[log] Kamio, Oshitari
Date: 11.7.6 // Early AM
Rating: NC17
Summary: Hurt feelings that somehow ends up in smut.
Kamio shifted on the bed, blue eyes slitting open slightly to frown at the empty, but warm, space beside him before he rolled into it. He was still tired, his body heavy from the exertion of the previous day.
He wasn't as bad as he had been. If nothing, his powers seemed to be recovering -- finally -- from whatever had happened to them, but they were…different. Strange.
The redhead felt as if he were relearning how to control them from scratch.
And in a way, he was, if anything Banji said was accurate.
At least he could move again; train. He'd spent most of the previous day in the gym, giving his tigerish lover a chance to work out a few…issues with their rouge. Kamio shifted on the bed, tugging blankets around his cold frame -- another side effect of this change he didn't care, for the drop in body temperature -- and frowned softly. He hadn't said so much as a dozen words to Oshitari since the other had returned home, some strange kid in tow; honestly, he wasn't sure what to say.
That he was worried?
Angry?
…hurt?
The redhead curled his nose and sighed heavily. It had been bad enough that he'd gotten taken; damn near humiliating in his mind that someone with his speed should get tripped up by a bunch of humans, but they'd been watching him. They'd tracked him. They'd been ready, and with enough of some drug to knock him out despite his metabolism. A visit to the Oshitari mansion, where his boyfriend's bastard of a father had gloated piggishly over him before sending the redhead off with Kiriyama. Kamio swallowed and pulled his hand out from the blanket cocoon he was in, rubbing his eyes with the heel of it.
There was no sense in even trying to go back to sleep now that that man's visage had entered his thoughts. He was almost glad to have been rendered unconscious for several weeks after, even though he could tell how worn Saeki was from the whole episode. Him, unmoving in one of Banji's hospital beds, and Oshitari…gone.
Grumbling softly, the redhead twisted in the bed and sat up, partially kicking off the covers as he did. He'd never get back to sleep now.
Red. Kamio Akira had red hair. Crimson red, like blood dripping from a flame...
How could he have forgotten? The answer was obvious. Kisarazu Ryou. Damned brat. Such a simple little memory, but it had been bothering Oshitari since their skirmish in the airport bathroom, that he couldn't recall Akira's hair color. The cut, the shape, the smell of it yes. But the color had kept escaping him, staying a neutral sepia shade, unrecalled.
Oshitari himself sat on a large storage box across the room, having woken shortly after Saeki left the bed and finding himself curled beside the one he'd truly been avoiding. Hiding from Saeki had been incidental...Kamio was the one he'd been uneasy to face.
He hadn't touched him. Hadn't moved, really, had just watched the rise and fall of the redhead's chest, felt the breath push between those pale, parted lips, stared at the dark lashes on too white cheeks until it had been too much. Kamio hadn't even twitched as he slid out of the bed, something else that made him pause for a moment. He remembered every word Koujirou had told him about Kamio's recovery, his condition, although he hadn't asked the questions he really wanted to.
He already knew the answers. He already felt the guilt.
And so he'd stayed away, not far but away, just watching over his sleeping lover. When Kamio shifted, made sleepy noises and rolled over into the spot he'd slept, his heart skipped a beat uncertainly. Perhaps he should leave, he wasn't sure if he were ready...but before he could make up his mind, the shorn ropes on his wrists still dangling from the night before, the speed mutant sat up in the bed, tossing off his sheets. Caught and silent, Oshitari watched him, waiting.
Now that he was awake, it took only half a second for Kamio to register the feeling of eyes on him. Not Saeki's eyes, though; his tiger would not have somewhere else in the room, but curled up on the bed with him and probably urging him to lay back down with that worried tinge to his voice. Kamio could understand the concern; hadn't their positions been switched only a few months ago? The redhead had worried endlessly over Saeki when he and their other lover had retrieved the tiger from his captures.
He'd worried just as much when Oshitari had gone missing the first time, when they'd finally taken him to an apartment away from the Brotherhood so he could recover properly.
This second disappearance, when he'd been recovering from his own run-in with that damn human, had almost driven the redhead out of his skull.
Kamio shifted on the bed again, blue eyes searching out the figure sitting close by. Not on the bed, he noted, and that didn't make the redhead feel any more…certain about whatever was going on. Maybe he'd been thinking too much. It was entirely possible, given that he'd had plenty of time to lie around and do nothing else but think.
So why then had his brain shorted out when he finally realized that he was alone in the room with at least one of the sources of his frustration? He'd had a tirade on the tip of his tongue -- every annoyance and once self-righteous indignation that he'd felt since waking up and being told that Oshitari wasn't there -- but he couldn't bring himself to let it loose.
Not yet, at any rate.
He glanced down at the blankets still pooled over one leg and drew the other one up so he could rest his elbow on his knee. Licked his lips, and sighed softly. "You're back."
"And you're awake."
Oshitari said it softly, blinking across at his rumpled boyfriend. That wasn't quite the greeting he'd anticipated. Yelling, swearing, throwing pillows perhaps...but not that.
