Taking Undue Liberties

It becomes a habit, after the first week or two. Something he does almost without thinking, when he defeats a Shadow or needs advice or wants to go kill some time, even. Did you see that, Shinji? and Shinji, what would you do? and You should try this ramen, Shinji, it’s really good today. Probably it’s not entirely normal, but neither is anything else in Akihiko’s life these days, so.

“It’s like having an imaginary friend, huh?” Shinji says to him one evening, in his room, his voice so clear Akihiko could almost believe he’s really there. He’d be slouching against the wall, looking up through the fringe of his hair and that silly hat, smirking.

“You’re not imaginary,” Akihiko says, quietly, so the others won’t hear through the closed door.

Shinji snorts. “You noticed, huh?”

Akihiko holds very still, and doesn’t look up at the wall where Shinji actually isn’t. “But that doesn’t mean you’re here, either.”

“Suit yourself,” Shinji says, and when Akihiko does look up a minute later, he tries not to be disappointed that he’s alone.

Then a couple nights later they’re in Tartarus, fighting more of those damn dice things, and Akihiko gets the last one down, hits it hard enough that it shatters into a thousand pieces, hard enough that he feels the shock all the way up his left arm. Shinji used to tease him about favoring one side, but he’s good at that left uppercut.

“You see that, Shinji?” he says. His limbs feel light, his mind focused. His whole body hums with energy when it’s going this well.

“I saw it, Aki, I promise,” Shinji tells him, not in his head but right in his ear. “Believe me, I’m watching.”

Akihiko doesn’t quite jump, but only because he doesn’t want one of the kids to ask him what’s wrong. He feels hands on his shoulders. He has to be imagining it.

Shinji kneads his trapezius for just a minute, like he’s between rounds of a match, and then slaps him on the back. “Go get ‘em, killer.”

Nobody else mentions anything, so Akihiko figures it must be all in his head. His imagination never used to be this good.

Then there’s the night when he’s downstairs in the dorm, patching up a split seam in his gloves while Junpei, of all people, talks with Ken about math homework, and Shinji says, “He’s going to turn out okay, huh?”

Akihiko looks up sharply.

“The kid, I mean,” Shinji says, and Akihiko can see through him but that’s less of a big deal, all told, than the fact that there’s a him to see through at all.

By the time Akihiko can take a breath to say anything — Shinji’s name on the tip of his tongue — Junpei looks up. “Senpai?” he says. “You feeling okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Akihiko’s still seeing a ghost, right there between him and Junpei, lip twisted up at one corner, hands stuffed in the pockets of that weatherbeaten old peacoat. “I’m just tired, I think,” he says. “I’m going up to bed early tonight.”

“Yeah, we got the last Shadow coming up, huh?” Junpei grins. “You’ll want to be rested for the big night.”

“Right,” Akihiko says. He gets up from the table. “I’ll, ah, see you tomorrow.”

Shinji almost doesn’t get out of his way, almost makes Akihiko walk through him. “Hope you’re not too tired,” he says. “You’ll want to be awake for the Dark Hour.”

He disappears after that, though, so Akihiko can’t ask what’s up — a surprise attack from Strega? Some kind of disruption in the behavior of the Shadows? There are all kinds of unpleasant possibilities. Akihiko sets the alarm on his phone for 11:57, just in case.

When it goes off, he wakes up almost instantly, grabbing the phone from his night table and shutting it off before it can wake anyone else. Nothing’s going on out in the hall, as far as he can tell; everybody else is still in bed. Which means either it’s nothing too bad, or it’s something Fuuka can’t see coming.

12:00 exactly, the clock goes out, and the streetlight outside the window dies as the cool green of the Dark Hour washes over everything.

Akihiko’s mattress dips.

He sits up before he even recognizes the silhouette, but when he does — “Shinji,” he says. He reaches out. “Shinji.”

There’s no way this is possible, no way this is happening, but Shinji is there, solid in his arms, wool peacoat rough under his fingers, and — fuck, he even smells right, like the sweet smoke from those goddamn black cigarettes he used to smoke when he wanted to look cool.

“Told you you’d want to be awake,” Shinji says, and Akihiko can feel his breath, warm, as if he’s still — as if he’s –

“How?” Akihiko asks. “How are you here?”

Shinji laughs in his ear, low and rough. “I’m a stubborn son of a bitch,” he says, “as if you didn’t know.”

“That’s no kind of answer,” Akihiko says. But he doesn’t care, much, and he has better things to do with his time than talk about why he’s finally gotten a break. He can’t seem to let go of Shinji’s coat. He’s afraid he’ll start shaking if he does.

“Come on, pull it together,” Shinji says after a minute. He’s kneading Akihiko’s back again, and it feels so good. Better like this, really, when Akihiko has just a t-shirt on instead of his full SEES uniform. “You want more than this, don’t you?”

“More?” Akihiko says. He’s trying to keep his voice down. Probably the other guys are still asleep.

In battle or in the ring he likes to think he can anticipate the other guy’s moves, but he feels Shinji move and it doesn’t click, doesn’t line up in his head until Shinji’s mouth collides with his.

It’s softer than he thought it would be, kissing, Shinji’s lips against his. He lets Shinji push him down on his back because he’s still a little in shock, but then Shinji’s coat feels heavy, rough through his shirt. It’s in the way. He gets his hands between them, pulls on the buttons to get it open.

