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sandsorghum · 2 years

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The fic I've always wanted to write I don't know what to say about this one because it means a lot. Maybe once I get some distance, I've spent too much time with it. I'm just glad to have made it for Nanami's birthday, under the wire. But also it's unbeta'd. The format is new for me too, sort of a slow-burn triptych, best thought of as snapshots. I want to experiment more with it in the future, so I hope it does well. Please let me know your thoughts! Thread Count Genre: Slow Burn, Romance, Friends to Lovers WC: 5.3k

Ache, behind the eyes. Throbbing. Fizzling fiber optics.

Static hissing. Constant haunting. Pelting silver sibilance. The ghosts chorus against asphalt.

Chill in the air. Condensing upon dewy brows. He tilts his head ever so slightly. Satin relief, the sheets are cool too. Except in one spot.

Warmth already leaching into his fingers. He flexes them against his palm, to assess how sticky he's made the bed.

This thread count is too high.

Shit.

"Relax."

His body refuses, does the opposite. Freezes as he hears his name dissolve into a warning. Something fractal spreading in his lungs, spidery and sharp, an icicle breaking off between his ribs as he struggles to sit up.

A hand settles in the crease of his elbow, touch no longer tentative. Firm as the voice, equally familiar. Too familiar.

"It's okay, Akemiuchi's loyalty program is gonna guarantee me a decent discount on the next duvet."

"I'm-"

"It's a good chance to rack up those points. There's this crocheted quilt I've been eyeing? It's the cutest thing ever. I'll show it to you next time."

Nanami winces, sweet intentions souring into an implication. An imposition you've already accepted as inevitable. He's the worst. He had a few moments of consciousness to spare, he knows he did, could have called Ijichi or Shoko even, directly, but no he'd wasted those final flickering seconds to drag himself over here.

The last thing he remembers before slumping over was your welcome mat. Rubber now, instead of fabric.

He can't keep doing this. Not to you.

"Phone." He rasps.

You fluff the pillows behind his head. "It's charging."

A rectangle glares in the periphery of his slits. 3%. It'll do. Ijichi's prompt with calls, especially those coming in at this hour.

" - a real viper's den of cables, took me a while to find yours. I told you you should switch to Android, that port design is super dumb - Hey."

Fingers clamp down on his wrist before he can even reach the nightstand.

"It's late-"

"I was editing a presentation anyway. Clearly we've both got issues with work boundaries."

His arm stretches out again, sinews shrieking their protest, bones creaking their own echo. He ignores them. Deft fingers skate up his swollen biceps, insistent. There's a pressure at his shoulder and he flinches. When had you gotten so strong?

When had he gotten this weak?

"Crap - sorry. That hasn't healed yet? Or is it new..."

He doesn't dignify you with a response, but the tight seam of his lips reveals enough. Nanami's further given away by the loose slump of his limbs. Defeated and betrayed by the mutiny of his howling muscles.

His body sings its triumph with a fresh pang rolling hot through his gut, crimson banner unfurling over ragged veins. He'll be damned if he admits to such a vicious victory. Nanami sucks in a breath instead.

"Fine, don't tell me."

There's something clipped in your voice, something abrupt in the way you stand and stride to the bathroom. A cabinet creaks, but that's all. Nanami watches the silhouette of your hands meld into the shadows to retrieve something off a shelf.

The lowest shelf.

There isn't any other sound besides the soft shuffle of your returning footsteps. Well, of course you'd know where everything is in your own home. Including the things you rarely had a use for. You hadn't even bothered to switch the lights on. Nanami wishes you did. Wishes he could confirm your dry eyes and blank face, numb and neutral as you moved through the motions of getting medicine for a man who has soaked your front step scarlet again.

Routine, right?

The tub thuds against the table, crisp and resolute.

"There's a quarter of the salve left," you mutter. You aren't looking at him. You wouldn't be able to see him in this dark anyway.

"If it isn't enough, I've another jar. Top drawer. Aspirin's there too."