He couldn't say anything else. The last time he'd seen Akira, doctors had had him hooked up to machines, monitoring his heart rate and brain waves, IVs running everywhere...he wasn't sure why his own pulse leapt painfully at the memory, why he could imagine the damned needles under his own skin, in his own veins, but...he just couldn't look at Akira like that.
And somehow, he felt responsible. He knew his father had captured his boyfriend, had given him to some mad human doctor. But how he knew the doctor's name, or what evil things he'd done to Kamio without really knowing...he shook his head clear of the thoughts running in circles. Things hadn't been making sense in his mind for awhile now.
Cynically, he thought, what else was new?
His own dark blue eyes held Kamio's electric ones, and the silence grew heavy and thick with all the things they wanted to say and couldn't.
Kamio finally gave a small shrug, breaking his gaze from Oshitari's and reaching up to run his fingers through disheveled red hair. "Yeah…well, most of the time," he answered; the words were soft, but in the nearly-empty room, they seemed louder than he meant to make them.
Now what, he wondered? Any other time, his temper would have flared to life, rage overtaking reason and his mouth running faster than his feet normally did. He could feel the edge of that anger pushing against him, and part of him wanted to just go with it. He had a right to be mad, didn't he? Waking up after how many weeks of being unconscious, weakened and confused by the changes to his power.
Fucking scared.
And Oshitari no where nearby. Not in arms' reach, certainly, not even a phone call away and when he did call…Kamio hadn't been able to talk to him. Blue eyes narrowed and he drew up his shoulders, before flipping back the sheets and throwing his legs over the side of the bed. He wasn't nude, as his lovers had finally gotten him used to sleeping, but the thin material of his boxers wasn't much protection from the chill of the air.
"Have fun?" he asked, standing up and looking around for the sweats he'd abandoned the previous night. The question was stiff, uncertain, and his movements, though not as slowed as they had been, were not nearly as quick as he'd once accomplished.
Oshitari certainly didn't need to think about the answer to that.
"No."
Nothing about leaving had been easy, just like nothing about staying had been. It was just trading ache for ache, really. The sharp ache of his guilt and strangely empathetic pain of watching Kamio linger in a coma, or the tearing ache of being separated from his lovers, his friends, of being used by his brethren for their amusement.
He stood when Kamio did, the redhead locating and pulling on his sweatpants. Tucking his hands into the pockets of a pair of Saeki's jeans that he'd tugged on himself, his voice was quiet and full of those aches, watching how tense and uncomfortable Kamio looked.
And how...painfully slow he was moving, compared to his normal speed.
He said what he really wanted to say, what his mind chanted in the lab they'd found Akira in, frantically searching for his pulse when they'd taken him off of the machines.
"I love you."
Kamio stiffened, the fingers that were still pulling at the elastic waist of his sweats coming to a halt -- a full halt, and not the nervous twittering pause he was used to.
"Do you?"
The words came out soft and laden with doubt. To be honest, he hadn't even meant to say them…but that was the question that had been running loose in his head for days. Even with Saeki's constant attention and presence, Kamio had still had too much time to think…to wonder. He wasn't used to it, and even less used to the void that had been in their bed.
Reaching down, the redhead grabbed his shirt from the floor and tugged it on.
That hurt. In fact, Kamio's words were such a dull knife twisting in him that he had to look away, shut his eyes. He deserved it, he knew. Only the last of his pride kept him standing, where he wanted instead to slump miserably to the ground.
"Enough to leave rather than self-destruct", he tossed back.
Kamio glanced over his shoulder at his boyfriend, eyes narrow. "Yeah, because that really helped," he snapped, then added a grumbled, "Selfish bastard. Leaving Kou to fucking worry over me and you." He gave a snort, cutting across the room to where he'd toed off his sneaked and picking them up.
He'd put them on later. Downstairs.
Somewhere other than this room. Right now, he just wanted to leave.
Kamio didn't get far. He didn't even get to his shoes. The redhead strayed a little too close to the illusionist, something he couldn't avoid really without walking over the bed.
Oshitari's hand snapped out, latching onto his arm and dragging him back so that they were face to face. Serious, with only a thin layer of forced calm over his emotions, he pulled off his glasses, locking eyes directly with Kamio's.
"Yes. I am a selfish bastard", he agreed, tugging his lover closer inch by inch. "A selfish, spiteful, murderous, miserable bastard. It's all true." His other hand curled around Kamio's other arm, daring the other to try and run.
"I thought you might die. I thought you might never wake up. And I thought, if you woke up, it wouldn't be you anymore. Just broken fragments of you. I don't know why I have such perfect visions of what might have happened to you, but Akira..."
"I know I would have killed myself if I had stayed."
It was because he'd startled himself that last night, sitting beside Kamio's hospital bed, Saeki sleeping soundly on the other side. He'd been in such a state of mind, studying his lover's vital signs, toying with the stolen needle he'd taken from the nurse's station...
He'd nearly injected an air bubble into his vein that night, in a moment of anguished madness. He would have died within a moment. He'd somehow, in some way lost hope.
He'd had to leave, find something, anything to occupy his mind before it shattered completely. He'd been far too close. Now, he held onto Kamio, held onto his everything, unwilling to let go.
