but i could really use your mouth on me (X/1999, Subaru/Kamui, NC-17)
Title: but i could really use your mouth on me
Author: reversedhymnal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: uh, age difference, maybe? fingering and stuff. 8D
Word count: 4582
Summary: Subaru wasn't sure when it happened because it was too deep rooted to be anything new. But it had happened, and now he noticed, and it was far too late.
A/N: So it took forever, and it's been a while since I wrote them, but I did my best to keep them in character, :| I hope you like it!
X-1999, Subaru/Kamui: Craving for touch - 'All my little something's just ran out of luck'
Just like almost everything else, the entire issue could be traced to Sorata’s meddling.
“He just doesn’t sleep that well,” the monk told Subaru earnestly. It was late and Subaru had lost the apartment he’d been staying in over his recovery after the end of the world. He’d been sleeping on the couch in the house where several of the other Dragons stayed, and was almost comfortable there, without a sense of purpose.
Subaru said, not without compassion, “Not many of us do.”
“Yeah, well,” Sorata scratched at the back of his head with a concerned grimace, “The kid doesn’t have anyone else, and to put it bluntly? You’re the best one of the lot of us to deal with him. I could pet him all through the night, man, but that’s nothing compared to what understanding could do when he wakes up screaming, you know?”
Sorata’s eyes were a little too keen in his joker’s face, words a double meaning only if Subaru looked at it that way; he couldn’t not look at it that way, and Subaru ducked his head down, staring awkwardly at the floor.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess so.”
“Good!” Sorata clapped Subaru on the back, hard and companionably. It knocked him right out of the hold sticky thoughts of the past had on him, at least for the moment. He blinked up at Sorata’s bright face, and smiled back, tired. “You’ll stay with him, then? He’ll probably protest at first - he usually does, if it’s something nice for him - but just make those eyes at him and he’ll shut up fast.”
Subaru raised one reluctant eyebrow. “Eyes?”
Sorata grinned. “Don’t you worry about it! You’ll know what to do. Go get ‘im, tiger!”
Then the monk made a break for the room he shared with Arashi, the door shutting triumphantly behind him. Perplexed, Subaru stood in the living room beside the couch he apparently wouldn’t be sleeping in any longer, and sighed. He picked up his pillow and blanket, and headed for the stairway. He figured it was the least he could do, for the people who’d taken him in when he had nothing left to offer.
Kamui was in his pajamas when he answered the door, the sleeves a little too long, the pants a little short. He was small and thin and fragile in the harsh hallway light, blinking confusedly with dark eyes at Subaru. “Ah,” he said, “Can I help you?”
There was something perfectly endearing about the way he said it, too; Subaru didn’t really understand what drew Kamui to him, made Kamui so earnest and willing, and made him look at Subaru with such an attentive and pensive face, more so than any of the others. It made Subaru feel uncomfortable; made him feel special in a way he’d almost forgotten. But, no, Subaru had long decided. It was different from the way Seiishirou had managed to make him feel: it was new, innocent and familiar and sweet. Looking at Kamui was like looking into a mirror in a way, and finding hope there, as well as sadness.
“Would you mind company?” Subaru asked carefully, not wanting to intrude on Kamui’s pride. Kamui flushed, and lowered his lashes over his eyes, and Subaru ached, high and painful behind his ribcage looking at him.
Very softly, Kamui said, “I wouldn’t mind.”
Subaru entered Kamui’s room behind the boy, closing the door casually behind him. He looked around the room, and saw dirty clothes in a pile in a corner, and notes askew on the desk, and a pile of magazines he’d never have picked out on his own half spilled beneath his bed. It all made Subaru smile, seeing the teenager in Kamui, the boy with too much heart ache in the hard line of his mouth.
“It gets lonely at night,” Subaru said, and held up his folded blanket. “Would you mind if I slept in here?”
What Subaru wasn’t expecting was Kamui to stare at him for long moments, and then for his eyes to narrow. Subaru’s breath caught, because for a moment Subaru remembered what Kamui looked like without loss turning him into a shadow; Subaru realized Kamui was recovering and that Subaru hadn’t noticed. He realized that Kamui was even more beautiful without sadness making his brow heavy, and the planes and angles of his face tragic.
“Sorata put you to this, didn’t he?” Kamui asked fiercely.
Blushing a little, Subaru ducked his head to gaze at Kamui head on and say honestly; “It was my choice to come up here, Kamui.” Because it was, no matter that Kamui was correct. “You’ve sat by my side often enough,” he added as gently as he knew how, “Now let me take my turn, please.”
It made Kamui look away jerkily; the boy folded his arms over his chest with an expression so sharp and painfully embarrassed that Subaru could have used it to cut a perfect star shape into his palm. “F, fine.” Kamui turned on his heel and walked on cat silent feet to his bed, where he hesitated before clambering onto. “But you’re not sleeping on the floor.”
Subaru’s eyebrows rose of his own volition. He couldn’t help smiling, either, because Kamui was cute when he was so ruffled, messy dark hair curling sweetly against his flustered face. “All right,” Subaru said. “Move over.” He flicked the lights off, feeling uncomfortable in his skin because it’d been years since he’d had this kind of intimacy with another human. He used to curl up with his twin and sleep, tiny naps in the sun, but that was long ago, when the world was bright and innocent for all that Subaru made a goal of healing its darkest hurts.
“I’m sorry if I kick,” Subaru said, the words feeling thick and heavy with too many bulky angles in his mouth. After a pause, Kamui laughed softly, and said, “Uh. Me too. Sleep…sleep well.”
“No dreams,” Subaru responded, sliding beneath the cover, the bed soft beneath him, his body oversensitive, too big and heavy with his adult body close to this still teenage lithe one. Kamui was heat and electric space beside him, and it was a long time before the two of them dropped off to sleep.