Easy access, even blind, Nanami thinks. The room's still swathed in navy blues. He's invisible in this ink. It feels safe to smile, just for a moment.

"Thank you."

Your head tilts up and his mouth hardens with restraint once more. They were just two words, you couldn't possibly have detected anything beyond civility in them.

But there's a suspicion, once tightly coiled, now starting to slither from the base of his spine and it's this: People don't unquestioningly accept their ex-colleagues into their apartments at 3am to bleed into their bed, out of sheer politeness.

A sliver of a pause before you say,"You're welcome."

You move to the door.

Nanami exhales, the exhaustion deflates and the stubbornness exsanguinates as his bones relearn their weight. Your palm meets the handle and you let go of the breath you didn't know you were holding. But it hitches when you hear the grunt of your name. You glance over your shoulder.

"Akemiuchi, was it?" An index prods at your comforter.

"Uh. Yeah?"

The confusion furrowing your brows is clear in Nanami's mind, he knows just how those lines will knit and scrunch your puzzled expression. He knows, even at a distance, with you all the way across the room how you'll shrug and shake your head at his apparently random question.

"Okay."

"Okay. Rest well, Nanami."

Then you're gone, and it's safe now.

It's a famous brand, there's a branch three blocks down from his neighbourhood. He's seen the quilt, a recent addition to the autumn collection. An elaborate fuss of mint and pastels, taking pride of place in the storefront window. It's got tassels too.

Gaudy, unabashedly.

Nanami closes his eyes and his mouth twitches.

ii.

He shows up at your doorstep tonight, a night of thunderstorms, looking like an envoy of Zeus and giving you about as much warning. His always imposing silhouette had crumpled in a crack of lightning.

When the skies next belched and blanched, you'd seen his clothes drenched with rain and red. And a goopy violet you'd never seen before.

"What do you tell people?" you had asked early on, not expecting any proper answer. You were right not to.

"They don't ask."

"You don't let them." It's neither question nor confrontation, but you get confirmation in his silence, eyes downcast amidst the downpour.

He'd had the decency to be mollified about the dramatics.

You were people to him too. He'd given you the same answer he gave everyone else. You could tell how well it was rehearsed, even through his grimaces, mumbling his way through something about Private security.

Unlike others however, you weren't polite enough to accept his excuses. Especially not when he dripped all over your carpet.

"I'll replace it," he shudders, heaving himself against the edge of your bathtub.

"It's $3000," you pointed out, kneeling and pressing a towel to his side. He arches a brow, not so much shocked by the hefty price tag, but by your lavish attitude towards interior decorating. You, on the other hand, are startled by a swoosh and soon after, the chime of your phone receiving the bank's notification.

You stare at your screen, then back up at Nanami, who simply pockets his mobile with a small shrug.

Somehow, it seemed smug.

Whatever this new gig was, it paid a hell of a lot better than the previous one at which you two had met. You pull the cloth away.

The fibers are saturated scarlet, staining your fingertips. What kind of job could be worth this? Moral fetters at the expense of financial freedom, was that the trade off Nanami had made? Nanami Kento, whose resentment and disdain for Mondays was sustained throughout the week, whose bleak, sombre expression stayed whether cast under cost-cutting fluorescents or the neon glitz of Shinjuku's excess.

You remembered the distant din of middle management's chants, the chugging and choking of sycophants, all muffled by plumes of cigarette smoke escaping thin lips, and a jacket draped wordlessly over your shoulders. Sobriety never seemed to be an issue for him.

Yet, he always appeared more exhausted than his hungover colleagues, the shadows beneath his naked eyes darker and deeper than those hidden under the department head's sunglasses. Nods to decorum couldn't disguise the stench of alcohol or the slur of his speech, a nasal wheedling appealing to Nanami's efficiency as another stack of files thumped down unceremoniously before him.

You gaze at Nanami now, beneath the bright white lights of your bathroom, teetering on the edge of your tub. He looks just as tired, except now he reeks of iron, not whiskey. Liberated from a desk, still duty-bound. We all pick our poisons and our prisons, you think.