Kamio gave a startled curse as he was grabbed and drug back. His nostrils flared in irritation, bright blue eyes narrow beneath his brows. "Yuu," he started, only to stop short when the other mutant agreed with him. He tried to step back, but the blue-haired mutant held firm with both hands and kept talking.
The redhead looked away, eyes closed and temper fluctuating. He wanted to be angry. He really did, but he hadn't even been awake that long and he was starting to feel worn down. "You know what it was like to wake up and you weren't there, Yuushi?" he ground out, jerking further away. "After that…that shit that bastard Kiriyama did? Those tests?"
"Tests...Kiriyama...Why do I know that name..." Oshitari murmured a moment, hands slackening on Kamio's arms as the other pulled away. He remembered killing his father over that name, calling that name a butcher...feeling terrified and such a rage because of that name.
But...why? And why did he still have such vivid images in his head of what sort of tests would have been run on a mutant? Things that he knew were horrifying and painful...
He went blank for a moment, mind searching fruitlessly along that blank patch where a series of memories should have been. And shook his head, dispelling it and pulling himself back.
"Akira..." And he had no more words. They were arguing in circles, jabbing at one another to prove who had been hurt more. It was pointless.
A quick movement on his part had Kamio's arms in his hands once again, and another saw the redhead shoved back onto the bed, the illusionist following and crushing their lips together desperately.
Kamio yelped as he was pushed backwards, landing awkwardly horizontal on the bed. Were his powers normal, he might have managed to get himself up from the mattress and out the door before his lover landed on top of him; as it was, he'd barely raised up on his elbows when Oshitari's mouth was pressed over his. The part that was still hurt railed against the kiss, but it was overshadowed by the deeper need to run his hands over his boyfriend's back and remind himself that Oshitari was here and all right.
He kissed back fiercely, nipping at Oshitari's lips and squirming underneath him. His blunt nails clawed at the other's naked back, leaving long, white trails down his skin.
There was pain with Kamio clawing him, but he barely felt it. Akira was whole, and alive...Oshitari was frantic to touch, to savor, to devour his lover all at once. His hand darted under the redhead's t-shirt, feeling all of Kamio that he could, but he was impatient, absently hissing over bruises that his lover scraped his nails against. Pulling Akira into a deeper, more insistent kiss, his hands ripped at clothes, trying to get closer to him, skin to skin.
Kamio writhed under the sudden attack, his nails raking deeper. He could feel marks across the other mutant's back -- god, Oshitari was a mutant again, wasn't he? He had to be, the redhead decided; the cure had failed so many others…why not him? As for the marks…well, he'd had some inkling about what their tigerish lover had planned to do as punishment. It must have gotten rougher than expected.
Which didn't mean Kamio had any problems with laying his own marks -- his own claim -- over the tiger's. This was his lover, too.
He heard, more than felt, the thin fabric of his t-shirt giving way, exposing his pale skin. "Babe," he hissed, breaking the kiss to nip at the other's ear.
That was invitation enough to have Oshitari attack his neck, sucking and biting and marking Kamio back. His hands were quick, unclothing them both as fast as he could without actually leaving his lover's arms.
Too long, it'd been far too long without Akira. Both of his lovers had such a presence inside of him, in his very skin, his soul. And because there had been such a large void since Kamio's disappearance, Oshitari could understand his boyfriend's feelings over his own departure.
It had still been necessary, despite how much he wished it hadn't been. He murmured as he kissed every inch of Kamio he could uncover. "I'm sorry...Akira...I love you so...forgive me..."
The redhead arched and squirmed as warm lips covered each inch of his skin. His hands moved up, fingers knotting in Oshitari's hair and tugging him back up to kiss again. "Don't…" he hissed between moments when their lips were sealed together. "Don't ever do that…again…"
It was meant to be a demand, in truth, but his voice was heavy and still fringed with the worry that had eaten him since he'd first woke up. It sounded more like begging. Kamio couldn't help it. There were only two things -- two people -- he was really afraid of loosing. He'd lost them both before, separate occasions, but the memories were still there. The longing and the fear and the worry.
He was sick of going through this.
"Don't, babe," he pleaded, biting Oshitari's lower lip. "Promise."
Even in the heat of the moment, it was difficult to actually promise. He was an illusionist, not a precognitist. He knew more than most how capricious the future was.
But, he intended to change that. "I won't", he managed between fervent kisses, slipping and settling between the redhead's legs. "You've my word." Already his own voice was steel, resolute, confident.
They were going to stay together. All three of them, no matter what. Oshitari was going to make certain of it. But his plans were set aside in order to pay attention to his lover, and how good he felt...
Kamio glanced down his own bare chest at the blue-haired mutant between his legs. He was breathing heavy, eyes half-lidded and dark with need. Part of him needed to hear that, even if it wasn't really possible. And mostly, he knew that such a promise couldn't be kept…but still.
It was good to hear it.
"Babe," he breathed, lips parted to watch the other mutant. He shifted on the bed, spreading his legs further and arching in Oshitari's touch.
Akira's warm skin was as addictive as ever. Oshitari flicked lips and tongue over the redhead's skinny frame, around sharp hips and the flat stomach. He needed him, badly.
