Splinter (X/1999, Kamui-->Subaru)
What I should be doing: Baltar/Gaeta for 0tp, Roland/Aigis for 0tp, maybe Ladd/Lua for 0tp, kinkfest stuff in general (reminder to self: it is perfectly okay if the kinkfest fics are under 2000 words), memento mori, the Bandverse thing with the twins going on their first hunt.
What I end up doing: This.
Um. I blame Mith? That one usually seems to work.
Splinter. Kamui-->Subaru(/Seishirou), 2565 words. R for the violence, PG-13 for the sexual content. Spoilers through volume 12, warning for gore, CLAMP-style imagery, and me taking a fluffy premise out back and shooting it, because Subaru and Kamui never get nice things. EVER.
He's sick of people telling him what he does and doesn't want.
(Irreverent summary: Kamui wants to hit on the cute older gay guy, but the cute older gay guy is possibly the only person on the planet who's more screwed up in the head than Kamui is. Also, the cute older gay guy's boyfriend is kind of a sociopathic stalker.)
Hospital chairs aren’t designed for comfort. Kamui guesses it’s an issue of fairness-if the people in the beds are miserable and in pain, then the visitors should be too. The chair digs into his back when he tries to relax into it, pinches his skin and grinds against his spine. He grits his teeth, gives up on finding a good way to sit, and leans forward instead, props his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists and keeps watch over Subaru.
Subaru’s eyes are-eye is-closed, his breathing shallow. Kamui watches his chest jerk up and collapse in a cycle, watches his jaw tighten, watches his eyebrows knit and his lips round and part. Subaru breathes out on an unvoiced h, shaky and stuttering. Kamui looks at the bandages wrapped around Subaru’s head. Around Subaru’s-that. He swallows hard, and it hurts, maybe it should hurt. The bandages are even whiter than the coat crumpled up on the other chair, starched-white, hospital-white, but at least there’s not a pink tinge seeping through them, at least the bandages are keeping the blood at bay. Kamui scratches under the Ace bandages wound around his forearms and scrapes some of the scabs off with his fingernails. Fresh blood oozes from the cuts, sticks to his fingertips, and he hisses, not loud enough to wake Subaru up but there’s definitely sound involved, or at least sharp breathing. The cuts still itch, though, now they’re bleeding and they itch, which is just perfect. He forces his hands back into his lap, clenches them, ignores the prickling in his arms.
Subaru moans. It’s soft, low, barely a sound, but it’s there. His face is knotted up but it could be pain or pleasure or both or neither, Kamui can’t tell, can’t slip into people’s minds the way-
No. He drives his knuckles into his thighs until his shoulders slump forward from the effort. The rest of him collapses after: chest sagging, chin drooping, knees splaying out, eyelids struggling not to close.
He’s fine, he reminds himself. He has to stay awake and look after Subaru. Subaru’s in no condition to fend anyone off now, he’s-he’s pale and drawn and shivering, the tremors run up his hands and arms and make the tendons in his neck bulge and strain, and he shouldn’t, he said he wanted this but it shouldn’t have to be like this. So Kamui has to do something, something, he’s Kamui and the whole point of being Kamui, or of being this Kamui, is that he can protect something. Shield it from harm. Keep it safe. That’s what he should want.
Right.
The sheets on Subaru’s bed rustle, whisper. Kamui’s head lolls against his fist, lists to the side. How long has he been here? It’s nighttime, visiting hours should be over but he’s still here, so maybe Inomoyama or someone spoke to the director of the hospital and got permission for him to stay. He scowls. They couldn’t have made him leave, anyway. The moonlight blankets Subaru and drains even more of the color out of him until he shines with-shines with its absence sounds stupid, stupid poetic crap that doesn’t mean anything, but it means something when Kamui applies those words to Subaru. He shivers, curls up, lets the heels of his hands bear the weight of his chin.