The two of you have an understanding by now. Whatever his next chapter was, that story is sealed behind a steel vault, nothing will ever rust away at its hinges. You don't care. You're just...nosy, occasionally. Fiction formed from a few bad habits.

The consternation had been there before, threatening to bubble over, acidic enough to bleach bones. Yet even then you knew, Nanami had no use for emotional effervescence.

So what could you do, but wipe away the stains and residuals? Return him smudge-free glasses so he's immaculate and impassive once more. Though there's no alternative to ignoring your instincts, the filtrates of fear never quite boiled down to what you could label mere curiosity; still corrosive, always gnawing away at you.

In the stretch of months after, in his indefinite absences, the fangs drill down to your marrow. You only muzzle its maw when Nanami reappears with gashes and abrasions and an expression masking whatever else his shredded suits can't.

And you, you've gotten pretty decent at disguising the twisted relief that comes with finding his pulse; intermittent, but in your hands. You're the worst.

"You always did have expensive taste," he comments, catching your stare before you can tunnel further down that rabbit hole.

You blink, then snap the clasps on the first aid kit and scoff, "Please, your midweek coffee bill was double my lunch budget for the month."

Your hands make quick work of the packaging.

"Even if I was buying for two," you add.

"Did you want a reimbursement? You always said it was your treat."

You roll your eyes. "Because someone always forgot to take a break. Seriously? Not even a vending machine sandwich? Nobody should be able to survive solely off six espressos."

You pause, laying out a few other implements. "The cafeteria's ciabatta is a lot better now though, after you gave them those tips. Shame you left before you saw the benefit of your feedback pay out."

"Hm."

To anyone else, the sound is non-committal. But you recognize that hum, the rich roundness hinting at his satisfaction, that a minor injustice of yeasty mediocrity had been redressed.

You recognized it, because it was rare and you'd always had to strain to hear it, replaying it in your mind to compensate for the sore dearth set by reality's quota.

"Besides, I couldn't risk our top sales lead collapsing from low blood sugar at an important stakeholders' meeting. Oh, and Shuichi's department head now, so thanks for that."

There's a suspicion of amusement which rumbles low in his chest, a sound you've heard even less frequently, and so conversely, dreamed about more. But it cuts off abruptly into a rough grunt when your fingers ghost over his ribs, swiping antiseptic. You look up sharply.

"This is even worse than-"

"It should have been you." Nanami's interruption rings mildly vexed, to your surprise. He grips your hand with a force that's even more unexpected, as he pulls it away. "You had more seniority than him."

"Yeah well, you know how it is." you mutter, fist clenching around the cotton swab before hurling it into the bin. "Apparently women my age are meant to be running nurseries, not boardrooms."

Nanami watches you fiddle with the surgical thread, spooling it through without hesitation. Meets your gaze, unclouded by worry or weariness. It had been 2am when he had turned up unannounced. And he feels your hands, reassuring warmth hovering over his wound. He nods once, and you touch skims over ruptured skin, where a fresh scar awaits to adorn his obliques.

His breath seems harsh and loud to his own ears.

"You could manage both if that's what you wanted."

"What makes you think that?"

"You're capable of a lot. Discipline and kindness."

The crescent of your eyes and lips glint brighter than the curved piece of silver weaving in and out of his flesh. It's a pleasant distraction, he'll admit that much.

"Ruthlessness too," he adds, wincing as the needle digs into a particularly tender spot.

"Go on," your smile is sardonic, both bee sting and nectar. Nanami feels a twinge in his rib cage, in his chest free from any visible bruises.

"You're beautiful."

Maybe he lost a lot more blood than he realised. He only notices his accident of sincerity when the thread is tugged tense, the needle jerking back abruptly. Then the anvil drops over his windpipe.

He glances at the gleaming point, barely quivering between your thumb and forefinger. The tremble of your lips is terribly obvious by contrast.