Enough to growl softly under his breath in impatience when he found the lube nowhere nearby. Where had Koujirou tossed it? The last Oshitari recalled, it was on the bed...Sliding up the bed, past Kamio, he checked their tiger's usual spots, under the pillows or the sheets. Nothing. Turning away from his lover for the moment, he hung over the opposite edge of the bed to search the floor. "Where did he put it", he murmured, tossing clothes on the floor aside, eyes lighting up on the tube hidden half under the bed.
Kamio's eyes tracked Oshitari as he moved around the bed, searching for the errant tube of lube. It was funny, really, and were Akira not hard and aching for the other, his breath coming to him in shallow pants, he might have chuckled softly. However, his humor was currently overshadowed by need.
The light was dim, but he could still watch the other move. Kamio licked his lips as Oshitari crawled over him heard, searching for the errant tube. It wouldn't be fair to bite his lover now...and it wasn't like he had the chance. The next moment, Oshitari was hanging over the bed. It was a nice view, he decided, the curve of his lover's ass and the slope of his lower back, the white square of gauze and bandage...
Wait a minute. Kamio lifted his head. What?
"Babe?" He sat up, his movements more fluid than they had felt for days. Lean fingers reached out, skimming the edge of the bandage then up. This wasn't Saeki's doing. "What the hell?" he murmured. "What happened?"
He felt the fingers around his back before the words sunk in. Oshitari's head turned slightly, not enough to look back at Kamio, but enough to acknowledge that his lover was concerned. "...Mementos", he replied in a carefully careless voice. "You can look. It's a tattoo." He said nothing about the round bruises lined up his spine, 'mementos' of Selene's sharp stiletto heel pinning him into place on the floor as the man tattooed him.
How he despised her corrupted ways...
He felt the gauze peel slowly away from his back, revealing the small black tattoo inked perfectly into the small of his back, branding him forever.
A small black chess pawn. Only once out of Selene's twisted grasp, he'd modified it, a sleeping eye just beneath it.
When he'd accomplished what he meant to, that eye would be opened, the pawn risen in rank. His eyes glittered coldly, confidently at that thought, but softened again once he scooted back onto the bed, lube in hand.
"I will tell you more about it tomorrow", he promised, leaning in to seal his lips over Kamio's again, rolling the redhead back onto his back gently, sliding himself over his lover's body.
Kamio shifted to his side and peeled off the gauze the moment Oshitari said he could, the white fabric tossed aside and his fingers tracing the outline of the tattoo. He wasn't that familiar with the chess, the game involving far too much patience for the redhead even now, but he did know what a pawn was. Kamio frowned momentarily, his gaze skipping up to the other marks on his lover's back.
He didn't like the look of us.
"You'd better," he ground out, just before Oshitari's lips were over his and the redhead found himself turned back onto his back. His hips lifted, rubbing against the other mutant and he made a small moan into Oshitari's mouth. Later….later he could ask questions, now that his anger and hurt were passing, now that he had the promise he craved.
They were past the point of hearing words. Oshitari's fingers were quick in preparing them both, accustomed to Kamio's normal impatience and inability to wait. If his lover was slower now, it was eclipsed by their mutual need, and he moaned as he thrust into him.
He couldn't help but set the pace fast. He needed Akira badly, wanted to feel his red-haired lover grab him close and cry out in pleasure. Even his hands were unable to stay still, running over nipples and skin, caressing.
Thank all the gods Akira was alive, awake.
Kamio arched into Oshitari's fingers as they slipped into him, stretched him. The pace was familiar, fast and rough, and he could feel the familiar tremble of adrenaline coursing through his body. Lifting his legs, he moaned when his lover pressed into him in one thrust.
It didn't take long. The redhead's breathing was uneven, hitching with each thrust, yet somehow, he still managed to moan Oshitari's name. When he came, his muscles tightened around the other mutant's erection until Oshitari orgasmed as well.
Spent and almost trembling with it, Oshitari rolled, pulling Kamio with him. The speed mutant wound up sprawled on top of him, against his chest. As it should be. The illusionist let his fingers slowly drift into the fiery red strands of hair, searing the color into his memory.
"We will not be parted again", he murmured, kissing the hair wound around his fingers. "I'll destroy whomever it was that took you away. Just like Father."
Spent and almost trembling with it, Oshitari rolled, pulling Kamio with him. The speed mutant wound up sprawled on top of him, against his chest. As it should be. The illusionist let his fingers slowly drift into the fiery red strands of hair, searing the color into his memory.
"We will not be parted again", he murmured, kissing the hair wound around his fingers. "I'll destroy whomever it was that took you away. Just like Father."
Kamio burrowed against Oshitari's warm flesh, a chill coursing through his own body. Damn…he'd only just woke up, and he was exhausted again. And cold. This really was a pain in the ass, whatever that bastard Kiriyama had done to his power. At least he wasn't so tired that he was dropping straight into sleep though, he decided.
He just felt close.
"Good," he grumbled. "Don't want to wake up and you're not here." The redhead shifted into the kiss, arms wrapping around Oshitari's waist. "And you'd damn well better let me help. We owe that bastard a lot of fucking pain." Not only for what Kamio had suffered at his hands, but Oshitari too.