Subaru makes another stifled sound and Kamui watches his lips: they soften just a little when he breathes in, when he receives air. The moonlight leeches most of the color from Subaru’s lips, but they still seem darker, darker than the rest of him, like they’re flushed. Kamui rubs his eyes. Of course his lips are darker, that’s the way lips are. He can’t think in straight lines anymore, not at this time of night. His eyeballs ache, dry out, pulse. His neck cramps up and he tries to stretch it out but instead his head tips forward and stays there, pillowed on his chest like that, the heel of his hand supports his forehead and the base of his thumb pushes against his right eye and forces it closed and then the left follows, drifts-
The dream doesn’t change. It’s a fixed point, one he returns to every night.
Kamui watches it unfold, can’t look away, can’t even close his eyes; he sets the wreath of flowers on Kotori’s head-his hands were so small then-and she laughs and the three of them bury their heads together and whisper and seeing this first makes it-makes it worse, he knows what’s coming next and he can’t stop it. He looks around, lashes out with his mind to expel any external forces from his dreamscape, but there’s no one here, he’s alone, he’s alone and he can’t even stop himself.
He’s pulled into his younger body, merges with it. Fuuma and Kotori grow, too, and he stretches out his hand to them but Fuuma looms over him, Fuuma’s always been bigger than he is but he’s never loomed like this before, never dominated. Kamui’s stomach lurches, knots tight, and Fuuma-his face is the same but the smile’s alien-Fuuma wrenches his hand back and, and pierces it, raw fresh blood dribbles down and stains the glass and Kamui can’t even scream, just spirals deeper and deeper into himself, into the same scene repeated a thousand times, a thousand cuts and a thousand cruel smiles and a thousand Kotoris-her blood splashes against the earth and he can’t stop it, can’t stop anything, Fuuma cups his face like a lover and digs the heel of his hand into Kamui’s cheek and Kamui can’t stop that either.
Don’t you have something you want to protect?
He clutches Kotori’s head in his arms and he knows it’s not real, knows the blood soaking through his shirt’s just an echo of what it actually was, but he holds on anyway, holds on and keeps bleeding out. He hears Fuuma’s shoes crunch against the shattered glass as he turns away from Kamui and towards Subaru now, Fuuma kicks Subaru like a dog and nudges his chin up with the toe of his boot and Kamui mouths stop, stop, but it doesn’t and it won’t and Kotori’s head slips from his arms, falls, tumbles down down down-
The collar of his T-shirt’s soaked through with sweat when he jerks awake. His arm’s fallen asleep; pins and needles race up and down it, burn as the feeling returns. He rubs his palms together, tries to shake the prickling out of them, but it doesn’t go away.
Subaru’s still sleeping, at least. Kamui lifts his chair up and drags it closer, sets it down as gently as he can so the legs won’t make any sound when they meet the floor again. Subaru’s breathing quickens, he shifts up against his pillow and arches his neck, and Kamui holds as still as he can, waits for Subaru to settle back down again. But the tension doesn’t leave Subaru’s body, not quite, it travels down through his arms until his fists knot in the sheets. He’s panting now, panting through clenched teeth, and Kamui leans as far over Subaru as he can. Maybe-maybe if Subaru feels someone there, someone near him, he’ll relax-or not, considering who he’s let get this close before, maybe Kamui’s just making things worse, but he doesn’t go away, can’t bring himself to yet. Subaru hisses when he draws breath in, clenches his eyes shut and his fists together. Kamui brings his hand up, inches it closer to Subaru’s white knuckles. Wake up, he thinks, wills it to be so. Come back.
A tiny breeze plays across Subaru’s face, stirs his bangs. Kamui kneels on the edge of his chair, leans in even closer, his lips almost touching Subaru’s forehead, the lines embedded there. His throat dries up. Would the lines go away if-if he kissed them?
Subaru gasps, sucks in air on an s. Kamui scoots back just as Subaru’s eyes blink open.
“Kamui,” he says, his voice husky with sleep. Well, sleep and years of smoking cigarettes. “What time is-”
“I don’t know.” Kamui inches closer again, transfers himself to the edge of Subaru’s bed. It barely groans at all from the added weight. “Late.”
“Shouldn’t you be at the mansion?” he asks.
“They said I could stay here with you.” No, that’s not right. “I wanted to stay,” he adds. “In-in case anyone tried to attack you.”