*
It was easy enough to blame Sorata, but Subaru didn’t want to blame Sorata for this:
Waking up silent and still with his breath trembling on his lips from dark shapes moving through cherry blossoms and a sweet metallic scent on the air, to Kamui shivering beside him; to Kamui warm and alive and just as broken, fingers tight against Subaru’s back where the boy clutched at him. Subaru turned his head, just a little, and dark hair tickled his nose. He breathed in, smelt soap and boy and sweat and fear, and shuddered. Moved his own arm slowly over Kamui’s back and swept down in one soothing stroke.
Kamui awoke on a gasp, eyes wounded holes in a pale face, and Subaru pulled his hand away as if he was burned. In Kamui he looked down and saw betrayal and loss and the memory of a world as it fractured to pieces on a loved one’s grotesque grin. In Kamui he saw something to be cherished and healed, saw a likeness and saw a person who was not him but similar to him, and who Subaru couldn’t help but love.
His heart squeezed tight with all the tears he couldn’t shed.
He couldn’t blame Sorata for the heaviness of this; instead he blamed Seiishirou for making Subaru the person he was, blamed Fuuma for making Kamui into this. Blamed his past and the mangled job he’d done in remaking himself for the future for waking into a world heavy with the taint of nightmares and staring down at Kamui and wanting nothing more in that instant than to touch the boy.
Subaru drew a shaky breath, his fingers curled tight against his palm; “Kamui,” he murmured gently in the night.
Sad, and lost, Kamui whimpered, “It hurts.”
“I know,” Subaru told him. “I’m here. I’ll stay with you until it stops.”
Kamui breathed heavily, and looked up at Subaru and really saw him; Subaru could tell, because what he saw reflected in Kamui’s wide eyes made him grit his teeth. “I know,” Kamui echoed. He laid his head down slowly against Subaru’s collar bone; luckily not against Subaru’s chest where Kamui could have heard the way his heart was pounding.
Subaru closed his eyes, and it was easier to pretend like he hadn’t heard Kamui when he said: “And I’ll stay with you, too.”
*
Subaru wasn't sure when it happened because it was too deep rooted to be anything new. But Subaru must have been too preoccupied with Seiishirou and ruining himself on cigarettes and blood-stained determination to notice. Now he noticed, and it was far too late.
In the morning Subaru curled up on the couch with a mug of coffee and did nothing but stare into the distance, feeling faintly hunted. He’d woken up to broken sunshine through the blinds and the smell of Kamui on the pillow he was hugging tightly to his chest. It took fifteen minutes for him to stop blushing, and the shower was probably colder than it needed, but Subaru liked being thorough.
It would be better for him to never share a bed with Kamui again, because now that Subaru had formulated the thought - what would his skin feel like beneath my fingertips? If I laid my mouth upon his throat, could I change those noises to need of a saner kind? - he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now every time he saw Kamui he got a feeling in his chest like he'd been pierced straight through, and his throat got tight, making it harder to breathe than inhaling smoke ever did.
“Subaru?” Kamui asked the first time this happened, hyper-sensitive but happy after waking up to a circle of comforting and understanding arms in the dead of night. Kamui looked up at him in quiet worry and Subaru had never felt so wretched. “Are you all right? You’re looking pale.”
The boy reached out to press the back of his hand against Subaru’s cheek, but Subaru flinched back before he could stop himself. Expression leeched out of Kamui’s face and he sat back still because of it, though Subaru looked into his eyes and the feeling like he was falling didn’t get any better - he just felt dizzier if anything.
Woodenly, he told him: “It’s nothing,” and kept his hands very still at his sides, so that he didn’t reach out to smooth the wariness and hidden hurt from Kamui’s young face.
*
When Kamui opened his door to find Subaru waiting there, blanket and pillow in a white knuckled grip, his entire body loosened in a sigh of relief. Subaru didn’t think it was healthy for a boy his age to have that much tension, but that could also just have been an excuse to reach out and smooth his palms against Kamui’s shoulders, knead at firm and knotted muscles until the boy was spread out liquid and pliant and moaning beneath him-
Subaru sucked in a breath, and held it; this was bad, but the way happiness bled away the hurt that’d been in Kamui’s eyes since earlier was excuse enough.
Eventually, Kamui just took Subaru’s pillow and blanket from him in the morning, and put it on his bed as he made it before school. He smiled with his eyes averted and shy beneath his bangs. Subaru hurt with the need to reach out and twitch them out of the way, so he could see the soft glow of Kamui’s expression better. Subaru made a habit of sleeping longer than Kamui, and always taking cold showers in the morning before breakfast.
*
There was a lock of hair that always curled up higher than all of the others on Kamui's head, like some strange, messy cowlick that was positively endearing. Kamui had asked him if he’d like to go to the park, since it was a day off, and the world was beautiful and green and children were laughing on the breeze. Subaru hadn’t been able to resist even though he didn’t like parks very much, but now Subaru couldn’t stop staring at Kamui’s head, the cute curl of hair that matched Kamui’s bright sharp grin at the clouds high above them.
Subaru shook out a cigarette from a new pack, lit it in an easy motion, and sucked hard on the cigarette while trying too hard to relearn how to exist.
“Hey,” Kamui said, mouth tight. He’d stopped looking at the white clouds overhead, and instead looked at the cloud of smoke Subaru blew out of pursed lips. “I thought you stopped smoking.”
Subaru sucked down another long centimeter, already feeling the nicotine start to kick in; he turned his head politely to blow out the smoke, concentrating on making it one long stream so that he wouldn’t puff smoke out with his words when he said, without looking at the other boy, “Yeah. Yeah I did.”
When Subaru finally looked back, it was to see a flash of pain knife-bright in Kamui’s eyes like Kamui had failed and was kicking himself over it. His shoulders stayed tight and angry the entire rest of the time they were in the park, even after Subaru stubbed his butt against a metal trashcan and flicked it inside before it was half gone; his farewell was clipped when he said he had to meet a classmate from school, and he’d be back by dinner.