Rating: NC17
Summary: Hurt feelings that somehow ends up in smut.
Kamio shifted on the bed, blue eyes slitting open slightly to frown at the empty, but warm, space beside him before he rolled into it. He was still tired, his body heavy from the exertion of the previous day.
He wasn't as bad as he had been. If nothing, his powers seemed to be recovering -- finally -- from whatever had happened to them, but they were…different. Strange.
The redhead felt as if he were relearning how to control them from scratch.
And in a way, he was, if anything Banji said was accurate.
At least he could move again; train. He'd spent most of the previous day in the gym, giving his tigerish lover a chance to work out a few…issues with their rouge. Kamio shifted on the bed, tugging blankets around his cold frame -- another side effect of this change he didn't care, for the drop in body temperature -- and frowned softly. He hadn't said so much as a dozen words to Oshitari since the other had returned home, some strange kid in tow; honestly, he wasn't sure what to say.
That he was worried?
Angry?
…hurt?
The redhead curled his nose and sighed heavily. It had been bad enough that he'd gotten taken; damn near humiliating in his mind that someone with his speed should get tripped up by a bunch of humans, but they'd been watching him. They'd tracked him. They'd been ready, and with enough of some drug to knock him out despite his metabolism. A visit to the Oshitari mansion, where his boyfriend's bastard of a father had gloated piggishly over him before sending the redhead off with Kiriyama. Kamio swallowed and pulled his hand out from the blanket cocoon he was in, rubbing his eyes with the heel of it.
There was no sense in even trying to go back to sleep now that that man's visage had entered his thoughts. He was almost glad to have been rendered unconscious for several weeks after, even though he could tell how worn Saeki was from the whole episode. Him, unmoving in one of Banji's hospital beds, and Oshitari…gone.
Grumbling softly, the redhead twisted in the bed and sat up, partially kicking off the covers as he did. He'd never get back to sleep now.
Red. Kamio Akira had red hair. Crimson red, like blood dripping from a flame...
How could he have forgotten? The answer was obvious. Kisarazu Ryou. Damned brat. Such a simple little memory, but it had been bothering Oshitari since their skirmish in the airport bathroom, that he couldn't recall Akira's hair color. The cut, the shape, the smell of it yes. But the color had kept escaping him, staying a neutral sepia shade, unrecalled.
Oshitari himself sat on a large storage box across the room, having woken shortly after Saeki left the bed and finding himself curled beside the one he'd truly been avoiding. Hiding from Saeki had been incidental...Kamio was the one he'd been uneasy to face.
He hadn't touched him. Hadn't moved, really, had just watched the rise and fall of the redhead's chest, felt the breath push between those pale, parted lips, stared at the dark lashes on too white cheeks until it had been too much. Kamio hadn't even twitched as he slid out of the bed, something else that made him pause for a moment. He remembered every word Koujirou had told him about Kamio's recovery, his condition, although he hadn't asked the questions he really wanted to.
He already knew the answers. He already felt the guilt.
And so he'd stayed away, not far but away, just watching over his sleeping lover. When Kamio shifted, made sleepy noises and rolled over into the spot he'd slept, his heart skipped a beat uncertainly. Perhaps he should leave, he wasn't sure if he were ready...but before he could make up his mind, the shorn ropes on his wrists still dangling from the night before, the speed mutant sat up in the bed, tossing off his sheets. Caught and silent, Oshitari watched him, waiting.
Now that he was awake, it took only half a second for Kamio to register the feeling of eyes on him. Not Saeki's eyes, though; his tiger would not have somewhere else in the room, but curled up on the bed with him and probably urging him to lay back down with that worried tinge to his voice. Kamio could understand the concern; hadn't their positions been switched only a few months ago? The redhead had worried endlessly over Saeki when he and their other lover had retrieved the tiger from his captures.
He'd worried just as much when Oshitari had gone missing the first time, when they'd finally taken him to an apartment away from the Brotherhood so he could recover properly.
This second disappearance, when he'd been recovering from his own run-in with that damn human, had almost driven the redhead out of his skull.
Kamio shifted on the bed again, blue eyes searching out the figure sitting close by. Not on the bed, he noted, and that didn't make the redhead feel any more…certain about whatever was going on. Maybe he'd been thinking too much. It was entirely possible, given that he'd had plenty of time to lie around and do nothing else but think.
So why then had his brain shorted out when he finally realized that he was alone in the room with at least one of the sources of his frustration? He'd had a tirade on the tip of his tongue -- every annoyance and once self-righteous indignation that he'd felt since waking up and being told that Oshitari wasn't there -- but he couldn't bring himself to let it loose.
Not yet, at any rate.
He glanced down at the blankets still pooled over one leg and drew the other one up so he could rest his elbow on his knee. Licked his lips, and sighed softly. "You're back."
"And you're awake."
Oshitari said it softly, blinking across at his rumpled boyfriend. That wasn't quite the greeting he'd anticipated. Yelling, swearing, throwing pillows perhaps...but not that.
