#!desu2

---

"but me you have forgotten"

0Io swears, at the last, dizzy moment, that Miyako is looking up at her.  Too late, she wonders if either of them will remember any of this.

1

"My name is Houtsuin Miyako, acting chief of JP's," she announces.  This time, Io does not immediately wonder where Yamato has gone.

2

"You have promise as a tactician," Miyako remarks.  "You're certain you were really always a civilian?"  She says it in a tone that could almost sound fond, and Io tries not to deny herself the possibility, for once, that someone could ever like her back.

"I think so," is Io's response.  "I'm just doing what I have to do, for all of us."  Miyako nods; her mouth is a sliver of a smile.  

3

"I'm not really that brave," Io insists, hands raised nonconfrontationally, like she doesn't really want Miyako closer.  Miyako's eyes narrow.

"False modesty will get you nowhere, Nitta-san."  She steps forward--not enough that she's in Io's personal space, but almost, almost.  "If you need validation, let me tell you--I like you when you're bold."

4

Io wonders if she's hopelessly fickle, if her romantic instinct is to fall head over heels for the nearest person who helps her stave off the apocalypse (again).  She makes herself look at Hibiki, really look at him, and he's still comforting and secure and warm--but he doesn't make her hot, she realizes, mortified by the thought.  Sleeping under a tarp at a refugee camp, Io pictures herself pulling Miyako down to her, instigating a kiss on the vague memory of Miyako saying that she likes it when Io is bold.  She can't quite recall when Miyako told her that, but the words are so easy to hear in her voice.

5

They all start to remember, by now--at Fumi's behest, Nicaea 2.5 now has a changelog, going back to their original fight with the Triangulum.

"Are you used to remembering?" Io asks Hibiki quietly.  His glance slides to the side, nonchalant, but she can see that his brow is furrowed.

"I wouldn't say I'm used to it, but it happened before.  With the Septentriones, that is."

"Do you think Saiduq and Miyako-san remembered it all from the beginning, then?"  It makes her uneasy, to think of meeting and re-meeting Miyako over and over again, when Miyako has already known her all along.  Hibiki smiles--the one where he looks for all the world like he knows something you don't know yet, something you'll like when you figure it out for yourself.

"Probably."

6

Io takes Miyako's gloved hand in her own, willing the feel of the fabric on her palm, of each individual finger laced between her own, to stay with her.

7

"I will remember," Miyako assures her, perfectly rational.  "Believe me, I remember quite well how long it takes you, each time around, to call me by my name."

8

"Miyako," Io blurts, nearly tripping in her haste over a pipeline exposed by the torn asphalt of the street.

"How forward," is Miyako's remark, punctuated by a smile that could keep Io fighting forever.

9

Intensely aware of Miyako's gaze on her bare thighs, Io wills herself not to bite her lower lip out of sheer embarrassment.

"Why persist in wearing your school uniform?" Miyako asks suddenly.  "Surely by now, you would think to bring a more suitable change of clothing."

"I, um...  It slips my mind, usually, even though I know every time that I won't even finish the school day."  This is an excuse, Io knows.  "My home is always gone, by the time I get a chance to go back for anything."  She does not go back for her parents anymore, not when the thought of seeing them at the start of the next loop is half of what keeps her going through the one she's already in.  Miyako's awkward arm around her shoulder is the other half of her motivation.

"It wouldn't be any trouble for me to procure you something more sensible, provided you don't mind wearing clothes with a JP's logo."  Io looks at Miyako's flashy coat pinned to her shoulders, the svelte dress uniform, and smiles at the notion of Miyako telling her to dress practically.

10

They want her to channel Lugh again, and Io finds herself surprised it's taken this long.  This has nothing to do with the Dragon Stream, though--they need only a medium, to pierce this invader's defenses with something not entirely human, nor entirely divine.

"Logic tells me that you're more suited to act as a medium than I am," Miyako says, just as Io closes her eyes to try and picture the magic circle in her mind.  For this, she no longer needs Yamato's summoning stage.  "Sentiment tells me otherwise."

"It's natural to worry, I think," Io reassures her.  "That's what friends do."  Miyako takes Io's hand in her own and presses a kiss to it.  For once, she does not meet Io's eyes head-on.

"My irrational fretting comes from something more than just a sense of  platonic camaraderie."

11

"Don't," Io gasps, even as her free hand punches the commands into her phone to summon a demon with healing skills, infuriatingly steady.  She feels lightheaded, but far too in command of herself when Miyako is bleeding out in her arms.

"The needs of the many," is Miyako's firm, ragged insistence.  Her voice is waterlogged with blood.  Io does not cry--she only aches.