Desperation surges through him suddenly, a riptide of an urge to have them quake against his own, to savour your whimpers shaking against his tongue, give you a taste of your own medicine, have the pinprick of his incisors sink into where you're soft and vulnerable. You've given him countless stitches, and he hasn't left a single mark on you. It's unfair. It's cruel.

"How-" A distracting slip of pink darts out to wet your lips. The needle nips into his skin again and he has to hold back a groan.

"How is that trait relevant to being either a manager or a mother?"

Nanami grips the edge of the tub, white-knuckled as its porcelain. There's a pause. Longer than he's comfortable with, though you don't seem to notice. Or comment on it at least. Small mercies.

Then he says, "It doesn't hurt your odds."

"My odds aren't that great."

For a moment, Nanami wonders if you're still fishing for compliments. But then, dorsal finned mischief flashes in your grin and you let him off the hook.

"Most smooth-talkers aren't like you. More style than substance."

Your smile stretches wry, deprecation retreats into the furthest corners of your cheeks. "Not that I meet many of them though."

"It's difficult to find someone compatible." You lean forward, on the pretext of inspecting the knot before you snip the thread. Your hand settles on his knee. His spine stiffens into a limestone column. The caterpillars in Nanami's belly curl into tight cocoons.

"Someone who isn't intimidated by my ambitions," your fingers are feather-light, trailing up his toned hamstrings. Nanami feels the winged creatures twitch in their chrysalis.

"My desires..." Your palm curves higher, like your lips, closer to the apex of his muscled thighs. Newborn butterflies stir, damp with arousal. Nanami swallows, perhaps his spit could extinguish the sparks fluttering in his gut.

"Someone who's sensible and strong, who could hold me down long enough to..." The ridges of your knuckles have met the crest of his seams, any further and you'd feel the effect of your touch, of your smoldering eyes.

"...put a child in me." Your whisper fans the flames in his hollowed cheeks, in his skin scorching and stretched thin over the flint of his jaw, in the recesses of his throat, scratchy with kindling.

"If that's what we both wanted." It's the slightest graze of your thumb, but Nanami's already doomed by the briefest jolt of his hips. Fuck. You definitely felt that. Your eyes flicker, but by some sheer miracle, not downwards, to where the wet spot is staining and straining against his fabric and your fingers.

"Do you know someone like that, Nanami?" you murmur and he breathes hard, sees the vapour of his harsh pants slip behind your own mouth, parted and patient. Your fingers haven't moved a fraction too.

His brushes with death have sculpted his body, corded his chiseled torso with complete control, each synapse wired with lightning to assess curses, salivating for his flesh and demise.

Nanami knows the anaerobic burn of adrenaline, what it is to run on fumes into the jaws of danger, to dispatch nightmares, to delay the inevitable. Countless demons slewed in calculations of perfect precision, in single fell swoops and too close shaves.

You are the greatest peril Nanami has faced in years.

It takes every last fiber of his being, of his battered body, crafted far beyond the demands of labour and the delusions of purpose, not to buck into the threat and promise of your gentle heated hands or crush his mouth to yours.

"No," Nanami croaks. "I don't."

iii.

There's something soupy about the atmosphere tonight, thick with humidity, hot fog rolling in. The sheets stick to his clammy skin.

He doesn't remember how he got here this time.

Regret reverberates together with recognition as his cuticles clink against glass. There's the rustle of foil, conveniently within reach too. The plastic pops twice underneath his nail. The end of the row, Nanami notices.

He wonders if these are the drowsy kind, or maybe it's just a moonless night and all the shadows are melting together. Eventually he finds the silhouette he's looking for, slumped into a chair.

Nanami squints at the world's saddest mountain, gradually losing its slope. It's the blanket sliding off you. It puddles by your ankles, next to a basin of water, tinged pink and tepid by now. You shiver slightly, his eyes dart up and sure enough, there's the rag, twisted in your hands.

An exhale wheezes its way from his ribs and Nanami winces; he should know by now shallow sighs are all his sunken chest will allow. But the pain is dulling everything, pounding against his ivory dome like a petulant brat with balled fists.