He couldn't say anything else. The last time he'd seen Akira, doctors had had him hooked up to machines, monitoring his heart rate and brain waves, IVs running everywhere...he wasn't sure why his own pulse leapt painfully at the memory, why he could imagine the damned needles under his own skin, in his own veins, but...he just couldn't look at Akira like that.
And somehow, he felt responsible. He knew his father had captured his boyfriend, had given him to some mad human doctor. But how he knew the doctor's name, or what evil things he'd done to Kamio without really knowing...he shook his head clear of the thoughts running in circles. Things hadn't been making sense in his mind for awhile now.
Cynically, he thought, what else was new?
His own dark blue eyes held Kamio's electric ones, and the silence grew heavy and thick with all the things they wanted to say and couldn't.
Kamio finally gave a small shrug, breaking his gaze from Oshitari's and reaching up to run his fingers through disheveled red hair. "Yeah…well, most of the time," he answered; the words were soft, but in the nearly-empty room, they seemed louder than he meant to make them.
Now what, he wondered? Any other time, his temper would have flared to life, rage overtaking reason and his mouth running faster than his feet normally did. He could feel the edge of that anger pushing against him, and part of him wanted to just go with it. He had a right to be mad, didn't he? Waking up after how many weeks of being unconscious, weakened and confused by the changes to his power.
Fucking scared.
And Oshitari no where nearby. Not in arms' reach, certainly, not even a phone call away and when he did call…Kamio hadn't been able to talk to him. Blue eyes narrowed and he drew up his shoulders, before flipping back the sheets and throwing his legs over the side of the bed. He wasn't nude, as his lovers had finally gotten him used to sleeping, but the thin material of his boxers wasn't much protection from the chill of the air.
"Have fun?" he asked, standing up and looking around for the sweats he'd abandoned the previous night. The question was stiff, uncertain, and his movements, though not as slowed as they had been, were not nearly as quick as he'd once accomplished.
Oshitari certainly didn't need to think about the answer to that.
"No."
Nothing about leaving had been easy, just like nothing about staying had been. It was just trading ache for ache, really. The sharp ache of his guilt and strangely empathetic pain of watching Kamio linger in a coma, or the tearing ache of being separated from his lovers, his friends, of being used by his brethren for their amusement.
He stood when Kamio did, the redhead locating and pulling on his sweatpants. Tucking his hands into the pockets of a pair of Saeki's jeans that he'd tugged on himself, his voice was quiet and full of those aches, watching how tense and uncomfortable Kamio looked.
And how...painfully slow he was moving, compared to his normal speed.
He said what he really wanted to say, what his mind chanted in the lab they'd found Akira in, frantically searching for his pulse when they'd taken him off of the machines.
"I love you."
Kamio stiffened, the fingers that were still pulling at the elastic waist of his sweats coming to a halt -- a full halt, and not the nervous twittering pause he was used to.
"Do you?"
The words came out soft and laden with doubt. To be honest, he hadn't even meant to say them…but that was the question that had been running loose in his head for days. Even with Saeki's constant attention and presence, Kamio had still had too much time to think…to wonder. He wasn't used to it, and even less used to the void that had been in their bed.
Reaching down, the redhead grabbed his shirt from the floor and tugged it on.
That hurt. In fact, Kamio's words were such a dull knife twisting in him that he had to look away, shut his eyes. He deserved it, he knew. Only the last of his pride kept him standing, where he wanted instead to slump miserably to the ground.
"Enough to leave rather than self-destruct", he tossed back.
Kamio glanced over his shoulder at his boyfriend, eyes narrow. "Yeah, because that really helped," he snapped, then added a grumbled, "Selfish bastard. Leaving Kou to fucking worry over me and you." He gave a snort, cutting across the room to where he'd toed off his sneaked and picking them up.
He'd put them on later. Downstairs.
Somewhere other than this room. Right now, he just wanted to leave.
Kamio didn't get far. He didn't even get to his shoes. The redhead strayed a little too close to the illusionist, something he couldn't avoid really without walking over the bed.
Oshitari's hand snapped out, latching onto his arm and dragging him back so that they were face to face. Serious, with only a thin layer of forced calm over his emotions, he pulled off his glasses, locking eyes directly with Kamio's.
"Yes. I am a selfish bastard", he agreed, tugging his lover closer inch by inch. "A selfish, spiteful, murderous, miserable bastard. It's all true." His other hand curled around Kamio's other arm, daring the other to try and run.
"I thought you might die. I thought you might never wake up. And I thought, if you woke up, it wouldn't be you anymore. Just broken fragments of you. I don't know why I have such perfect visions of what might have happened to you, but Akira..."
"I know I would have killed myself if I had stayed."
It was because he'd startled himself that last night, sitting beside Kamio's hospital bed, Saeki sleeping soundly on the other side. He'd been in such a state of mind, studying his lover's vital signs, toying with the stolen needle he'd taken from the nurse's station...
He'd nearly injected an air bubble into his vein that night, in a moment of anguished madness. He would have died within a moment. He'd somehow, in some way lost hope.
He'd had to leave, find something, anything to occupy his mind before it shattered completely. He'd been far too close. Now, he held onto Kamio, held onto his everything, unwilling to let go.