And if they did, what could he do? Stupid stupid stupid, he can’t even raise a kekkai, he sounds pathetic and broken and weak, so stupid…
Subaru smiles softly. “Thank you.”
Kamui looks at his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.
Subaru’s head sinks back into the pillow. “You don’t need to be. This is what I wanted.”
“You said that.” Kamui’s hands fist in the sheets. Fine, Subaru wanted it, but forgive Kamui for being selfish for a second, forgive him for wanting something else, forgive him for wanting at all. The world never seems to. “He shouldn’t have hurt you like that.”
“If he hadn’t hurt me, he would have hurt you.” Subaru sighs. “And I didn’t want that to happen.”
“I can handle it.” His arms lock up, stiffen. So maybe it’s not true, but-he has to, doesn’t he? Eventually. If he doesn’t want this to happen again, at least, and he might not know what he does want but he knows what he doesn’t, and this is in the latter camp.
“I know you can,” Subaru says. He reaches up, rests his hand against Kamui’s cheek. He doesn’t push in at all, just keeps his hand there, keeps it steady. “I wish you didn’t have to, but there’s no way to avoid it.” He sighs again.
Kamui’s tongue feels thick in his mouth. “No,” he says. “I know.”
Subaru’s hand starts to fall, and Kamui leans into the touch before it can, pillows his cheek against Subaru’s palm. “I didn’t want to lose you,” he says. Mumbles. The words almost choke him. “Not you, too.”
There’s a pause, and then Subaru isn’t touching him anymore, all he has are the imprints of Subaru’s fingers on his skin. “I’m sorry,” Subaru says.
“For what?”
Subaru shifts higher up on his pillow. “I’m sorry for putting you through this.”
Kamui slides closer to him, his knees grazing Subaru’s side, but Subaru doesn’t say anything against it so Kamui guesses it’s okay. “I wanted to stay,” he says. “You-you take care of me, but you don’t take care of yourself,” and it hurts when he doesn’t, when Subaru lets himself go, lets himself wither away and fade inch by inch, “so I-”
He doesn’t know what to say after that.
Subaru smiles again, at least, even if something else flares behind his eye when he does. “You truly are a kind person, Kamui.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not.”
“You do yourself a disservice,” Subaru says. “But thank you for staying with me.”
“I-” No, that’s not right. “Subaru-” And that isn’t right either, and neither is you’re welcome, the white of the bed blends into Subaru and shrinks him down and maybe-maybe Kamui can do something about that. He leans over Subaru again until their faces are lined up, nestles one of his hands in Subaru’s hair. It’s soft, fine, slides through his fingers.
“Kamui,” Subaru breathes; it sends a thrill running up Kamui’s legs, makes his skin draw tight. Kamui lets his other hand trail along Subaru’s collarbone-it protrudes so much, sharp and thin, Subaru’s just skin stretched over bones except he’s more than that-and grips Subaru’s shoulder and. And.
Kamui’s lips press against Subaru’s, linger there.
He tilts his head to the side so their noses don’t bump-Subaru’s lips are chapped, Kamui thinks he tastes dried blood in some of the cracks, but there’s softness underneath that, his mouth must be even softer. Subaru’s lips part and he hisses before Kamui pushes his tongue past, blocks the sound, there’s stale cigarette smoke thick on Subaru’s breath but that’s all right, he’s not used to the taste but he doesn’t even really gag on it. He curls his fingers around a tuft of Subaru’s hair-doesn’t pull, or tries hard not to pull, just holds on, just wants to feel him. He sucks on Subaru’s tongue and Subaru says something like “anh,” muffled and broken. Kamui’s fists tighten and everything else does too, he kisses Subaru even deeper and traces the outline of Subaru’s lips with his tongue, he grabs Subaru’s shoulder so he can feel it there. Kamui only breaks away when he has to breathe.
“Kamui,” Subaru says again, and Kamui doesn’t want to hear what comes next so he plants a trail of kisses along the line of Subaru’s jaw, trails his tongue down to the hollow of Subaru’s throat, laps up the sweat pooling there.