His mobile - had you confiscated it? Such sly sweetness - Focus, landline then for a taxi, tip extra for the smears on the seats -

"You should be carrying an umbrella with you these days. Could probably fit one in that holster."

Your admonishment pierces through his haze, sounding less groggy than he'd hoped.

"It'd obstruct movement."

"Or try wearing a poncho, unless you're worried it ruins the lines of your suit." You stand up, retrieving a familiar looking quilt off the floor. The shipping had been free, he recollects.

"Given the latest state of your jacket however, I doubt that's a priority."

Nanami hauls himself up, or tries to. His deltoids have other ideas, and every muscle beneath them agrees. The veto is unanimous, and he grimaces.

You shuffle over, remarking, "I've been looking for a good tailor. I'm sure you have recommendations."

"Bulk orders from the department store," Nanami grunts, combating gravity as he attempts to swing his leaden legs over the bedside. You drag the duvet back over his lap and it might as well be lumber.

"Shame on you," you scoff with such force that he stops struggling for two whole seconds to look askance at you.

"Deluding some atrocious tie designer out there into thinking they have a shot in the fashion industry."

Against his better judgement, Nanami decides a snort is worth the risk. It isn't, obviously. He learns, too late, the appeal of mirth's medicinal qualities is gravely overstated.

"And if I told you they were custom pieces?" he snipes.

"Then I'd applaud whatever keeps attacking you."

A warning filters through the back of his brain, Whatever, not whoever. Suspicion alone is a lethal enough threshold to his world, he can't risk you. And yet he's here, the voice whispers. Far from an emergency.

"My assailants are probably acquainted with decent tailors."

Nanami's cynicism towards humour as a balm ebbs, watching your lips curve.

"I'm in stitches," you state, digits skimming Nanami's pectorals, skirting around the petunias starting to clot there.

"You took a dozen this time," you add, a little softer.

He lets your palm stay on his chest. "Where's my cell?"

"Down the chute."

"I'll use yours then." He brushes your hand away.

"Mine's outta juice too." A fist this time, knuckles pressed to his breastbone.

Nanami's eyes flick up to the ceiling for a moment, he's long suspended belief in heaven or gods, the gravity of his bones remind him of this; Any covenant he's made is between his cursed technique and body - more altar than temple.

"Got a pull out couch?" he asks at last.

"Oh shut up. You're staying here," you huff in disbelief and he looks at you, a Vestal Virgin with embers for irises. A braver man than him would wait for the hint of a spark.

But instead he says, "More water, please."

You nod, handing him a mug that's still warm but empty. "I'll fetch the thermos - oh, hang on. Let me rinse that out, sorry."

Nanami takes a quick sniff before passing it over. "Nicaragua?"

"Guatemala, Santa Isabel," you elaborate. "Tea's probably better for putting you down though."

"Water's fine."

You slip out into the shadows, taking the aroma of the dark roast with you. Nanami reclines against the headboard, your scent lingering in his passageways. Yet another inconvenience he's instigated. A longstanding tradition, fitting its origins. There had been a time when you insisted on oolong instead, or the superiority of Ceylon. You were convincing enough in those first few months, with your tiresome tirades and passionate grandstanding in the pantry, all before 8am. Nanami had almost attributed your bright eyes to the beverages you rigorously argued for, even as he refused to deviate from the ritual masochism of his "sad bean juice". Not so much elixir as IV drip. "That much caffeine will wreck your melatonin production," you berated him. He had no idea what you were talking about but then, neither did you. The destruction of Circadian rhythms, the annihilation of any balance beyond the kind in the books you pored over (long after your bosses had dumped them on you a quarter to 7), would never boil down to what was poured into your mug. The defeat was inevitable. Nanami told himself he didn't miss your near daily trivial one-sided debates; they just interfered with his morning reports. Still, he had stared too long at the pair of steaming takeaway cups you carried in one day. "A peace offering," you said. "Robusta. The cafe down the street has a fresh batch every Tuesday." You leaned forward, depositing them under his nose. "Here's to the grind, on our terms." A croissant wrapped in the white flag of a serviette slides next to his cup, over the grey laminate of the table. Compromise shouldn't smell this good on you, he had thought. In your kitchen he's spotted both the conical slopes of the Chemex, and your stash of pyramid pouches with their loose leaf treasures. Just one more thing he's taken away from you on a night like this. He's an aberration, an intrusion - much like the flavours infringing upon your tongue. It ought to be the routine lull of chamomile, instead it's coffee, keeping you alert; iron and tannin tangling in the air. Nanami's mind drifts to the rude awakening your taste buds must endure, wonders about the sweetness there, more hazelnut than herbal, strong or mellow, aggressive or pliant- "Here." Nanami reaches out, fingers grazing ceramic that feels like hearthstones. He finds the handle by sheer luck. The sips he takes are small and slow, tendrils of steam climbing up his sheer cliff face. Over the rim, Nanami feels you watching him absently. Your concern suspended over the ravine between the both of you, silence slack in your carabiners.