Kamio gave a startled curse as he was grabbed and drug back. His nostrils flared in irritation, bright blue eyes narrow beneath his brows. "Yuu," he started, only to stop short when the other mutant agreed with him. He tried to step back, but the blue-haired mutant held firm with both hands and kept talking.
The redhead looked away, eyes closed and temper fluctuating. He wanted to be angry. He really did, but he hadn't even been awake that long and he was starting to feel worn down. "You know what it was like to wake up and you weren't there, Yuushi?" he ground out, jerking further away. "After that…that shit that bastard Kiriyama did? Those tests?"
"Tests...Kiriyama...Why do I know that name..." Oshitari murmured a moment, hands slackening on Kamio's arms as the other pulled away. He remembered killing his father over that name, calling that name a butcher...feeling terrified and such a rage because of that name.
But...why? And why did he still have such vivid images in his head of what sort of tests would have been run on a mutant? Things that he knew were horrifying and painful...
He went blank for a moment, mind searching fruitlessly along that blank patch where a series of memories should have been. And shook his head, dispelling it and pulling himself back.
"Akira..." And he had no more words. They were arguing in circles, jabbing at one another to prove who had been hurt more. It was pointless.
A quick movement on his part had Kamio's arms in his hands once again, and another saw the redhead shoved back onto the bed, the illusionist following and crushing their lips together desperately.
Kamio yelped as he was pushed backwards, landing awkwardly horizontal on the bed. Were his powers normal, he might have managed to get himself up from the mattress and out the door before his lover landed on top of him; as it was, he'd barely raised up on his elbows when Oshitari's mouth was pressed over his. The part that was still hurt railed against the kiss, but it was overshadowed by the deeper need to run his hands over his boyfriend's back and remind himself that Oshitari was here and all right.
He kissed back fiercely, nipping at Oshitari's lips and squirming underneath him. His blunt nails clawed at the other's naked back, leaving long, white trails down his skin.
There was pain with Kamio clawing him, but he barely felt it. Akira was whole, and alive...Oshitari was frantic to touch, to savor, to devour his lover all at once. His hand darted under the redhead's t-shirt, feeling all of Kamio that he could, but he was impatient, absently hissing over bruises that his lover scraped his nails against. Pulling Akira into a deeper, more insistent kiss, his hands ripped at clothes, trying to get closer to him, skin to skin.
Kamio writhed under the sudden attack, his nails raking deeper. He could feel marks across the other mutant's back -- god, Oshitari was a mutant again, wasn't he? He had to be, the redhead decided; the cure had failed so many others…why not him? As for the marks…well, he'd had some inkling about what their tigerish lover had planned to do as punishment. It must have gotten rougher than expected.
Which didn't mean Kamio had any problems with laying his own marks -- his own claim -- over the tiger's. This was his lover, too.
He heard, more than felt, the thin fabric of his t-shirt giving way, exposing his pale skin. "Babe," he hissed, breaking the kiss to nip at the other's ear.
That was invitation enough to have Oshitari attack his neck, sucking and biting and marking Kamio back. His hands were quick, unclothing them both as fast as he could without actually leaving his lover's arms.
Too long, it'd been far too long without Akira. Both of his lovers had such a presence inside of him, in his very skin, his soul. And because there had been such a large void since Kamio's disappearance, Oshitari could understand his boyfriend's feelings over his own departure.
It had still been necessary, despite how much he wished it hadn't been. He murmured as he kissed every inch of Kamio he could uncover. "I'm sorry...Akira...I love you so...forgive me..."
The redhead arched and squirmed as warm lips covered each inch of his skin. His hands moved up, fingers knotting in Oshitari's hair and tugging him back up to kiss again. "Don't…" he hissed between moments when their lips were sealed together. "Don't ever do that…again…"
It was meant to be a demand, in truth, but his voice was heavy and still fringed with the worry that had eaten him since he'd first woke up. It sounded more like begging. Kamio couldn't help it. There were only two things -- two people -- he was really afraid of loosing. He'd lost them both before, separate occasions, but the memories were still there. The longing and the fear and the worry.
He was sick of going through this.
"Don't, babe," he pleaded, biting Oshitari's lower lip. "Promise."
Even in the heat of the moment, it was difficult to actually promise. He was an illusionist, not a precognitist. He knew more than most how capricious the future was.
But, he intended to change that. "I won't", he managed between fervent kisses, slipping and settling between the redhead's legs. "You've my word." Already his own voice was steel, resolute, confident.
They were going to stay together. All three of them, no matter what. Oshitari was going to make certain of it. But his plans were set aside in order to pay attention to his lover, and how good he felt...
Kamio glanced down his own bare chest at the blue-haired mutant between his legs. He was breathing heavy, eyes half-lidded and dark with need. Part of him needed to hear that, even if it wasn't really possible. And mostly, he knew that such a promise couldn't be kept…but still.
It was good to hear it.
"Babe," he breathed, lips parted to watch the other mutant. He shifted on the bed, spreading his legs further and arching in Oshitari's touch.
Akira's warm skin was as addictive as ever. Oshitari flicked lips and tongue over the redhead's skinny frame, around sharp hips and the flat stomach. He needed him, badly.