15

Miyako looks a thousand years younger and a thousand years older all at once, Io thinks.

"You could have died," she says, voice alarmingly tremulous.  "I'm such a hypocrite."  Io isn't the type to throw Miyako's words back in her face, particularly when she can believe, now, that she is worth more alive.  It pains her to know that Miyako still doesn't feel the same way about herself.

"I'll be here for you as long as you need me."  Given their situation, it's one promise Io is certain she can keep.

19

"I, um.  I love you."  Miyako rolls over rather abruptly, eliciting a pained squeak from the metal cot frame.

"What's brought this on?" she asks, sounding less businesslike than perhaps she wants to.

"I don't think I've ever confessed to you properly," Io soldiers on, trying to imagine herself working up from notes in Miyako's shoe locker to a full letter, a date, a relationship that lets them grow older together.  "I keep thinking about what I want to say, only everything ends up sounding so silly."  The generator buzzes ubiquitously behind her every word, rushing in as soon as she's done speaking to chew on Miyako's silence.

"This is perfect," Miyako says at last.  "This is more than enough."

23

These invaders have been here long enough that Io really does feel like they're at war.  A war of attrition, against a veritable fleet of stars that Miyako and Saiduq insinuate are not even a proper asterism, but instead a group of renegades hurtling themselves at Heaven's Throne.

"Maybe this means we're almost done?" Io ventures.  "If there aren't any legitimate successors left, maybe invaders will stop coming for the throne."  Miyako smiles wanly and shakes her head.

"This is nothing more than an invitation for the riffraff of the cosmos to grab at control of the Akashic Record.  Then again, perhaps I'm not one to talk, given my own status."

"You're not like them," insists Io.

"Really?  If I were a proper Triangulum and I could sit Heaven's Throne, would you let me?"  Miyako asks the question, and it hovers somewhere between a challenge and a plea for reassurance.  Io thinks of something Hibiki told her once, who knows how many times ago.  A world that only he remembered, where Saiduq took Heaven's Throne and stayed there, putting everyone else in a surreptitious little pocket dimension where not even Canopus could touch them.  I missed him, Hibiki had told her simply.  She wonders if that world spins on, undisturbed, if she and Miyako ever met there,

"I would miss you a lot," Io admits, "But I think you would make a good, fair Administrator."

??

"It's my birthday," Io says suddenly.  The loops seldom go on this long.  She realizes that she is technically a high school graduate, too.

"Happy birthday," Miyako tells her.  "I'm afraid I've never celebrated such an occasion before--will this do?"  She cups Io's face in her hands and kisses her with a slowness that reminds them both of having all the time in the universe, and yet never enough of it.

???

Io releases her grip, but Miyako twists and catches Io's hand instead.

---

"So, uh...  Why do you even care, dude?  I mean, each person is, like, I dunno--an MP3 file on your computer or something, right?  Like how bad guys in sentai shows are always all like, 'you all are nothing more than ants to me, ha-ha-ha' or whatever."  Saiduq blinks slowly, like he has to think about the action instead of performing it on instinct.

"Please, do not mistake this for callousness when I say that a music file is far too great a comparison, Shijima Daichi.  Each human life across every iteration of existence is but a fraction of a fraction of a pixel's worth of cosmic data within the Akashic Record."  Already, Daichi is regretting broaching the subject, an uneasy thrill jolting through his entire body.  Despite all his near-death experiences, the realization is flashing in front of him like a strobe light.  His entire life is a blip on Saiduq's radar, and Saiduq will still be there, watching, when the sun swallows his beloved earth whole.  Daichi shudders, trying to shake the thought out of his head, the idea that the world and the cosmos will carry on long after he stops being able to see them.  One or two (or three or four or five) existential crises are more than enough for his puny lifetime, thanks.

"Uh...wow."  Daichi says lamely, talking just for the sake of talking, just for the sake of not thinking about the cessation of his own consciousness.  It's a yawning, gnawing feeling.  He wonders when exactly he became deep and cool enough to have these kinds of thoughts, or if it's just a side effect of being around Saiduq.  Beneath his bangs, Saiduq's brows furrow.

"My intention is not to make you feel insignificant," he begins, delicate fingers curled over his lips, red eyes narrow slits between his thick lashes.  "On the contrary, you and every other human comprise something in your togetherness.  Were we to return to the analogy of a computer--rough as it may be--an amalgam of pixels can create anything from a series of calculations to the image of a loved one, no?  Humanity en masse is made to create in unison, its constant mutability is perhaps its greatest strength.    Stagnation is, arguably, the less favorable trait for an entity such as myself to have.  A star's very existence necessitates solitude, even in the case of a binary system like the one to which I once belonged.  The relationship there is bound only by gravity, nothing more."  