Subaru let the lie stand, and murmured a quiet goodbye, a headache forming where his eyebrows pinched together. He watched Kamui leave, long angry strides, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Kamui avoided anger and hurt by avoiding the other person, because otherwise Kamui’s temper got the best of him; Kamui had grown up, and was trying not to let his control slip, now that he’d found people worth keeping around.
This was bad, because wanting Kamui was doing nothing but hurting the boy. It’d be okay if Subaru was hurt, he was used to that. But what was he supposed to do in this regard? Say I bought my first pack of cigarettes in months because I needed something to do with my hands and mouth other than push you back against that tree and kiss you until you stopped smiling because your smile makes me crazy for you and I can’t exist without touching you when you’re so brilliant and beautiful?
All the little things that Subaru used to maintain some semblance of sanity had stopped working; instead there were a myriad of little things about Kamui that were driving him insane.
*
Kamui had eyes that turned blue against the sky when he smiled. He had bad habits and a good heart, and a temper that was almost as sharp as his guilt. He worried about Subaru's health and didn’t mean to be so charming. More often than not he would fluster himself so that Subaru was left staring bewildered and besotted at the way his face scrunched in embarrassment and self-reproach.
Kamui's guilt drew Subaru's soul into harmony, and Kamui's determination was warm against Subaru's own; Kamui's love was something that hurt to fill Subaru's hollowed chest with, but Subaru found he liked the feeling of no longer being empty too much to have even a hope of turning away from it.
He told himself: There must be something wrong with me. And then he thought: I don’t think I’m falling in love with you. I think I am in love with you.
Subaru blew smoke out, white against a starry night, and remembered the way the moon shone in Kamui's solemn eyes. Subaru didn’t know how to exist when the world was swapped out for another without his say-so, and he was struggling to learn the rules.
He wanted to touch Kamui, and Subaru took another cigarette out with shaking fingers, lit it against the butt of his almost finished one. He didn’t know how to deal with it, but he knew smoking wasn’t the answer. He remembered the look in Kamui’s eyes, the way he’d disappeared into the distance, walking agitatedly away from him.
With a sigh, Subaru stubbed out his cigarette; got up and went inside to take a shower. He didn’t look at Kamui when he handed him his still mostly full pack; Kamui took it, brushing his fingers lingeringly over Subaru’s palm so that Subaru had to suck in a hasty breath, and hold himself still with it.
“Thank you,” Kamui said earnestly. He turned Subaru’s face to him with a palm pressed against his jaw line, and Subaru was helpless to turn away. Subaru stared down at Kamui’s smiling soft face, and knew in his newly wild heart that he was not going to last this.
*
Subaru woke up in the middle of the night with Kamui beneath him. “Oh god,” he whispered, because he couldn’t bring himself to roll off. He got his elbows underneath him on either side of Kamui, and tried to find his knees, but finding his knees sent one thigh sliding over Kamui’s into a tight perfect fit. Kamui shifted languidly beneath him, eyelashes fluttering, and breath soft and short between candy pink lips.
Subaru stared down at him and it was a physical ache, the need to press down, to touch his mouth to Kamui’s throat, slide his tongue along the collar bone peeking out from his night shirt. To rock his hips and rub his thigh teasingly against Kamui’s groin, where he could feel through the thin material of Kamui’s flannel pajamas the outline of his half hard cock.
Subaru tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry; he felt thirsty in a way that had nothing to do with water, and everything to do with what Kamui would taste like.
Subaru held very still for what felt like a long time, not thinking or doing, just trying to sit and exist, one breath at a time, until he could find his control. But that was when Kamui decided to flinch with what seemed to be the start of a bad dream; a bad dream which quickly unraveled on a tiny shock of pleasure as it drove him down against Subaru’s thigh. He didn’t awaken, but his expression fidgeted in sleep, and Subaru wondered what he was thinking, what form his dream and this pleasure had taken, and felt his fingers grip the coverlet viciously at the thought of it being Fuuma turned gentle that Kamui’s subconscious might have supplied.
So he broke and reached down and pressed his mouth against Kamui, his tongue sliding into the boy’s slack mouth and stroking hot and wet. He pulled back with a low groan, sounding almost like he’d been hurt, when really it felt like the pleasure of finally having a taste of Kamui was going to break him.
Kamui woke up beneath him on a gasp, still moving his hips in hot little jerks against Subaru’s tensed thigh; his dazed violet eyes looked up at Subaru, and for a split second he smiled, his back arched like he was made of liquid grace and he reached up behind Subaru’s head with one of his arms. And then his eyes widened, and-
“Oh, shit,” he breathed. “I’m not dreaming anymore am I?”
With difficulty, Subaru managed to say, “No.”
Kamui’s face was flushed, and his eyes were still half lidded, face soft and beautiful from sleep; he couldn’t seem to stop twisting his body down against Subaru, and after a minute his throat worked and he made a desperate, broken sound. “O, oh god. Subaru.” His fingers curled tight in Subaru’s hair, and Subaru closed his eyes and shuddered.
“I’m so sorry,” Subaru said wretchedly. “But I- I need-”
He leaned down to bury his face against Kamui’s elegant neck, hearing the boy gasp. He breathed in the scent of him, and it sent his thoughts swirling away on a wild rush. He leaned heavily against one arm so he could slide his other hand up Kamui’s shirt; lust stormed through him, and he choked on a groan and a thrust of his hips at the feel of Kamui’s soft, scarred skin beneath his palm, so hot.
Kamui whined high in his throat, stretching out his body and suddenly there was even more for Subaru to touch, finally, and Subaru pressed his teeth down gently against the tendon of Kamui’s neck until Kamui was shaking from it. “Oh, yes, please, please,” the boy hissed, half-vicious, “oh god, please, whatever you need Subaru, anything, anyth-ing.”
