InsaneJournal

London Calling Fic: The Junkie Slip (Gabranth/Shinjiro)
First of the "holiday" fics. Hopefully there will be more. This does come out of a meme suggestion that mitsuhachi made, but I think it might appeal to others.

Title: The Junkie Slip*
'Verse: London Calling
Characters: Gabranth/Shinjiro
Rating: Really NSFW A Lot
Length: 5500
Warnings: Drug issues, figging, bondage
Summary: Things might be getting better. Shinjiro's still trying to deal with it all, and it's always the same problem, but Gabranth suggests a different way of dealing with it.
A/N: Takes place about 3 weeks after Shifting.
*Title stolen from The Clash.



The itch starts under his skin, and it’s knotted deep in his stomach. For once, he’s disappointed to find out that he’s not the one closing tonight, to be stuck in the chipshop until it’s pretty much morning again, when everything’s already died for the night and the streets are empty, those hours between trouble going to sleep and the good people of the world waking. But it’s only eleven, and he feels like he’s going to crack, and the worst place he could be right now is back at the caravan.

Because Aki’s got a fight tomorrow. It’s the first one since…since the last one, and Akihiko needs his rest. He doesn’t need Shinjiro’s problems on top of that, and especially not this one. Akihiko doesn’t need to be angry over top of the worry, and he’d be angry about this. Angry, and it would be bad, because Akihiko’s probably already reaching into that cold, tight place he goes to before a fight, when it’s all business and results are what matters. And that is all that matters now—he has to win, and he doesn’t need anything interfering with that. What Shinjiro’s feeling right now would interfere. It’s interfering with everything, the want to let go of everything, let something else deal with all of this—but he can’t, he can’t do what he did last time. What he really wants is to stay at work, but Raj is here tonight, and he says if Shinjiro works any more this week, it’ll be too illegal even for him.

“Go home,” he says. “Sleep. You look like shit.”

The problem is that he’s not tired. And he can’t deal with going home. Not like this. The first thing he does when he’s out the door is bum a smoke from a guy on the corner. Maybe it’ll help. Maybe it’ll be enough.

Taking the first drag, he knows he’s not fooling himself. He should start walking, before Raj comes out and gives him a hard time for loitering in front of his own shop, but he’s afraid of where he’ll go. He takes a dozen steps at least, so he’s not actually in front of the window, and he just sits, there on the curb, and rolls the smoke over his tongue. He’s trying to take his time with it because maybe if he waits long enough, the nicotine will crawl in, scratch that itch that’s under the skin, but all it does is make everything feel like it’s happening faster. His breathing, his heart, and the beating feel of want want want. He grinds the butt out on the concrete, before he’s buying a whole pack, and as soon as he does it, he regrets it. That inch before the filter would have been another few minutes he could have kept himself still, kept himself there. He straightens it out—the paper torn and the tobacco showing in a few places—and he stands to get a light from someone else. His own lighter is in the tattoo box. He could do that, go home and do some more ink, but Aki will know, will know what he really wants as long as the want is in him, and he knows himself. The want is always there until he does something about it.

He’s thinking about just walking up to the really drunk girl leaning against the bus stop sign and lighting his butt from hers when someone’s touches his shoulder. He whirls, a lot more startled than he should be, and there’s Gabranth, in uniform again, but the badge is away and there’s a lazy slouch in his shoulders that Shinjiro’s come to understand as “off duty.” Son of a bitch. It’s Friday. He actually gets a real weekend, and it starts right now.

Gabranth doesn’t actually say anything about the cigarette—or the sloppy state it’s in—and that’s decent, at least. People step away, look like they’re really on their way somewhere else, instead of standing drunk in the street.

“Hey,” he says, and he grins. “I was hoping you’d still be working.”

“Yeah, go mooch extra lamb from Raj.” Shinjiro puts the filter end between his lips and licks it for the strange paper taste. He’ll have it too ruined to smoke if this goes on much longer. “You have a lighter anywhere in all that extra shit you carry?”

Gabranth shakes his head, still grinning. “I have to leave my flamethrower at the office.”

He’s in a good mood, and it’s goddamn irritating right now. “Well, what the fuck good are you.” Shinjiro starts walking. He has no idea where he’s going to end up. He tries for his bus stop. It might work. It might work this time. He still has half of an unlit cigarette. Gabranth’s keys jingle as he walks, follows, comes up beside.

“What’s going on, then?” His hand is on Shinjiro’s shoulder again, and there’s that itch under his palm, and Shinjiro shrugs hard. The hand doesn’t move. And then it tightens, and he can’t make it move. Gabranth pulls him out of the center of the sidewalk, and people are looking as they walk by.

Gabranth talks more quietly. “You’re twitchy. I’ve not seen you smoke before. What’s going on?” He’s looking close, really close, and Shinjiro knows what he’s looking for.

“I’m old enough for a fag. I’m not on anything. So fuck off.” Everything he’s known before says this is a good time to take off, because Gabranth’s not going to arrest him, so it should be as easy as a good shove and two blocks’ running, but if Gabranth has him cornered here, he’s not on his way anywhere else. And he hates Akihiko for one white-hot moment, for ever coming here. If Aki weren’t here, it wouldn’t matter. But Aki is here, and he’s at home, resting, getting ready to do something that will—somehow—keep them safe, keep them out of trouble, somehow. Balthier said so. Said it was probably only a couple of good fights away, the meeting that Akihiko’s boxing will somehow get him. Once that happens, Balthier says they’ll never have to see him and Fran again, and there won’t be anything to worry about. Right. And they’re trusting the Romanies. Who aren’t from Romania at all, at least Balthier isn’t. Shinjiro can’t believe they’re doing any of this, but what the hell choice do they have? Every inch of his skin feels tight, like there’s a crank in the middle of his back twisting it tighter.