"Isn't gravity basically like, the most powerful thing in the universe, though?" asks Daichi, feeling very much like he's grasping at straws, trying to draw on his incredibly meager stockpile of physics knowledge. At least he actually understood about nine out of ten of the words Saiduq just used.  This is a record, as far as he's concerned.  

---

cherche/chrom (i can explain)  (i can't explain)

she's on top of him and her weight against his back is at once reassuring and overbearing. chrom is never sure how he feels about cherche being so visibly taller than him, equally unsure why he cares anymore when she's chided him for it. goodness, she'd said, i should hate to think i intimidate you. in the bedroom, he doubts that very much. he's not used to the idea of going down without a fight, it's something that he'd thought would go against his every instinct until cherche pushed him facefirst into the mattress and bound his wrists with his own belt, tight enough that it will leave weals for everyone to see. the worst, the best part is that she could hold him down without bonds, she could snap him in half over her knee and he'd thank her for it afterwords, beg her for it again. maybe there is something of a born sacrifice in him, too, moaning through a ball gag with his legs spread like an offering upon an altar. cherche kisses his shoulder, neck, back, he rocks his hips back into her thrusts so hard they ache.

she pulls him back by the hair and his vision tunnels with the shock of it, she murmurs against his skin, "are you a good boy?" and he's thinking yes, yes, gods yes, he is a prince just to be her whipping boy.

cherche/olivia (cheating, this is entirely joanna's fault for selling me on the plot angie did better w/femrobin and sumia)

"your grace," cherche calls her, with obeisance between a bow and a curtsy.

"don't," tumbles from olivia's lips, "please don't, just 'olivia' is fine. please, let's be good to one another." cherche smiles down at her and it is so much warmer than the cold marble against olivia's back. she cannot rush in again, cherche's gloved hand beneath her chin as,

"oh, i intend to," their lips meet with a magnetism that olivia is already regretting. she moans in spite of herself and her skin is tender like a bared throat against cherche's armor, hooking a leg around her waist, she is still so very soft and fears her body's betrayal of lucina more than her heart's betrayal of chrom.

"i'm sorry," her fingers in cherche's hair as cherche kisses between her breasts, still full, grazes her fingers along the outside of her thigh. she is so fickle, so sorry, her inconstancy makes her sick and cherche's mouth on her body makes her unbearably warm.

"of course you are," cherche's voice is thick and warm, she is on her knees as if ready to be knighted, olivia can scarcely breathe. "we have a saying in valm, 'heavy is the head that wears the crown', and your poor head seems especially burdened." she smiles with her lips right against olivia's inner thigh, just a puff of her breath makes olivia's leotard feel as if it's no longer even there. "i ask for nothing. simply let me, as you said, be good to you." olivia thinks this is a bit more than simple goodwill, wonders what this means about her skills in diplomacy when all she can ever seem to do with dignitaries from other countries is love them and fuck them (a word she would never say aloud, maybe, though for a moment she pictures herself pleading it with her nails down cherche's bare back).

urehibi (choking, luv this sub!hibiki)

hibiki is the one who guides saiduq's hands to his throat, an exercise of free will, premeditated--he likes to feel as though whatever burdens he carries can be so easily lifted from his shoulders by something like this. and it would be a lie, to say saiduq is all soft, that he does this only because hibiki's asked it of him. his hands are cold star steel (they are always cold) against hibiki's jugular, feeling a pulse he himself does not have.

"thank you," hibiki breathes. his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, a catty smile plays at his lips, an imitation of saiduq's own. there is no malice in the gesture, only a coy sort of pleasure in the way he can feel the pressure of each finger atop, underneath his skin. his breath comes shorter, tighter, as he rolls his hips up against saiduq's. saiduq moves back, more out of a desire to reciprocate than a desire for desire itself.

his own signature smile, then, a peering, esoteric little look, as, "shining one," he murmurs. his voice is a fever dream in hibiki's ears. hibiki brings his hands up to saiduq's wrists, slim and strong enough to wring his neck in a cruel instant (it would never, could never happen). his vision is tunneling, the next breath out from between his lips is a surrender that pounds against the insides of his temples.

"call me," hibiki gasps--he is letting his composure slip, still rubbing himself off against saiduq's thigh--"call me by my name." saiduq's eyes narrow even more. "please," added on in little more than a hiss, "please," a little litany.

---

It isn't looking at herself naked in the mirror that makes Io want to turn away out of sheer embarrassment--rather, it's looking at the way Hinako's looking at her. They're on their knees together in front of Hinako's full-length mirror, and Io's face is a shade of red she can't help but find alarming. Everything in the room is just hot enough to make her squirm, the machine between her legs, Hinako's lips right against the shell of her ear. They're so close that Io dimly wonders how Hinako's glasses haven't fogged up.