Subaru pulled back to look down into Kamui’s face: the hope there in that gaze astounded him; the trust, it humbled him; the need lit him on fire from the inside out; the love felt like his heart had been broken and put back together in such a way that it was more whole than it had been since he was born.
“Just you, Kamui.” Subaru pressed the words against Kamui’s skin, traced them with trembling fingers over such a fragile ribcage.
*
If Sorata came through that door someone was going to die. But Subaru preferred that possibility over letting go of Kamui so the door remained unlocked and at least they were up on the second floor and on the opposite side of the house.
Touching Kamui was possibly his favorite thing in the world, and if he could spend the rest of his life with Kamui stretched out naked beneath him he would be the happiest person to ever exist. Kamui made beautiful noises, catching high in his throat in a breathless, hot way, and Subaru’s fingers and mouth were finding places on Kamui’s skin that worked like an electric shock, jerking Kamui’s hips against Subaru’s thigh, now naked flesh to naked flesh.
Subaru maybe had an oral fixation as well as a thing about being overly tactile too, because it was like the only way he could breathe was if his mouth and fingers were occupied with Kamui, and he didn’t even mind when Kamui dug his short nails into Subaru’s back and left marks. Kamui was pale and imperfect, and he muttered the filthiest things when Subaru rolled the tiny nub of his nipple between his teeth; his breath stuttered out when Subaru curled his fingers tight around Kamui’s hips, only to flutter them down his sides, tickling up his armpits so he snorted with laughter and hooked a heel around Subaru’s back in what was maybe a kick and maybe a clue.
Subaru smiled and couldn’t stay still, tracing the long arch of Kamui’s neck, the slant of his eyebrow; he tasted the dip of Kamui’s collar bones, and felt the way Kamui’s muscles slid beneath his skin, smoothing his palm over Kamui’s knees and his thighs and back down to his ankles and just settling there for a moment while Subaru sucked kisses down the ridge of Kamui’s hip.
“Oh my god,” Kamui all but growled, a wild look on his face when Subaru glanced up, thumbs rubbing circles slowly back up Kamui’s calves. “Ah- ahn! You’re t, trying to kill me!”
Subaru buried his face in Kamui’s hip, near one of the few parts of Kamui he hadn’t touched, and laughed. Kamui gripped tight fingers in his hair with a curse and pulled him up and Subaru kissed his smile away, biting his lower lip slow and lingeringly, making Kamui moan. Then Kamui was shoving him up and scrabbling under the mattress for something, and Subaru’s breath caught, not quite- not quite daring-
Kamui didn’t turn back around to face Subaru, just handed the tube of lube over his shoulder with a pained expression; his need won over his pride, and maybe it was because it was Subaru, too, because Kamui let his guard down willingly around him more than anyone else. Subaru took the tube with shaking fingers, pressing against Kamui’s back and gasping when Kamui immediately rolled backwards, so that Subaru’s erection pressed tightly against him.
“Kamui,” he mumbled, pressing wet kisses all over Kamui’s neck, sliding his free hand down to the boy’s erection and finally curling his fingers around him tentatively. It made the boy who’d saved their world whimper, claw at the covers and shiver against him. “Kamui, we don’t- uhn! Ah, we don’t have any co-ondoms.”
“Fuck,” Kamui said, pressing back against him, rolling his head around to press his forehead against Subaru’s, his lashes wet against Subaru’s cheek. “Then. Please your, your fingers. Subaru! I just. Please. Anything.”
Subaru heard in Kamui’s voice a longing that’d been there a long time, that Subaru somehow hadn’t read right, or been ready to see clearly, before. Now he did, and Subaru came undone around Kamui, because of Kamui, and he fisted the boy lightly, smearing precome around the head of his slender cock and squeezing down to the base. Kamui was panting and making tiny hungry sounds in Subaru’s ear as he fumbled with the tube of lube, squeezing it awkwardly into his palm, and then smearing his fingers with it.
Kamui was heat and electric want beneath his hands, and the breath was shaking out of him in pants as he reached down to Kamui’s entrance, and Kamui spread his legs with a moan so that Subaru’s slick finger could slide inside him easier. Kamui was strung tight as a bow, and Subaru was so hard it hurt, his heart beating like it was scared to death. “Oh. Oh, Kamui,” Subaru said helplessly, because Kamui was beautiful and perfect and wanted his touch this much.
“Nngh,” Kamui said, thrusting backward against Subaru’s invading finger, and then forward into his tight grip. “M- more,” he said, and Subaru saw his face clenched tight with embarrassment, and felt bad about making him ask. He added another finger gently, rotating his wrist and feeling the soft warm walls pressing tight around him, making Kamui whine high in his throat as he thrust deeper, demandingly into him, feeling him out from the inside.
Subaru pressed a kiss to Kamui’s shoulder, and said, “I love you.”
Kamui broke down beneath Subaru, and Subaru held him through the aftermath of his orgasm, stroked his hair and his back as he drifted into sleep; Subaru hadn’t come, but that was fine, he could stand a case of blue balls if it meant Kamui trusting and satisfied in his arms, all cried out and hopefully better for it. Subaru fell asleep against Kamui, pressed tight beneath the blankets, and remained peacefully oblivious to the world for maybe two hours before he was awoken by a mouth on his neck raising hickeys and a hand alternating between stroking a sleepy but awakening erection, and tracing teasingly around his opening.
“Ah,” Subaru said, blinking open his eyes to see Kamui’s face intent in concentration. “Ah, Kamui..”
Kamui looked up at Subaru, and his concentration broke on a soft look, despite the blush that was flaming across the younger boy’s face. “Hey,” he told Subaru. “It- it’s my turn, okay?”