Then you murmur, "Your mouth's too hot."

His throat goes taut. "What?"

"I forgot. Now the reading won't be accurate," you sigh.

Something rolls off his shoulders when he recognises the thin beak of the thermometer outlined in your grasp. The sensation is more weighted than mere relief, Nanami can't quite name it. It's a residual sludge in his gut, turning the ground to mud as he tries to trample it.

"I'm fine."

"Liar." The mattress dips and the boulder in his belly plummets as he feels your body brush next to his. He pushes back, it's Sisyphean, your breath against his clavicle, his soles are slipping.

"What are you-"

"Last I checked," you interject, wrestling the covers over your laps, "this is my bed."

His knees buckle as you shove aside his thigh with yours.

"You'll catch this bug." The warning is futile, Nanami knows. He's already set down the mug.

Your tone takes on a solemn timbre. "An extra risk. There's no known cure for cooties either. Sorry to break it to you."

Nanami huffs through his nostrils, he ought to feel more patronized than placated. But there's a levity to your touch, gently pressing him back against the bed.

"And I really hope you're not a blanket hogger because I'll kick you out. Injured or not."

There's already too little space between you and him but Nanami turns on his side, stoic expression that much closer. "You should have kicked me out a long time ago."

"Probably," you agree.

Nanami startles as your fingers sweep beneath his fringe, pressing your palm to his forehead, then to yours, then back to his.

"At least your fever's broken, I think."

Perhaps the pills worked, but Nanami doesn't feel the same relief flooding your gaze.

"Are you sure?"

Your touch lingers, he leans into it. His temperature is rocketing, if anything. Hesitantly, Nanami's hand glides over your temples.

"You're too warm yourself."

"I'm not," you object, despite the steadily building furnace in your cheeks. "Check again."

"This isn't accurate," Nanami mutters, but his touch settles over you. His fingers should stay in a delicate arch over your head but his hand is drifting to cup your face, feeling your smile curve into his palm. He cradles it, together with the quiet of your breathing slowing into sync.

"I should keep a couple of shirts in the closet. What size do you wear?" you mumble sleepily.

"That's not necessary."

You crack open an eye. "So you're gonna insist on staying half-naked in an unmarried woman's bed?"

Nanami retracts his hand swiftly, as if he's been scalded.

"That's not what-"

"Don't get me wrong," you smirk, drowsiness completely vanquished. (Had it really been there in the first place? Nanami wonders.)

"Wearing just perspiration and bandages is a great look on you, but..."

You pull the blanket higher over the distinct curves of his biceps, shifting closer. "You'll get cold. And the forecast said rain tonight."

The meteorologists must be right for once, he thinks.The atmosphere is electric, frenetic with an impending summer storm. He can feel the crackling in his capillaries, heat condensing in the air.

You're an inch, maybe less, away from his face now. Near enough anyway that he can make out the feathered arc of your lashes, can see how they'd flutter with each of his exhalations, if he isn't careful.

Nanami holds his breath, becomes statuesque. You notice.