“Kamui, please-”
Kamui lifts his head up, looks Subaru in the eyes. Eye. “Tell me what you want,” he says, hoarse. The words hang ragged in the air. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
Subaru-Subaru’s not smiling, he’s looking up at Kamui and his expression splinters, fragments. “I’m so sorry,” he says, and that’s the worst part, he means it.
Kamui forces air back into his lungs. “If I’m doing it wrong, I can-I can try to do it better, or you can show me-”
“It isn’t anything you’re doing,” Subaru says. “Please believe me.”
It’s not you, it’s me. Kamui remembers that line from the serials Kotori used to watch. He throws himself into his chair, doesn’t flinch when the wood jars into the base of his spine. “Is it because of him?” he asks, looking down. He doesn’t need to elaborate on who he is.
Subaru hesitates. “Yes.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Kamui says, tries to keep the edge of desperation out of his voice. His stomach rises. He hates hates hates the Sakurazukamori right now; the hatred snarls up every fiber of him, tangles everything up and tightens it. “I won’t let him hurt me.”
“It isn’t that,” Subaru says.
“Then what is it?”
“I’m so sorry,” Subaru repeats, his voice cracking.
Kamui drives his nails deep into his palm until his hands throb. “Can’t you tell me?”
“You don’t want this.”
“Yes I do,” Kamui snaps. He’s sick of people telling him what he does and doesn’t want, sick enough to scream about it, scream his throat raw until they finally listen. Maybe he can find it out for himself, have they ever considered that?
“It can’t end well,” Subaru says. “For either of us.”
“Since when does anything ever end well?”
Subaru smiles: gentle, soft. He keeps his lips together to hide the darkness welling up behind his eye. “I can’t.”
Splinters fall from Kamui’s chest and drop into his stomach, pierce it, shred it up. “You can’t,” he asks, “or you won’t?”
“Both.”
Kamui can’t sink deep enough into his chair. “Fine.”
“Kamui-”
“I said it’s fine. Try to get some sleep.”
Subaru nods slowly. “Please don’t exhaust yourself on my account,” he says.
It’s my choice, Kamui thinks. What he says is, “I’ll be fine.”
Now let's see if I can get Gaeta to establish a civilian police force. Or get Gaeta in Baltar's pants. You know. Either or.
What I end up doing: This.
Um. I blame Mith? That one usually seems to work.
Splinter. Kamui-->Subaru(/Seishirou), 2565 words. R for the violence, PG-13 for the sexual content. Spoilers through volume 12, warning for gore, CLAMP-style imagery, and me taking a fluffy premise out back and shooting it, because Subaru and Kamui never get nice things. EVER.
He's sick of people telling him what he does and doesn't want.
(Irreverent summary: Kamui wants to hit on the cute older gay guy, but the cute older gay guy is possibly the only person on the planet who's more screwed up in the head than Kamui is. Also, the cute older gay guy's boyfriend is kind of a sociopathic stalker.)
Hospital chairs aren’t designed for comfort. Kamui guesses it’s an issue of fairness-if the people in the beds are miserable and in pain, then the visitors should be too. The chair digs into his back when he tries to relax into it, pinches his skin and grinds against his spine. He grits his teeth, gives up on finding a good way to sit, and leans forward instead, props his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists and keeps watch over Subaru.
Subaru’s eyes are-eye is-closed, his breathing shallow. Kamui watches his chest jerk up and collapse in a cycle, watches his jaw tighten, watches his eyebrows knit and his lips round and part. Subaru breathes out on an unvoiced h, shaky and stuttering. Kamui looks at the bandages wrapped around Subaru’s head. Around Subaru’s-that. He swallows hard, and it hurts, maybe it should hurt. The bandages are even whiter than the coat crumpled up on the other chair, starched-white, hospital-white, but at least there’s not a pink tinge seeping through them, at least the bandages are keeping the blood at bay. Kamui scratches under the Ace bandages wound around his forearms and scrapes some of the scabs off with his fingernails. Fresh blood oozes from the cuts, sticks to his fingertips, and he hisses, not loud enough to wake Subaru up but there’s definitely sound involved, or at least sharp breathing. The cuts still itch, though, now they’re bleeding and they itch, which is just perfect. He forces his hands back into his lap, clenches them, ignores the prickling in his arms.