Staring up at Kamui, Subaru said the only thing he could say, smile shaky but happy for the first time in what felt like years: “Please.”
Author: reversedhymnal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: uh, age difference, maybe? fingering and stuff. 8D
Word count: 4582
Summary: Subaru wasn't sure when it happened because it was too deep rooted to be anything new. But it had happened, and now he noticed, and it was far too late.
A/N: So it took forever, and it's been a while since I wrote them, but I did my best to keep them in character, :| I hope you like it!
X-1999, Subaru/Kamui: Craving for touch - 'All my little something's just ran out of luck'
Just like almost everything else, the entire issue could be traced to Sorata’s meddling.
“He just doesn’t sleep that well,” the monk told Subaru earnestly. It was late and Subaru had lost the apartment he’d been staying in over his recovery after the end of the world. He’d been sleeping on the couch in the house where several of the other Dragons stayed, and was almost comfortable there, without a sense of purpose.
Subaru said, not without compassion, “Not many of us do.”
“Yeah, well,” Sorata scratched at the back of his head with a concerned grimace, “The kid doesn’t have anyone else, and to put it bluntly? You’re the best one of the lot of us to deal with him. I could pet him all through the night, man, but that’s nothing compared to what understanding could do when he wakes up screaming, you know?”
Sorata’s eyes were a little too keen in his joker’s face, words a double meaning only if Subaru looked at it that way; he couldn’t not look at it that way, and Subaru ducked his head down, staring awkwardly at the floor.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess so.”
“Good!” Sorata clapped Subaru on the back, hard and companionably. It knocked him right out of the hold sticky thoughts of the past had on him, at least for the moment. He blinked up at Sorata’s bright face, and smiled back, tired. “You’ll stay with him, then? He’ll probably protest at first - he usually does, if it’s something nice for him - but just make those eyes at him and he’ll shut up fast.”
Subaru raised one reluctant eyebrow. “Eyes?”
Sorata grinned. “Don’t you worry about it! You’ll know what to do. Go get ‘im, tiger!”
Then the monk made a break for the room he shared with Arashi, the door shutting triumphantly behind him. Perplexed, Subaru stood in the living room beside the couch he apparently wouldn’t be sleeping in any longer, and sighed. He picked up his pillow and blanket, and headed for the stairway. He figured it was the least he could do, for the people who’d taken him in when he had nothing left to offer.
Kamui was in his pajamas when he answered the door, the sleeves a little too long, the pants a little short. He was small and thin and fragile in the harsh hallway light, blinking confusedly with dark eyes at Subaru. “Ah,” he said, “Can I help you?”
There was something perfectly endearing about the way he said it, too; Subaru didn’t really understand what drew Kamui to him, made Kamui so earnest and willing, and made him look at Subaru with such an attentive and pensive face, more so than any of the others. It made Subaru feel uncomfortable; made him feel special in a way he’d almost forgotten. But, no, Subaru had long decided. It was different from the way Seiishirou had managed to make him feel: it was new, innocent and familiar and sweet. Looking at Kamui was like looking into a mirror in a way, and finding hope there, as well as sadness.
“Would you mind company?” Subaru asked carefully, not wanting to intrude on Kamui’s pride. Kamui flushed, and lowered his lashes over his eyes, and Subaru ached, high and painful behind his ribcage looking at him.
Very softly, Kamui said, “I wouldn’t mind.”
Subaru entered Kamui’s room behind the boy, closing the door casually behind him. He looked around the room, and saw dirty clothes in a pile in a corner, and notes askew on the desk, and a pile of magazines he’d never have picked out on his own half spilled beneath his bed. It all made Subaru smile, seeing the teenager in Kamui, the boy with too much heart ache in the hard line of his mouth.
“It gets lonely at night,” Subaru said, and held up his folded blanket. “Would you mind if I slept in here?”
What Subaru wasn’t expecting was Kamui to stare at him for long moments, and then for his eyes to narrow. Subaru’s breath caught, because for a moment Subaru remembered what Kamui looked like without loss turning him into a shadow; Subaru realized Kamui was recovering and that Subaru hadn’t noticed. He realized that Kamui was even more beautiful without sadness making his brow heavy, and the planes and angles of his face tragic.
“Sorata put you to this, didn’t he?” Kamui asked fiercely.
Blushing a little, Subaru ducked his head to gaze at Kamui head on and say honestly; “It was my choice to come up here, Kamui.” Because it was, no matter that Kamui was correct. “You’ve sat by my side often enough,” he added as gently as he knew how, “Now let me take my turn, please.”
It made Kamui look away jerkily; the boy folded his arms over his chest with an expression so sharp and painfully embarrassed that Subaru could have used it to cut a perfect star shape into his palm. “F, fine.” Kamui turned on his heel and walked on cat silent feet to his bed, where he hesitated before clambering onto. “But you’re not sleeping on the floor.”
Subaru’s eyebrows rose of his own volition. He couldn’t help smiling, either, because Kamui was cute when he was so ruffled, messy dark hair curling sweetly against his flustered face. “All right,” Subaru said. “Move over.” He flicked the lights off, feeling uncomfortable in his skin because it’d been years since he’d had this kind of intimacy with another human. He used to curl up with his twin and sleep, tiny naps in the sun, but that was long ago, when the world was bright and innocent for all that Subaru made a goal of healing its darkest hurts.
“I’m sorry if I kick,” Subaru said, the words feeling thick and heavy with too many bulky angles in his mouth. After a pause, Kamui laughed softly, and said, “Uh. Me too. Sleep…sleep well.”
“No dreams,” Subaru responded, sliding beneath the cover, the bed soft beneath him, his body oversensitive, too big and heavy with his adult body close to this still teenage lithe one. Kamui was heat and electric space beside him, and it was a long time before the two of them dropped off to sleep.