"You're supposed to look, silly," Hinako chides when Io ducks her head to the side.

"I'd, well--is it alright for you like this?"

"That's changing the subject," smartly, her fingers are long and poised under Io's chin, gingerly turning her back to face the mirror and holding her there. "This is all your show--relax a little, okay? You look like you're about to walk into an exam or something! Actually," Hinako's hands move to slide down her thighs, "You'd be more relaxed taking an exam, wouldn't you? Smarty-pants," and she flicks a little switch on the machine's control box.

"Oh," Io squeaks, all the air leaving her in a very abrupt rush as the toy inside her begins to vibrate. Her fists clench and unclench uselessly from their position tied behind her back, hips jerking forward on sheer instinct so hard that it nearly hurts. Hinako's easy laughter right against her skin is enough to make her tremble.

"You like? It's one of the perks to not having your parents in the same house to root through all your stuff, if you know what I mean." Io doesn't really know at all, but she nods all the same, fumbling to get more friction without having to see how desperate she must look doing it. "You move your hips," Hinako adds. with a light, playful smack across Io's backside for emphasis.

"My--I couldn't," Io demurs quickly, glancing at herself in the mirror to find that her face has somehow surpassed its previous level of redness.

"Sure you can," Hinako chirps.

If Io had any plans to muster up a response, they're thrown to the wind when Hinako dials the controls up just enough for the words on Io's lips to turn into a loud, gasping little moan. Mortified, Io clamps her mouth shut and drops her gaze to the side, nowhere near ready enough to look at herself wriggling atop the machine with nothing even approaching a coherent rhythm. Once again, Hinako's fingers find her chin, pulling her into a kiss rather than towards the mirror. This seems a little counterproductive to Io, though she's not about to mention it with Hinako's teeth just grazing her lower lip. Whatever Hinako is wearing on her own lips, it's not unpleasant, but the taste on Io's tongue is enough to make her shudder a little--or is it the jump that runs straight through her when she grinds her hips down against the toy's base. No, it's definitely just the taste of Hinako's lipgloss.

"Hinako," Io breathes rather pointlessly when they break apart, at a loss as to what else would be appropriate to say in the first place.

"Oops," and Hinako's voice doesn't sound so steady now, her glasses just slightly askew, "I'm in the way, huh? I can't help it, you know--you always do that little pouty thing when you're embarrassed, it's too cute!" As far as Io can tell, "that little pouty thing" looks more dazed than anything else. "C'mon, hips!" Hinako insists, thrusting her own hips forward against Io's side to punctuate. Io sucks in a ragged breath, screws her eyes shut, and awkwardly raises her hips up a good inch or two before her thighs give out and she slips back down, the dildo slamming all the way back into her. "See, there we go! Not so bad, huh?"

"It's, it's embarrassing," Io insists, moving at something at least a little closer to a set pace. Her balance is precarious at best--when she begins to wobble, Hinako gently sets her right again, her smile a trail of kisses down the curve of Io's neck. Hinako's finger brushes up against her clit, and Io's eyes jolt open in spite of herself. The sight of her own back arched so far forward that it could only be called obscene is enough to make her whimper, her own voice sounds strange in her ears.

"Atta girl," Hinako purrs, looking more than a little pleased with herself, "Look, you can see it going right in and out of you."

"Please," pulling against the tie around her wrists so hard that the muscles in her shoulders twinge, something in her keeps mounting and ebbing away just when she thinks she has it and there's nothing more frustrating than not being able to rub out that ache, not even with Hinako's fingers and the vibrations and the friction and everything else. She's not really saying anything coherent at this point, just a continual, breathless stream of half-formed words that die out into little moans until something just clicks, Hinako murmuring something in her ear she can't quite hear because it feels like every bit of sound is coming to her through a thick layer of cotton. Io comes with a frantic sort of gasp that catches in her throat, actually makes her vision tunnel with the force of it.

"Wow," is all Hinako has to say about the matter, untying Io's wrists with an easy tug of the makeshift rope. Io manages to wriggle her way off of the still-vibrating machine with some small vestige of her dignity left, heart hammering against her chest at an erratic staccato as she leans back into Hinako's waiting arms. "I don't think I've ever heard you get that loud," she adds with a mock air of thoughtfulness.

"Um. Well," swallowing hard, a pleasant vibrating sensation still lingering at the tips of her fingers and toes, "I don't think I have, either." Io doesn't think it's a particularly funny statement, but Hinako giggles and chucks her under the chin with an affectionate finger.