Subaru moans. It’s soft, low, barely a sound, but it’s there. His face is knotted up but it could be pain or pleasure or both or neither, Kamui can’t tell, can’t slip into people’s minds the way-
No. He drives his knuckles into his thighs until his shoulders slump forward from the effort. The rest of him collapses after: chest sagging, chin drooping, knees splaying out, eyelids struggling not to close.
He’s fine, he reminds himself. He has to stay awake and look after Subaru. Subaru’s in no condition to fend anyone off now, he’s-he’s pale and drawn and shivering, the tremors run up his hands and arms and make the tendons in his neck bulge and strain, and he shouldn’t, he said he wanted this but it shouldn’t have to be like this. So Kamui has to do something, something, he’s Kamui and the whole point of being Kamui, or of being this Kamui, is that he can protect something. Shield it from harm. Keep it safe. That’s what he should want.
Right.
The sheets on Subaru’s bed rustle, whisper. Kamui’s head lolls against his fist, lists to the side. How long has he been here? It’s nighttime, visiting hours should be over but he’s still here, so maybe Inomoyama or someone spoke to the director of the hospital and got permission for him to stay. He scowls. They couldn’t have made him leave, anyway. The moonlight blankets Subaru and drains even more of the color out of him until he shines with-shines with its absence sounds stupid, stupid poetic crap that doesn’t mean anything, but it means something when Kamui applies those words to Subaru. He shivers, curls up, lets the heels of his hands bear the weight of his chin.
Subaru makes another stifled sound and Kamui watches his lips: they soften just a little when he breathes in, when he receives air. The moonlight leeches most of the color from Subaru’s lips, but they still seem darker, darker than the rest of him, like they’re flushed. Kamui rubs his eyes. Of course his lips are darker, that’s the way lips are. He can’t think in straight lines anymore, not at this time of night. His eyeballs ache, dry out, pulse. His neck cramps up and he tries to stretch it out but instead his head tips forward and stays there, pillowed on his chest like that, the heel of his hand supports his forehead and the base of his thumb pushes against his right eye and forces it closed and then the left follows, drifts-
The dream doesn’t change. It’s a fixed point, one he returns to every night.
Kamui watches it unfold, can’t look away, can’t even close his eyes; he sets the wreath of flowers on Kotori’s head-his hands were so small then-and she laughs and the three of them bury their heads together and whisper and seeing this first makes it-makes it worse, he knows what’s coming next and he can’t stop it. He looks around, lashes out with his mind to expel any external forces from his dreamscape, but there’s no one here, he’s alone, he’s alone and he can’t even stop himself.
He’s pulled into his younger body, merges with it. Fuuma and Kotori grow, too, and he stretches out his hand to them but Fuuma looms over him, Fuuma’s always been bigger than he is but he’s never loomed like this before, never dominated. Kamui’s stomach lurches, knots tight, and Fuuma-his face is the same but the smile’s alien-Fuuma wrenches his hand back and, and pierces it, raw fresh blood dribbles down and stains the glass and Kamui can’t even scream, just spirals deeper and deeper into himself, into the same scene repeated a thousand times, a thousand cuts and a thousand cruel smiles and a thousand Kotoris-her blood splashes against the earth and he can’t stop it, can’t stop anything, Fuuma cups his face like a lover and digs the heel of his hand into Kamui’s cheek and Kamui can’t stop that either.
Don’t you have something you want to protect?
He clutches Kotori’s head in his arms and he knows it’s not real, knows the blood soaking through his shirt’s just an echo of what it actually was, but he holds on anyway, holds on and keeps bleeding out. He hears Fuuma’s shoes crunch against the shattered glass as he turns away from Kamui and towards Subaru now, Fuuma kicks Subaru like a dog and nudges his chin up with the toe of his boot and Kamui mouths stop, stop, but it doesn’t and it won’t and Kotori’s head slips from his arms, falls, tumbles down down down-
The collar of his T-shirt’s soaked through with sweat when he jerks awake. His arm’s fallen asleep; pins and needles race up and down it, burn as the feeling returns. He rubs his palms together, tries to shake the prickling out of them, but it doesn’t go away.
