#akio asks

Ben turns about four shades of red and covers his face. "Fine."

Akio clears his throat. He has an arm around Ben's shoulders. "We never actually made it to the movie after dinner. Made it to the parking lot, though."

(>:))

Akio bites at his thumbnail. He's already taken most of it off, and he's working now at a hangnail, occasionally wincing before he just goes back to biting it again.

Do you play any instruments?  Which ones?  How long have you been playing?

Ben shifts. "Okay, so I don't really tell people this, but... I play in this band. We're just screwing around, but you know, we got a gig once or twice."

Akio, arm around Ben's shoulders, pulls him close. "Don't listen to him, they're great. Ben plays guitar and sings background vocal stuff. I was busy before, but with what happened at the Olympics..." His voice trails off, and then he sighs. "Well. I have more time to go see them play, right?"

Ben swallows, expression tightening a little. "As long as nobody gets-... mad at you, or tries to pick a fight, or if someone from WRU-"

"It's okay, Ben." Akio turns and rests his forehead against the side of Ben's head, pulling him close. "I'm all right. Nobody's in danger yet."

That is actually the subject of a languishing WIP of mine!

A glimpse:

---

CW: Very very vague noncon reference, past pet whump

His eyes follow the line of Chris's arm, to his index finger pressed just lightly against the glass covering the photo in the frame.

"Right there," Chris says. His voice is nearly drowned out by the sound of creaking, of shouting, of bodies in the air or on mats. Behind them, nothing changes. Everything is the same, with Tristan and without him. Life went on.

Life goes on.

Here, though, the silence draws out, as Akio stares at Chris's fingernail, with a star sticker stuck to it, and at the photo of the old governor, the one who died, with his arm around Akio's shoulders. Here, time stands horribly still.

"What do you mean-"

"Under the, the, the desk." Chris taps lightly on the glass with his fingernail. The desk was right behind them, in the photo. His finger is tapping just behind Akio's legs. "I was... right, right, right there."

Akio looks at the smile on Governor Branch's face and remembers how his skin crawled at the man's too-friendly touch, and then-

"I'm going to be sick," He whispers.

The smiling gymnast in the photo is standing right in front of the fucking desk. Oliver's hand curved around the ball of his shoulder and he's leaning in and, oh god, they're all smiling, all of them.

Their coaches had been so happy for the photo op.

"Why would he buy-... But why..."

"Too pretty," Chris whispers. "Too, too, too pretty for... for, um, for for anything else." There's a healing wound on his forehead sure to scar and his green eyes are dark and Akio should move, before he throws up on the photo.

He can't. He keeps staring at the desk, like if he tries hard enough, he can step in and tell a younger version of himself Tristan isn't dead, he's right there, just look. Just look. Just look.

Tris was right there the whole time.