“You know what you want, huh?” Shinji says, right against his mouth, too close up for Akihiko to even try to see him smile.

Honestly? “Not really,” Akihiko admits, quietly.

Shinji stops in the middle of shrugging his coat off. “You serious?” he says. “You never…?”

“Come on,” Akihiko says, and hopes it sounds less defensive than he feels. “When would I have had time?” It’s a lame excuse and he knows it.

“Tch,” Shinji says — he knows it, too — and tosses his coat on the floor before he leans back down to kiss Akihiko again. There’s tongue in it this time, which is weird mostly because Akihiko hadn’t ever really thought about how that would feel. He likes it, though, once he gets used to the idea, and he really likes the way Shinji feels on top of him — muscular and solid and real.

And grinding against Akihiko’s hips, against his cock, pushing until Akihiko has to push back. It feels good — really good — and he catches himself making noise against Shinji’s mouth.

Shinji laughs, and bites at his lower lip. “Me too,” he says. “Here.” He reaches down, cups his hand over Akihiko’s cock and squeezes.

“Oh god,” Akihiko says. “Please. Please, Shinji.”

“Heh. Don’t worry,” Shinji says. “I’ll take care of you.” He leans back, weight on his knees so he can use both hands to tug Akihiko’s underwear down.

And there’s something in the tone of his voice — like, it’s too dark to see, but Akihiko would bet he’s smirking, that way he does when he thinks he’s so badass. Like they’re still competing, just like always.

“Dick,” Akihiko says, and tries to get hold of Shinji’s pants so he can stay in the game. Shinji’s pants button, and Akihiko’s hands are shaking a little, still, which makes it hard to get them undone, but Shinji has this kind of breathless laugh that he does when he’s pretending not to be nervous, and he does it now, when Akihiko’s fingers brush against his cock through his shorts.

Wow.

“You want it to go like that, huh?” Shinji says. He leans back down, and he’s not even really undressed, just his turtleneck shoved up and his pants pulled down, but they’re both bare from about rib to thigh and Shinji’s skin is warm.

“Yeah,” Akihiko says, his hands on Shinji’s bare hips, god. “You — you feel really good.”

“You, too, Aki,” Shinji says. “We should have done this when I was — hell, any of a dozen times, right?”

Akihiko’s so glad he didn’t finish that sentence. “Yeah. Yeah, we — but you’re here now, right? And that’s enough.” He pushes up against Shinji and the friction, wow, just, yeah.

Shinji gets his hand down between them and takes hold of Akihiko’s cock. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” he says.

“Ah,” Akihiko says. “Yeah, god. Shinji.” It’s weird, having someone else’s hand on him, but he likes it — really likes it a lot. It’d be easy to just hang on and let Shinji take care of him, easy to push into Shinji’s grip until it puts him over — at least, it’d be easy to just let it happen if he weren’t so sure, all of a sudden, that he wants to do this for Shinji, too.

And that’s — that’s kind of really awkward, like there’s not room for both of them to reach at once. Their knuckles brush, get in each other’s way. “Can’t just let somebody else win, can you?” Shinji says.

Akihiko laughs, barely. He feels like he can’t get enough breath. “Like you’ve ever been any better.”

“Tch,” Shinji says. “Only with you.” He shifts his grip, laces his fingers with Akihiko’s and then they’re rocking against each other, both holding on and that’s Shinji’s cock rubbing against his and Shinji’s breath stuttering in his ear and Akihiko turns his head to mouth at Shinji’s throat, to bite there — god, he missed that smoke smell — and biting keeps him from moaning out loud at how good it feels as he tenses up and pushes into Shinji’s hand and — and he finishes first, so hard it makes bright spots of color burst behind his eyes, and he tries not to let his hand falter because Shinji’s trembling over him and saying his name, over and over again.

“Shinji,” Akihiko says, when he can get his breath back enough. He’s nuzzling at Shinji’s hair like a cat, and he knows it’s ridiculous but he can’t make himself stop.

“It’s all right,” Shinji says. He slides off to one side, and pulls Akihiko into his arms. Akihiko’s shaking again, but Shinji rubs his back, rubs his arms, doesn’t say anything about it. “It’s all right, Aki.” And it is all right, or close enough, and after a bit Akihiko manages to calm down. He closes his eyes, and just holds on. He thinks he can hear Shinji’s heartbeat. It’s a good sound.

He must doze then, for a little while, because he wakes up drooling on Shinji’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he says.

Shinji laughs. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s good to see you relax for once.”

“Will you — can you do this again?” Akihiko asks. He’s almost afraid of the answer.

“I’ll be there when you need me,” Shinji says. “I’ll always be there.” He holds on tight enough that Akihiko’s ribs twinge, where they broke last spring, but that’s okay. “But don’t let that slow you down, okay? I’m not going to come bail you out every time things get tough.”

Akihiko tries to laugh. It comes out a little choked. “Of course not,” he says. “I’ll keep fighting. For you.”

“All right,” Shinji says. He kisses Akihiko’s mouth, gently, one more time. “See you round.”

The streetlight comes back on and the weight against Akihiko’s side is gone, and his eyes sting. When he turns his head, he can smell smoke on the pillow. “Okay,” he whispers. Yeah. He’s going to be okay. “See you.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Persona 3, Shin Megami Tensei. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.