved it for the night.
Ruki was only just now turning Reita's pages, so very carefully, so slowly, as if he were afraid with each new page and what new thing he would discover. Ruki was afraid of falling as deeply as Reita had, but there was no stopping this head first plummet into each other.
Reita imagined his own hand print, red and hot against the paleness of Ruki's cheek as Ruki looked up at him beneath the drifting yellow of the streetlight. Ruki swallowed hard and took Reita's hand when Reita held it out. He couldn't stand to see Ruki kneeling there. They didn't have time for these games of weakness and power that love seemed to drag around with it, so full of it's self that Reita almost loathed it.
In the end they decided to walk home and Ruki didn't push away the arm Reita wound around his shoulders as they walked. Ruki even pressed in closer to Reita's body, hands shoved into the leather pockets of his jacket, head down as Reita's fingers slid up and down the side of his arm. At one point, Ruki even relented and rested his head against Reita's shoulder.
The piece of paper, numbers and name scrawled messily, hurriedly in that hand that could never keep still had been folded and stowed away and almost forgotten until some weeks ago. Miyavi would always be a memory, a driving force that had pushed him onto the path he was walking now regardless of what Miyavi may have wanted in the brief moment before he'd realized that Ruki's foot would always be there, holding the door open for Reita, refusing to let it close completely. Just to know that Miyavi was happy now cemented Reita's decision to be happy himself.
Ruki had never had anything to be insecure about. His place had been staked in Reita's chest long ago whether they had wanted this or not and there was no changing that. But if this was the only place that Ruki could be small and ruthless with himself, then Reita would let him, because Reita wasn't a stage and he wasn't a pair of eyes looking for perfection worthy enough to worship. He did that well enough in the face of Ruki's flaws.
"You can leave me if you want. I would deserve it if you did," Ruki whispered into Reita's jacket.
"We deserve to be happy," Was all Reita could say. Because they did.
To anyone watching them on that lonely stretch of sidewalk, they looked to be two people lost in one another, maybe even in love, not two people that had just fought a war with one another over countless lost battles. Reita was sure that this had been one of his more bittersweet victories, the kind that left a mark on his chest to remind him of how far he had come with Ruki, and how far he had left to travel to get where he'd staked his home.
*********
"What if they can't put me under?" Ruki asked, cold feet somehow finding Reita's own beneath the heavy coverlet he'd dragged out of the closet. It was beginning to snow outside and the temperature had been steadily dropping. When Reita had leaned forward to kiss Ruki outside of the apartment building earlier, their breath had hung between them in small clouds before their lips met in the shadows of the alleyway. The first flakes of snow had melted against Ruki's hair and the scarf that Reita had wound around Ruki's face playfully until Ruki had gotten fed up with him and pushed him away, laughing.
"You were out as soon as the anesthesia hit you last time," Reita reminded him, shifting his feet away from Ruki, but Ruki's feet followed him and were soon wrapped around his legs again, freezing him to death. Ruki's hands and feet were always like ice during the winter months, and he was sure that Ruki enjoyed tormenting him beneath the covers this way, clinging to him in the cold as he wouldn't during the summer months.
"Maybe I shouldn't have it done." Ruki's voice woke him once again, just as he'd been about to drift off to sleep. Reita sighed and rolled over, pushing Ruki's legs away with his knees and rested his face next to Ruki's on the pillow. Ruki was wide awake, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth until Reita was sure he was going to chew it completely off.
"And live with the pain? Forget it. If I have to drag you by your perfect hair, you're going," Reita growled and reached across the small expanse of pillow between then and tugged at the end of Ruki's hair.
"Maybe it'll snow so much, we won't be able to make it," Ruki continued, ignoring Reita's logic for the reality they usually preferred, the one where they could spend entire weekends in bed together and not have to think about work, or the band, or dangerous surgeries, or pain.