*
It was easy enough to blame Sorata, but Subaru didn’t want to blame Sorata for this:
Waking up silent and still with his breath trembling on his lips from dark shapes moving through cherry blossoms and a sweet metallic scent on the air, to Kamui shivering beside him; to Kamui warm and alive and just as broken, fingers tight against Subaru’s back where the boy clutched at him. Subaru turned his head, just a little, and dark hair tickled his nose. He breathed in, smelt soap and boy and sweat and fear, and shuddered. Moved his own arm slowly over Kamui’s back and swept down in one soothing stroke.
Kamui awoke on a gasp, eyes wounded holes in a pale face, and Subaru pulled his hand away as if he was burned. In Kamui he looked down and saw betrayal and loss and the memory of a world as it fractured to pieces on a loved one’s grotesque grin. In Kamui he saw something to be cherished and healed, saw a likeness and saw a person who was not him but similar to him, and who Subaru couldn’t help but love.
His heart squeezed tight with all the tears he couldn’t shed.
He couldn’t blame Sorata for the heaviness of this; instead he blamed Seiishirou for making Subaru the person he was, blamed Fuuma for making Kamui into this. Blamed his past and the mangled job he’d done in remaking himself for the future for waking into a world heavy with the taint of nightmares and staring down at Kamui and wanting nothing more in that instant than to touch the boy.
Subaru drew a shaky breath, his fingers curled tight against his palm; “Kamui,” he murmured gently in the night.
Sad, and lost, Kamui whimpered, “It hurts.”
“I know,” Subaru told him. “I’m here. I’ll stay with you until it stops.”
Kamui breathed heavily, and looked up at Subaru and really saw him; Subaru could tell, because what he saw reflected in Kamui’s wide eyes made him grit his teeth. “I know,” Kamui echoed. He laid his head down slowly against Subaru’s collar bone; luckily not against Subaru’s chest where Kamui could have heard the way his heart was pounding.
Subaru closed his eyes, and it was easier to pretend like he hadn’t heard Kamui when he said: “And I’ll stay with you, too.”
*
Subaru wasn't sure when it happened because it was too deep rooted to be anything new. But Subaru must have been too preoccupied with Seiishirou and ruining himself on cigarettes and blood-stained determination to notice. Now he noticed, and it was far too late.
In the morning Subaru curled up on the couch with a mug of coffee and did nothing but stare into the distance, feeling faintly hunted. He’d woken up to broken sunshine through the blinds and the smell of Kamui on the pillow he was hugging tightly to his chest. It took fifteen minutes for him to stop blushing, and the shower was probably colder than it needed, but Subaru liked being thorough.
It would be better for him to never share a bed with Kamui again, because now that Subaru had formulated the thought - what would his skin feel like beneath my fingertips? If I laid my mouth upon his throat, could I change those noises to need of a saner kind? - he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now every time he saw Kamui he got a feeling in his chest like he'd been pierced straight through, and his throat got tight, making it harder to breathe than inhaling smoke ever did.
“Subaru?” Kamui asked the first time this happened, hyper-sensitive but happy after waking up to a circle of comforting and understanding arms in the dead of night. Kamui looked up at him in quiet worry and Subaru had never felt so wretched. “Are you all right? You’re looking pale.”
The boy reached out to press the back of his hand against Subaru’s cheek, but Subaru flinched back before he could stop himself. Expression leeched out of Kamui’s face and he sat back still because of it, though Subaru looked into his eyes and the feeling like he was falling didn’t get any better - he just felt dizzier if anything.
Woodenly, he told him: “It’s nothing,” and kept his hands very still at his sides, so that he didn’t reach out to smooth the wariness and hidden hurt from Kamui’s young face.
*
When Kamui opened his door to find Subaru waiting there, blanket and pillow in a white knuckled grip, his entire body loosened in a sigh of relief. Subaru didn’t think it was healthy for a boy his age to have that much tension, but that could also just have been an excuse to reach out and smooth his palms against Kamui’s shoulders, knead at firm and knotted muscles until the boy was spread out liquid and pliant and moaning beneath him-
Subaru sucked in a breath, and held it; this was bad, but the way happiness bled away the hurt that’d been in Kamui’s eyes since earlier was excuse enough.
Eventually, Kamui just took Subaru’s pillow and blanket from him in the morning, and put it on his bed as he made it before school. He smiled with his eyes averted and shy beneath his bangs. Subaru hurt with the need to reach out and twitch them out of the way, so he could see the soft glow of Kamui’s expression better. Subaru made a habit of sleeping longer than Kamui, and always taking cold showers in the morning before breakfast.
*
There was a lock of hair that always curled up higher than all of the others on Kamui's head, like some strange, messy cowlick that was positively endearing. Kamui had asked him if he’d like to go to the park, since it was a day off, and the world was beautiful and green and children were laughing on the breeze. Subaru hadn’t been able to resist even though he didn’t like parks very much, but now Subaru couldn’t stop staring at Kamui’s head, the cute curl of hair that matched Kamui’s bright sharp grin at the clouds high above them.
Subaru shook out a cigarette from a new pack, lit it in an easy motion, and sucked hard on the cigarette while trying too hard to relearn how to exist.
“Hey,” Kamui said, mouth tight. He’d stopped looking at the white clouds overhead, and instead looked at the cloud of smoke Subaru blew out of pursed lips. “I thought you stopped smoking.”
Subaru sucked down another long centimeter, already feeling the nicotine start to kick in; he turned his head politely to blow out the smoke, concentrating on making it one long stream so that he wouldn’t puff smoke out with his words when he said, without looking at the other boy, “Yeah. Yeah I did.”
When Subaru finally looked back, it was to see a flash of pain knife-bright in Kamui’s eyes like Kamui had failed and was kicking himself over it. His shoulders stayed tight and angry the entire rest of the time they were in the park, even after Subaru stubbed his butt against a metal trashcan and flicked it inside before it was half gone; his farewell was clipped when he said he had to meet a classmate from school, and he’d be back by dinner.