Subaru’s still sleeping, at least. Kamui lifts his chair up and drags it closer, sets it down as gently as he can so the legs won’t make any sound when they meet the floor again. Subaru’s breathing quickens, he shifts up against his pillow and arches his neck, and Kamui holds as still as he can, waits for Subaru to settle back down again. But the tension doesn’t leave Subaru’s body, not quite, it travels down through his arms until his fists knot in the sheets. He’s panting now, panting through clenched teeth, and Kamui leans as far over Subaru as he can. Maybe-maybe if Subaru feels someone there, someone near him, he’ll relax-or not, considering who he’s let get this close before, maybe Kamui’s just making things worse, but he doesn’t go away, can’t bring himself to yet. Subaru hisses when he draws breath in, clenches his eyes shut and his fists together. Kamui brings his hand up, inches it closer to Subaru’s white knuckles. Wake up, he thinks, wills it to be so. Come back.
A tiny breeze plays across Subaru’s face, stirs his bangs. Kamui kneels on the edge of his chair, leans in even closer, his lips almost touching Subaru’s forehead, the lines embedded there. His throat dries up. Would the lines go away if-if he kissed them?
Subaru gasps, sucks in air on an s. Kamui scoots back just as Subaru’s eyes blink open.
“Kamui,” he says, his voice husky with sleep. Well, sleep and years of smoking cigarettes. “What time is-”
“I don’t know.” Kamui inches closer again, transfers himself to the edge of Subaru’s bed. It barely groans at all from the added weight. “Late.”
“Shouldn’t you be at the mansion?” he asks.
“They said I could stay here with you.” No, that’s not right. “I wanted to stay,” he adds. “In-in case anyone tried to attack you.”
And if they did, what could he do? Stupid stupid stupid, he can’t even raise a kekkai, he sounds pathetic and broken and weak, so stupid…
Subaru smiles softly. “Thank you.”
Kamui looks at his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.
Subaru’s head sinks back into the pillow. “You don’t need to be. This is what I wanted.”
“You said that.” Kamui’s hands fist in the sheets. Fine, Subaru wanted it, but forgive Kamui for being selfish for a second, forgive him for wanting something else, forgive him for wanting at all. The world never seems to. “He shouldn’t have hurt you like that.”
“If he hadn’t hurt me, he would have hurt you.” Subaru sighs. “And I didn’t want that to happen.”
“I can handle it.” His arms lock up, stiffen. So maybe it’s not true, but-he has to, doesn’t he? Eventually. If he doesn’t want this to happen again, at least, and he might not know what he does want but he knows what he doesn’t, and this is in the latter camp.
“I know you can,” Subaru says. He reaches up, rests his hand against Kamui’s cheek. He doesn’t push in at all, just keeps his hand there, keeps it steady. “I wish you didn’t have to, but there’s no way to avoid it.” He sighs again.
Kamui’s tongue feels thick in his mouth. “No,” he says. “I know.”
Subaru’s hand starts to fall, and Kamui leans into the touch before it can, pillows his cheek against Subaru’s palm. “I didn’t want to lose you,” he says. Mumbles. The words almost choke him. “Not you, too.”
There’s a pause, and then Subaru isn’t touching him anymore, all he has are the imprints of Subaru’s fingers on his skin. “I’m sorry,” Subaru says.
“For what?”
Subaru shifts higher up on his pillow. “I’m sorry for putting you through this.”
Kamui slides closer to him, his knees grazing Subaru’s side, but Subaru doesn’t say anything against it so Kamui guesses it’s okay. “I wanted to stay,” he says. “You-you take care of me, but you don’t take care of yourself,” and it hurts when he doesn’t, when Subaru lets himself go, lets himself wither away and fade inch by inch, “so I-”
He doesn’t know what to say after that.
Subaru smiles again, at least, even if something else flares behind his eye when he does. “You truly are a kind person, Kamui.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not.”