Enough to growl softly under his breath in impatience when he found the lube nowhere nearby. Where had Koujirou tossed it? The last Oshitari recalled, it was on the bed...Sliding up the bed, past Kamio, he checked their tiger's usual spots, under the pillows or the sheets. Nothing. Turning away from his lover for the moment, he hung over the opposite edge of the bed to search the floor. "Where did he put it", he murmured, tossing clothes on the floor aside, eyes lighting up on the tube hidden half under the bed.
Kamio's eyes tracked Oshitari as he moved around the bed, searching for the errant tube of lube. It was funny, really, and were Akira not hard and aching for the other, his breath coming to him in shallow pants, he might have chuckled softly. However, his humor was currently overshadowed by need.
The light was dim, but he could still watch the other move. Kamio licked his lips as Oshitari crawled over him heard, searching for the errant tube. It wouldn't be fair to bite his lover now...and it wasn't like he had the chance. The next moment, Oshitari was hanging over the bed. It was a nice view, he decided, the curve of his lover's ass and the slope of his lower back, the white square of gauze and bandage...
Wait a minute. Kamio lifted his head. What?
"Babe?" He sat up, his movements more fluid than they had felt for days. Lean fingers reached out, skimming the edge of the bandage then up. This wasn't Saeki's doing. "What the hell?" he murmured. "What happened?"
He felt the fingers around his back before the words sunk in. Oshitari's head turned slightly, not enough to look back at Kamio, but enough to acknowledge that his lover was concerned. "...Mementos", he replied in a carefully careless voice. "You can look. It's a tattoo." He said nothing about the round bruises lined up his spine, 'mementos' of Selene's sharp stiletto heel pinning him into place on the floor as the man tattooed him.
How he despised her corrupted ways...
He felt the gauze peel slowly away from his back, revealing the small black tattoo inked perfectly into the small of his back, branding him forever.
A small black chess pawn. Only once out of Selene's twisted grasp, he'd modified it, a sleeping eye just beneath it.
When he'd accomplished what he meant to, that eye would be opened, the pawn risen in rank. His eyes glittered coldly, confidently at that thought, but softened again once he scooted back onto the bed, lube in hand.
"I will tell you more about it tomorrow", he promised, leaning in to seal his lips over Kamio's again, rolling the redhead back onto his back gently, sliding himself over his lover's body.
Kamio shifted to his side and peeled off the gauze the moment Oshitari said he could, the white fabric tossed aside and his fingers tracing the outline of the tattoo. He wasn't that familiar with the chess, the game involving far too much patience for the redhead even now, but he did know what a pawn was. Kamio frowned momentarily, his gaze skipping up to the other marks on his lover's back.
He didn't like the look of us.
"You'd better," he ground out, just before Oshitari's lips were over his and the redhead found himself turned back onto his back. His hips lifted, rubbing against the other mutant and he made a small moan into Oshitari's mouth. Later….later he could ask questions, now that his anger and hurt were passing, now that he had the promise he craved.
They were past the point of hearing words. Oshitari's fingers were quick in preparing them both, accustomed to Kamio's normal impatience and inability to wait. If his lover was slower now, it was eclipsed by their mutual need, and he moaned as he thrust into him.
He couldn't help but set the pace fast. He needed Akira badly, wanted to feel his red-haired lover grab him close and cry out in pleasure. Even his hands were unable to stay still, running over nipples and skin, caressing.
Thank all the gods Akira was alive, awake.
Kamio arched into Oshitari's fingers as they slipped into him, stretched him. The pace was familiar, fast and rough, and he could feel the familiar tremble of adrenaline coursing through his body. Lifting his legs, he moaned when his lover pressed into him in one thrust.
It didn't take long. The redhead's breathing was uneven, hitching with each thrust, yet somehow, he still managed to moan Oshitari's name. When he came, his muscles tightened around the other mutant's erection until Oshitari orgasmed as well.
Spent and almost trembling with it, Oshitari rolled, pulling Kamio with him. The speed mutant wound up sprawled on top of him, against his chest. As it should be. The illusionist let his fingers slowly drift into the fiery red strands of hair, searing the color into his memory.
"We will not be parted again", he murmured, kissing the hair wound around his fingers. "I'll destroy whomever it was that took you away. Just like Father."
Spent and almost trembling with it, Oshitari rolled, pulling Kamio with him. The speed mutant wound up sprawled on top of him, against his chest. As it should be. The illusionist let his fingers slowly drift into the fiery red strands of hair, searing the color into his memory.
"We will not be parted again", he murmured, kissing the hair wound around his fingers. "I'll destroy whomever it was that took you away. Just like Father."
Kamio burrowed against Oshitari's warm flesh, a chill coursing through his own body. Damn…he'd only just woke up, and he was exhausted again. And cold. This really was a pain in the ass, whatever that bastard Kiriyama had done to his power. At least he wasn't so tired that he was dropping straight into sleep though, he decided.
He just felt close.
"Good," he grumbled. "Don't want to wake up and you're not here." The redhead shifted into the kiss, arms wrapping around Oshitari's waist. "And you'd damn well better let me help. We owe that bastard a lot of fucking pain." Not only for what Kamio had suffered at his hands, but Oshitari too.