Subaru let the lie stand, and murmured a quiet goodbye, a headache forming where his eyebrows pinched together. He watched Kamui leave, long angry strides, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Kamui avoided anger and hurt by avoiding the other person, because otherwise Kamui’s temper got the best of him; Kamui had grown up, and was trying not to let his control slip, now that he’d found people worth keeping around.
This was bad, because wanting Kamui was doing nothing but hurting the boy. It’d be okay if Subaru was hurt, he was used to that. But what was he supposed to do in this regard? Say I bought my first pack of cigarettes in months because I needed something to do with my hands and mouth other than push you back against that tree and kiss you until you stopped smiling because your smile makes me crazy for you and I can’t exist without touching you when you’re so brilliant and beautiful?
All the little things that Subaru used to maintain some semblance of sanity had stopped working; instead there were a myriad of little things about Kamui that were driving him insane.
*
Kamui had eyes that turned blue against the sky when he smiled. He had bad habits and a good heart, and a temper that was almost as sharp as his guilt. He worried about Subaru's health and didn’t mean to be so charming. More often than not he would fluster himself so that Subaru was left staring bewildered and besotted at the way his face scrunched in embarrassment and self-reproach.
Kamui's guilt drew Subaru's soul into harmony, and Kamui's determination was warm against Subaru's own; Kamui's love was something that hurt to fill Subaru's hollowed chest with, but Subaru found he liked the feeling of no longer being empty too much to have even a hope of turning away from it.
He told himself: There must be something wrong with me. And then he thought: I don’t think I’m falling in love with you. I think I am in love with you.
Subaru blew smoke out, white against a starry night, and remembered the way the moon shone in Kamui's solemn eyes. Subaru didn’t know how to exist when the world was swapped out for another without his say-so, and he was struggling to learn the rules.
He wanted to touch Kamui, and Subaru took another cigarette out with shaking fingers, lit it against the butt of his almost finished one. He didn’t know how to deal with it, but he knew smoking wasn’t the answer. He remembered the look in Kamui’s eyes, the way he’d disappeared into the distance, walking agitatedly away from him.
With a sigh, Subaru stubbed out his cigarette; got up and went inside to take a shower. He didn’t look at Kamui when he handed him his still mostly full pack; Kamui took it, brushing his fingers lingeringly over Subaru’s palm so that Subaru had to suck in a hasty breath, and hold himself still with it.
“Thank you,” Kamui said earnestly. He turned Subaru’s face to him with a palm pressed against his jaw line, and Subaru was helpless to turn away. Subaru stared down at Kamui’s smiling soft face, and knew in his newly wild heart that he was not going to last this.
*
Subaru woke up in the middle of the night with Kamui beneath him. “Oh god,” he whispered, because he couldn’t bring himself to roll off. He got his elbows underneath him on either side of Kamui, and tried to find his knees, but finding his knees sent one thigh sliding over Kamui’s into a tight perfect fit. Kamui shifted languidly beneath him, eyelashes fluttering, and breath soft and short between candy pink lips.
Subaru stared down at him and it was a physical ache, the need to press down, to touch his mouth to Kamui’s throat, slide his tongue along the collar bone peeking out from his night shirt. To rock his hips and rub his thigh teasingly against Kamui’s groin, where he could feel through the thin material of Kamui’s flannel pajamas the outline of his half hard cock.
Subaru tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry; he felt thirsty in a way that had nothing to do with water, and everything to do with what Kamui would taste like.
Subaru held very still for what felt like a long time, not thinking or doing, just trying to sit and exist, one breath at a time, until he could find his control. But that was when Kamui decided to flinch with what seemed to be the start of a bad dream; a bad dream which quickly unraveled on a tiny shock of pleasure as it drove him down against Subaru’s thigh. He didn’t awaken, but his expression fidgeted in sleep, and Subaru wondered what he was thinking, what form his dream and this pleasure had taken, and felt his fingers grip the coverlet viciously at the thought of it being Fuuma turned gentle that Kamui’s subconscious might have supplied.
So he broke and reached down and pressed his mouth against Kamui, his tongue sliding into the boy’s slack mouth and stroking hot and wet. He pulled back with a low groan, sounding almost like he’d been hurt, when really it felt like the pleasure of finally having a taste of Kamui was going to break him.
Kamui woke up beneath him on a gasp, still moving his hips in hot little jerks against Subaru’s tensed thigh; his dazed violet eyes looked up at Subaru, and for a split second he smiled, his back arched like he was made of liquid grace and he reached up behind Subaru’s head with one of his arms. And then his eyes widened, and-
“Oh, shit,” he breathed. “I’m not dreaming anymore am I?”
With difficulty, Subaru managed to say, “No.”
Kamui’s face was flushed, and his eyes were still half lidded, face soft and beautiful from sleep; he couldn’t seem to stop twisting his body down against Subaru, and after a minute his throat worked and he made a desperate, broken sound. “O, oh god. Subaru.” His fingers curled tight in Subaru’s hair, and Subaru closed his eyes and shuddered.
“I’m so sorry,” Subaru said wretchedly. “But I- I need-”
He leaned down to bury his face against Kamui’s elegant neck, hearing the boy gasp. He breathed in the scent of him, and it sent his thoughts swirling away on a wild rush. He leaned heavily against one arm so he could slide his other hand up Kamui’s shirt; lust stormed through him, and he choked on a groan and a thrust of his hips at the feel of Kamui’s soft, scarred skin beneath his palm, so hot.
Kamui whined high in his throat, stretching out his body and suddenly there was even more for Subaru to touch, finally, and Subaru pressed his teeth down gently against the tendon of Kamui’s neck until Kamui was shaking from it. “Oh, yes, please, please,” the boy hissed, half-vicious, “oh god, please, whatever you need Subaru, anything, anyth-ing.”