“You do yourself a disservice,” Subaru says. “But thank you for staying with me.”
“I-” No, that’s not right. “Subaru-” And that isn’t right either, and neither is you’re welcome, the white of the bed blends into Subaru and shrinks him down and maybe-maybe Kamui can do something about that. He leans over Subaru again until their faces are lined up, nestles one of his hands in Subaru’s hair. It’s soft, fine, slides through his fingers.
“Kamui,” Subaru breathes; it sends a thrill running up Kamui’s legs, makes his skin draw tight. Kamui lets his other hand trail along Subaru’s collarbone-it protrudes so much, sharp and thin, Subaru’s just skin stretched over bones except he’s more than that-and grips Subaru’s shoulder and. And.
Kamui’s lips press against Subaru’s, linger there.
He tilts his head to the side so their noses don’t bump-Subaru’s lips are chapped, Kamui thinks he tastes dried blood in some of the cracks, but there’s softness underneath that, his mouth must be even softer. Subaru’s lips part and he hisses before Kamui pushes his tongue past, blocks the sound, there’s stale cigarette smoke thick on Subaru’s breath but that’s all right, he’s not used to the taste but he doesn’t even really gag on it. He curls his fingers around a tuft of Subaru’s hair-doesn’t pull, or tries hard not to pull, just holds on, just wants to feel him. He sucks on Subaru’s tongue and Subaru says something like “anh,” muffled and broken. Kamui’s fists tighten and everything else does too, he kisses Subaru even deeper and traces the outline of Subaru’s lips with his tongue, he grabs Subaru’s shoulder so he can feel it there. Kamui only breaks away when he has to breathe.
“Kamui,” Subaru says again, and Kamui doesn’t want to hear what comes next so he plants a trail of kisses along the line of Subaru’s jaw, trails his tongue down to the hollow of Subaru’s throat, laps up the sweat pooling there.
“Kamui, please-”
Kamui lifts his head up, looks Subaru in the eyes. Eye. “Tell me what you want,” he says, hoarse. The words hang ragged in the air. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
Subaru-Subaru’s not smiling, he’s looking up at Kamui and his expression splinters, fragments. “I’m so sorry,” he says, and that’s the worst part, he means it.
Kamui forces air back into his lungs. “If I’m doing it wrong, I can-I can try to do it better, or you can show me-”
“It isn’t anything you’re doing,” Subaru says. “Please believe me.”
It’s not you, it’s me. Kamui remembers that line from the serials Kotori used to watch. He throws himself into his chair, doesn’t flinch when the wood jars into the base of his spine. “Is it because of him?” he asks, looking down. He doesn’t need to elaborate on who he is.
Subaru hesitates. “Yes.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Kamui says, tries to keep the edge of desperation out of his voice. His stomach rises. He hates hates hates the Sakurazukamori right now; the hatred snarls up every fiber of him, tangles everything up and tightens it. “I won’t let him hurt me.”
“It isn’t that,” Subaru says.
“Then what is it?”
“I’m so sorry,” Subaru repeats, his voice cracking.
Kamui drives his nails deep into his palm until his hands throb. “Can’t you tell me?”
“You don’t want this.”
“Yes I do,” Kamui snaps. He’s sick of people telling him what he does and doesn’t want, sick enough to scream about it, scream his throat raw until they finally listen. Maybe he can find it out for himself, have they ever considered that?
“It can’t end well,” Subaru says. “For either of us.”
“Since when does anything ever end well?”
Subaru smiles: gentle, soft. He keeps his lips together to hide the darkness welling up behind his eye. “I can’t.”
Splinters fall from Kamui’s chest and drop into his stomach, pierce it, shred it up. “You can’t,” he asks, “or you won’t?”
“Both.”
Kamui can’t sink deep enough into his chair. “Fine.”
“Kamui-”
“I said it’s fine. Try to get some sleep.”
Subaru nods slowly. “Please don’t exhaust yourself on my account,” he says.
It’s my choice, Kamui thinks. What he says is, “I’ll be fine.”
Now let's see if I can get Gaeta to establish a civilian police force. Or get Gaeta in Baltar's pants. You know. Either or.