He's a magnum opus of masonry, Michelangelo's misery, muscles cast in moonlight and breaking all mortal molds - but the truth is, he's built himself from scratch. You know this. You've admired his Adonis belt, cut from alabaster, yes, but you've also witnessed that rigid expression, pale as chalk. The bricks in his abdomen, the welts chiselled crudely into his spine, your hands have traced all this.

It's how you know where to look for movement now, your palm pressing over the telltale pounding in those marble pectorals, fingertips skating the shadows that dance along the column of his throat. Nanami swallows cinders, the inferno in his belly growls. There is smoke in his lungs, his trapped protests, his warnings will taste like ash.

Because Nanami's not sure how much more of your mercy he can take, how many more miracles will lay to waste his mornings and nights as he remembers the softness of your skin, free from soot.

Reality isn't this good to him, Nanami isn't kind enough for it-

But you are.

Your kiss is gentle, glacial. Mouth drifting over his, as innocuous and inevitable as an iceberg.

A kiss so gentle it rips the hull of him wide open.

A hissing, gasoline fumes siphoned from his clenched teeth as he rolls your body on top of him and his cracked ribs, your gasp tangling with the rustle of the sheets. They bunch in your fists as he feels you struggle to push away from him, to alleviate the weight, but Nanami needs it, like pressure upon a spurting wound, grabs your hips and holds them flush to his own as he locks his other hand around your nape. He nips your protest in half, teeth and tongue raking and tilling along your bottom lip, until at last you let submission bloom in the bruises there.

Nanami doesn't know if he will survive this tenderness; if it'll survive him. The struggle is exhausting. But then, your hand clutches the hair at the back of his neck, roots silken in your strong grasp. Soft blonde strands sprout through the gaps of your fingers, the furrow of your brow eases into a plateau, a quiet moan pushes into his mouth; and Nanami knows he's lost.

And found again.

He feels the sickle of your smile, the swipe of your tongue as it reaps the first fruits of spring.

The scent of rain starting to fall can't compare to the taste of you, the scattered sounds are even more vague. Nanami doesn't register the gale's shrill whistle, too focused on the high peals of your whimpers. Precipitation's heavier pitter-patter against the panes is drowned out by the hammering of your heart underneath him, all of heaven's rumbling can't contend with the rushed whispers of his name and yours. Nanami links your hands together, the syllables loop around your bodies tighter and tighter as the intervals between your chants get shorter, breathier.

You pull away from Nanami at last, not quite completely, as he tries to temper his greed by suckling at your neck, your pulse barely a pacifier for his petulance. You pant, head lolling further to the side.

The sky has mistaken itself for the sea, deluge of melodrama lashing against your window. The cityscape is shrouded in silver, though you're not exactly enamoured by the view at the moment.

Nanami coaxes your attention back to him, lips roving over your cheeks and chin and nose. He rests his forehead against yours, gazing deep into your eyes. The silence is different now.

There had always been a certain detachment and distance, as if he were tuned to the frequency of a far away planet, a separate world. Still, you were pulled into each other's orbit; a pair of satellites emitting mixed signals.

You sense him drifting now, calibrating, calculating again; static buzzing as he searches for the right words.

You sigh and tug Nanami into another kiss.

He's a little surprised the atmosphere isn't scorching, that he isn't burning up upon reentry, falling back into your gravity. The heat is still there of course, just under your tongue and evident in the kerosene trails you're painting across his chest. It's diffuse this time, simmering rather than searing. Languid as syrup, as butter browning in a skillet. No flash in the pan, you tell him, lips still occupied.

Nanami closes his eyes, the liquid light filling him brighter than any solar flare. You drag your kiss, slow and soothing, till it's tucked into the hollow of his throat.

"Sweet dreams, Kento."

How redundant, he thinks without verbalizing it, arm curling around his one impossible yearning that has already come true.

Quietness seeps through the room as you curl into Nanami's side, and he allows himself to drift into warmth's embrace; the warmth of a sunbeam spilling through billowing muslin curtains.

Perhaps he could get used to this thread count.