"Dream on," Reita muttered, and rolled over onto his back again. He almost wished that Ruki could have taken the pain pills tonight to help him sleep because his mind was on overdrive, his thoughts running away with themselves and Reita was getting restless the longer Ruki lay beside him, making up ridiculous excuses for opting out of the operation. But even if Ruki had wanted to take the medication, he couldn't have. Reita had had to remind him he couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight and had slid the ice-cream carton out of his hands an hour ago. Ruki always had a sweet tooth after he'd been out binge drinking.
"I just wanted dessert." Ruki had mumbled and Reita couldn't help but double over laughing at the pitiful expression Ruki had shot him. Ruki was part devil, part angel-food cake, Reita was convinced.
Now they lay side by side, teasing and laughter put on hold as they struggled with their separate thoughts, and fought their separate battles as they did most nights when they were together in bed. But tonight was even heavier and Reita was almost afraid to touch Ruki, to start up the heat between them, and the aching in his back again. But then he felt Ruki's hand on his chest and when he turned his head, Ruki was leaning over him, peering down at him in the darkness, his eyes wide and his teeth white as he parted his lips and sighed.
"Reita," Ruki whispered. "Could you kiss me?" And Reita felt for the words behind the words, the real words behind the fake cutouts Ruki let slip from his mouth. "Could you love me?" Ruki was asking him in Reita's mind and Reita was nodding, pulling Ruki down on top of him and kissing him the way he knew Ruki liked to be kissed, hard and numbing.
He knew they shouldn't be doing this, and the strain on Ruki's back had been strictly forbidden, but Reita couldn't stop himself and he could feel the need in Ruki as he clawed at Reita's shoulders and his thighs held Reita captive between them.
Ruki was desperate against him, completely consuming him until he gave up the fruitless struggle to keep up with Ruki's mouth and hands that seemed to be everywhere at once. Ruki straddled Reita's waist and held his wrists down on either side of Reita's head as he kissed him hard. Reita welcomed the bite of Ruki's teeth against his neck, the grip on his wrists that choked most of the feeling from his hands.
Nights like this had become few and far between. These desperate moments, Ruki's struggles for some semblance of control, had dwindled in the face of Reita's need for more than rough sex. Ruki had slipped into the world of teasing and softer kisses, and quiet passion easier than Reita had thought would be possible. But tonight, this was something that Ruki needed, and now beneath the sting of teeth and blushing bruises on Reita's shoulders was a passion that hadn't been there before. These weren't empty, selfish touches, they were full of emotions that had Reita shuddering beneath Ruki's body.
He gave himself up to Ruki's onslaught and was sure he was on the edge of death when Ruki slid down into his lap and he pressed into Ruki's body with sharp thrusts that had Ruki crying out in that way that drove Reita mad.
"You could do anything to me, and I'd let you." Ruki whispered, lips pressed hot and moist against Reita's cheek. And in those words of submissions, of that damnable silent language of Ruki's, Reita understood, and he didn't believe. Because their roles had always been preordained, power and weakness, the throne and the boot that dug into unresisting shoulder blades. Ruki would never bow so low.
"Liar," He almost whispered back, but instead, his fingers only dug into the flesh of Ruki's thighs and he watched Ruki moving above him, his face contorted as he struggled to a desperate end. It was all Reita could do but to hang on. This was the heat of sex talking. It was the nerve endings and the blood flowing through Ruki's body to vital sources, seeking satisfaction. It was that spot that Reita could hit with practiced ease now to make Ruki throw his head back and shudder.
Ruki would have never said those words while sitting next to Reita on the couch, watching other people's mindless lives on the television screen, and he sure as hell wouldn't have whispered those words as they stood backstage, away from the others, trading glances that stood in for words. But those words were okay to whisper in the madness that sex brought on because this was their excuse. Sex had a way of speaking blindly.
Ruki's hands pressed flat against Reita's chest and with each thrust, Ruki's palms slipped on the dampness of his skin until Ruki gave up trying to hold himself up and slid down so that they were chest to chest. Ruki buried his face into Reita's neck, curling against him, muffling the sharp cries Reita desperately pulled from him, and Reita held him close as they moved against one another, out of sync, as they'd always been around one another, with words they didn't mean, but completely and utterly fluent in the language of one another's bodies.
Go to Part Three