For the writing meme, 65 and 177 both gave me shuake vibes. Pick whichever you like better :)
66. I didn’t tell you that I love you because I wanted to hear it back. I told you because I needed you to know.
177. You’re a coward, (Name)! You hide away this entirely different part to yourself all because you’re afraid that someone might get close to you! You’re afraid that someone might just care about you more than you think you deserve. That - that isn’t fair.
I wound up taking both prompts and combining them without actually replicating the dialogue in question, because I’m kind of allergic to that. Mild spoilers for P5R.
I’m taking prompts! Please specify the fandom and pairing. I’m currently into shuake, okujima, and edeleth, but I may be open to other pairings or characters.
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November 17th and the air has a bitter bite, a good excuse to stay in with hot drinks and good food. November 17th and the deadline to steal Sae’s treasure is two days away, pulling them in with the promise of bloodshed. November 17th and Akira is in the attic of Leblanc, coffee and curry downstairs forgotten because he’s too busy exploring what the inside of his would-be murderer’s mouth tastes like.
(Coffee and curry, the mild kind sweetened with pineapple and carrot, and something beneath that’s sharp and bitter, almost like blood. Akira knows that taste exactly. He bit his tongue when Arsene finally came to him and his body’s vitality had spilled into his mouth, hot as copper and just as angry.)
The boy leaning over him is thin and immaculate, even in disarray: necktie loose, shirt disheveled and unbuttoned down to the collarbone, his carefully-styled hair disturbed by Akira’s curiously greedy hands. His eyes are ferrous and bright, the edge of his stare dulled in the heady cloud of bad life choices. Akira drinks in the sight of him, reaches up to brush his fingers along the sharp line of his jaw. How can one boy be so beautiful? Akechi slides a tentative hand up the flat plane of Akira’s chest beneath his shirt, bare palm against bare skin. His knee is pinned to the futon between Akira’s leg, and he doesn’t know if the way it brushes up against him is purposeful or an accident, but Akira sees stars.
“I think I might change my mind about being rivals,” Akira says breathlessly, only half-joking. “Are you still taking applications for a sidekick?”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Akechi shudders and pulls violently away.
“I need to go,” Akechi says, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, deny, deny, deny written into every awkward movement of his body. He pulls his gloves on next. He won’t meet Akira’s eyes.
(There’s a briefcase downstairs with an embossed capital A on the
outside and a gun, probably, on the inside. There’s a bullet in the
chamber of that gun with Akira’s name on it, use by date two steps away and counting.)
An old physics teacher once told him that if all of the molecules of your body vibrated at the same frequency as the molecules of another object, you could pass your hand through it like moving through water. Akira knows the molecules of his body are definitely doing something, if the way his skin seems to ache from how hot he feels (where Akechi touched him) and how warm he doesn’t (where he didn’t). He feels Akechi pulling away like being plunged into a bathtub filled with ice, every point of contact that was sparking with pleasure now sparking with needlepoint pains instead.
“Akechi–” Akira tries, swallowing around his tongue, which feels too thick and uncomfortable in his mouth now that it’s been inside another’s. He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.
What Akira wants to say is: I listened to your phone call and I still want to kiss you until we both forget how to breathe.
What Akira wants to say is: I know there’s a bullet in your gun with my name on it, and I think I’d let you shoot me if you asked me.
What Akira wants to say is: I don’t think I’ve ever felt known in my entire life until I met you. I don’t think I’ve ever really known anyone the way I know you. I want you to feel the same. Feel the same. Please feel the same.
Akechi finishes straightening his tie, once more that kind of put-together that’s carefully crafted for a camera and not nearly as appealing as he’d looked only moments before. He still won’t meet Akira’s gaze. “Saturday at the courthouse. Noon is a good time, I hope?”
Akira takes a breath and lets it out, feels the way gravity hooks its claws into him and drags his heart down with it.
“Yeah,” Akira says. “See you then.”
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“It’s not a small thing,” Akira says abruptly. He keeps his gaze on his cup, studying the tiny currents of milk and coffee eddying in its depths. He doesn’t see the way Akechi lifts his eyes to stare at Akira and then glare balefully away, but he can feel it, or at least he thinks he can.
“What isn’t?” Akechi asks, his voice clipped and short. He knows the answer. Akira knows he knows it. Akechi knows he knows it. Whose game are they playing at this point?
“Your life.” Akira looks up and catches Akechi’s eye before he can turn away. It’s a ruddy red and brown, full of not enough anger. “Your life’s not a small thing. Not to me.”
“That’s not–” Akechi begins, a furious snarl in his voice. It’s a sound that echoes viscerally in Akira, that propensity towards rage, and he leans in on impulse and grabs Akechi’s hand. Akechi cuts off in surprise, staring down at where their hands are joined but not pulling away.
“It’s not a small thing,” Akira repeats, lifting his free hand to brush the fine hairs away from Akechi’s face. Akechi shudders but doesn’t pull away. There’s been something in seeing him this past month cutting loose in a way that Akira has always wanted to but won’t ever let himself do that’s felt more freeing than anything.
“I’ve seen what you’ve seen and I’m not running away,” Akira tells him. “We’ll fight Maruki and I’ll drag you back with me afterwards.”
Akechi moves to draw back, but Akira won’t let him. He won’t let Akechi pull away now, so Akira instead pulls him in.
“Don’t be stupid,” Akechi says, his voice sharp. “His position is strong and the hold he has over reality is–”
Akira cuts him off before he can finish. “I’m going to need you to stop being logical for one fast hot fucking second.”
Akechi snaps his mouth shut and narrows his eyes, radiating fury. Something electric races up Akira’s spine.
Akira leans into him, leans into Akechi until he’s stumbling back into the bar behind him and bracing his body against in, against Akira’s invasive presence. Akira leans into him and kisses him. He doesn’t push Akira away, doesn’t withdraw, instead kisses him back with a focus that’s hungrier than Akira’s own. It’s nice to have greed matched for greed. Akira pulls Akechi’s bottom lip between his teeth and sucks on it. There’s that same sweet-salt tang of copper again, that taste of blood on open water. Akechi whines, low and restrained, fisting a hand in Akira’s hair, and Akira laughs an Arsene laugh into his mouth, breathing the same air he breathes.
“Stop running from this,” Akira tells him when they break apart, each of them gasping for air. Akira leans in–Akechi lets him, and brushes his mouth against the shell of Akechi’s ear, drinks in the way Akechi restrains his shudder. Akira rests a hand on his knee and runs it up, up, up, thumb dragging over the corded muscles in Akechi’s thigh that twitches beneath his fingers. “Goro. Goro. Be fair. You can’t tell me to give up on you and not acknowledge what we have. You can’t–”
There’s a bright, furious gleam of ruby in Goro’s eyes, the shining facet of some precious stone in his ruddy irises. His mouth is nearly as red, lips swollen and dark as crushed cherries, and even more inviting. “You don’t even know what you’re asking. Do you realize how selfish that is?”
Akira laughs, and leans in, and kisses him again. “More or less selfish than letting you go?”