Subaru pulled back to look down into Kamui’s face: the hope there in that gaze astounded him; the trust, it humbled him; the need lit him on fire from the inside out; the love felt like his heart had been broken and put back together in such a way that it was more whole than it had been since he was born.
“Just you, Kamui.” Subaru pressed the words against Kamui’s skin, traced them with trembling fingers over such a fragile ribcage.
*
If Sorata came through that door someone was going to die. But Subaru preferred that possibility over letting go of Kamui so the door remained unlocked and at least they were up on the second floor and on the opposite side of the house.
Touching Kamui was possibly his favorite thing in the world, and if he could spend the rest of his life with Kamui stretched out naked beneath him he would be the happiest person to ever exist. Kamui made beautiful noises, catching high in his throat in a breathless, hot way, and Subaru’s fingers and mouth were finding places on Kamui’s skin that worked like an electric shock, jerking Kamui’s hips against Subaru’s thigh, now naked flesh to naked flesh.
Subaru maybe had an oral fixation as well as a thing about being overly tactile too, because it was like the only way he could breathe was if his mouth and fingers were occupied with Kamui, and he didn’t even mind when Kamui dug his short nails into Subaru’s back and left marks. Kamui was pale and imperfect, and he muttered the filthiest things when Subaru rolled the tiny nub of his nipple between his teeth; his breath stuttered out when Subaru curled his fingers tight around Kamui’s hips, only to flutter them down his sides, tickling up his armpits so he snorted with laughter and hooked a heel around Subaru’s back in what was maybe a kick and maybe a clue.
Subaru smiled and couldn’t stay still, tracing the long arch of Kamui’s neck, the slant of his eyebrow; he tasted the dip of Kamui’s collar bones, and felt the way Kamui’s muscles slid beneath his skin, smoothing his palm over Kamui’s knees and his thighs and back down to his ankles and just settling there for a moment while Subaru sucked kisses down the ridge of Kamui’s hip.
“Oh my god,” Kamui all but growled, a wild look on his face when Subaru glanced up, thumbs rubbing circles slowly back up Kamui’s calves. “Ah- ahn! You’re t, trying to kill me!”
Subaru buried his face in Kamui’s hip, near one of the few parts of Kamui he hadn’t touched, and laughed. Kamui gripped tight fingers in his hair with a curse and pulled him up and Subaru kissed his smile away, biting his lower lip slow and lingeringly, making Kamui moan. Then Kamui was shoving him up and scrabbling under the mattress for something, and Subaru’s breath caught, not quite- not quite daring-
Kamui didn’t turn back around to face Subaru, just handed the tube of lube over his shoulder with a pained expression; his need won over his pride, and maybe it was because it was Subaru, too, because Kamui let his guard down willingly around him more than anyone else. Subaru took the tube with shaking fingers, pressing against Kamui’s back and gasping when Kamui immediately rolled backwards, so that Subaru’s erection pressed tightly against him.
“Kamui,” he mumbled, pressing wet kisses all over Kamui’s neck, sliding his free hand down to the boy’s erection and finally curling his fingers around him tentatively. It made the boy who’d saved their world whimper, claw at the covers and shiver against him. “Kamui, we don’t- uhn! Ah, we don’t have any co-ondoms.”
“Fuck,” Kamui said, pressing back against him, rolling his head around to press his forehead against Subaru’s, his lashes wet against Subaru’s cheek. “Then. Please your, your fingers. Subaru! I just. Please. Anything.”
Subaru heard in Kamui’s voice a longing that’d been there a long time, that Subaru somehow hadn’t read right, or been ready to see clearly, before. Now he did, and Subaru came undone around Kamui, because of Kamui, and he fisted the boy lightly, smearing precome around the head of his slender cock and squeezing down to the base. Kamui was panting and making tiny hungry sounds in Subaru’s ear as he fumbled with the tube of lube, squeezing it awkwardly into his palm, and then smearing his fingers with it.
Kamui was heat and electric want beneath his hands, and the breath was shaking out of him in pants as he reached down to Kamui’s entrance, and Kamui spread his legs with a moan so that Subaru’s slick finger could slide inside him easier. Kamui was strung tight as a bow, and Subaru was so hard it hurt, his heart beating like it was scared to death. “Oh. Oh, Kamui,” Subaru said helplessly, because Kamui was beautiful and perfect and wanted his touch this much.
“Nngh,” Kamui said, thrusting backward against Subaru’s invading finger, and then forward into his tight grip. “M- more,” he said, and Subaru saw his face clenched tight with embarrassment, and felt bad about making him ask. He added another finger gently, rotating his wrist and feeling the soft warm walls pressing tight around him, making Kamui whine high in his throat as he thrust deeper, demandingly into him, feeling him out from the inside.
Subaru pressed a kiss to Kamui’s shoulder, and said, “I love you.”
Kamui broke down beneath Subaru, and Subaru held him through the aftermath of his orgasm, stroked his hair and his back as he drifted into sleep; Subaru hadn’t come, but that was fine, he could stand a case of blue balls if it meant Kamui trusting and satisfied in his arms, all cried out and hopefully better for it. Subaru fell asleep against Kamui, pressed tight beneath the blankets, and remained peacefully oblivious to the world for maybe two hours before he was awoken by a mouth on his neck raising hickeys and a hand alternating between stroking a sleepy but awakening erection, and tracing teasingly around his opening.
“Ah,” Subaru said, blinking open his eyes to see Kamui’s face intent in concentration. “Ah, Kamui..”
Kamui looked up at Subaru, and his concentration broke on a soft look, despite the blush that was flaming across the younger boy’s face. “Hey,” he told Subaru. “It- it’s my turn, okay?”
Staring up at Kamui, Subaru said the only thing he could say, smile shaky but happy for the first time in what felt like years: “Please.”