Gabranth’s hand flattens on his shoulder. “You’re not on anything.” He’s agreeing. Then he looks closer. “But you’d like to be.”

There’s no way to answer that. Either he admits it, or he ignores it, and that’s admitting it, too. So he exhales through his lips, and the broken cigarette sprays tobacco. Gabranth takes it from him.

“Come home with me,” he says.

“Fuck you.” He’s not going to be pathetic like that in front of him again.

“Come home with me.” Gabranth pushes a little bit closer, still not touching him anywhere except that big warm hand on his shoulder. “Or let me get you a taxi home.”

“Don’t waste your money.” He’d get out before the campsite. Either the same run-down flats as before, or earlier. Closer to the clubs, where he’d gotten the stuff before, even if it was cut with something nasty. Odds are it won’t be the same batch. He wouldn’t buy from the same guy, that’s for sure.

“Then come home with me.” Gabranth’s hand shifts a little, his grip firming. “You need a distraction.”

Like sex will fix it. If it were just sex he needed, he could get that easily enough. He could, but he can’t. They had walked to the free clinic together, him and Aki. Came out clean. He’s trying—he just needs to be that, clean, to stay that way. For Aki. He hates him again. Shinjiro almost laughs. “You going to jerk me off right here?” He drops one hand to his zipper.

“A quick wank in the street wouldn’t get you flying the way you want.” There’s a hint of a blush on his cheeks, maybe just a trick of the streetlights and a passing bus.

Shinjiro feels his mouth go dry. He’s not sure what Gabranth is saying, but don’t they say, too, that cops have the best drugs? He feels sick in his stomach even as he’s already almost nodding. But he has to ask. “What do you have I couldn’t get anywhere else, for less?” Not that he thinks there’s going to be money involved, but there’ll be a price. An investment. He’s already put too much into this.

Gabranth narrows his eyes. “I’m not offering to get you spaced.” Now he closes the distance, and the feeling of Gabranth’s leg between Shinjiro’s—not really in contact, but so, so near—it’s something. Shinjiro fights down the urge to kick. “I’m offering to wear you out. You won’t know which way is up. If you’ll trust me.” He backs up again. “Or I’ll get you a bottle and you can pass out on the couch. But come home with me.”

This is sad, that’s what it is. Pathetic. But—he thinks of Akihiko, and that’s probably it’s own kind of fucked up, when Gabranth just offered to fuck him six ways from Sunday, and Aki is sleeping, or if not sleeping, reading, paging through the fitness magazine Shinjiro lifted for him last week. They had words about that, but Akihiko had kissed him, too, later. Aki won’t be expecting him until dawn, because he really did think he was supposed to close tonight. He nods, hating himself, but maybe he’ll hate himself less for this than anything else he might do. He can deal with a hangover.

He follows Gabranth, neither exactly behind nor beside, and maybe he’ll be bastard enough to ask for that twenty-year-old Scotch on the sideboard. For what this is costing him in pride, it’d be a fair trade. But the curiosity pricks at the back of his mind, too. Sex with Gabranth is good, but he thinks there’s more in the offer than that. But he can’t bring himself to ask about it. He just walks one step off.

“Anything interesting at the chippie tonight?” Gabranth glances over his shoulder, and he slows a little. So does Shinjiro.

“Fuck all.”

“How’s Akihiko?” Gabranth’s acting like there’s nothing weird as fuck about this.

“Fine.” And he’ll be fine tomorrow, at his fight. He’ll be amazing. Like he always is.

Gabranth unlocks his door, and he locks the door behind them both.

“Can I trust you to stay on this side of the door?” He leads Shinjiro into the kitchen, and they stand there for a while, within arm’s length of the liquor cabinet. Gabranth’s waiting for an answer. Shinjiro knows how long it would take him to get drunk enough to pass out, to be unable to leave. He wonders if it would be fast enough. Maybe, if Gabranth drinks with him. But he knows drunk. He looks at the door from the length of two rooms. He looks at Gabranth. He shakes his head, and he looks at the staircase.

Gabranth sucks in a breath, and he kisses Shinjiro, pulls back. “Go brush your teeth. You can use my stuff. I won’t deal with that taste all night.” The refrigerator opens and closes, and he walks up the stairs a few steps behind Shinjiro, and even though Gabranth isn’t touching him, he’s being marched. It’s full of strangeness, and that’s what he’s thinking about, passing the dinged-in plaster.

He brushes his teeth probably too quickly, but he can’t deal with looking in the mirror now, and he goes faster to Gabranth’s room than he means to do. There’s a spicy, gingered scent on the air, and though he’s trying to see where the candle is, the incense that’s making that smell, so he can make fun of at least that, but Gabranth is undressing, slowly, and Shinjiro watches him hang his belt, his uniform, put his heavy boots beside his bed. He’s gotten a headboard since, a frame for the mattress and springs, and there’s a bottle of water on the beside table, something small and brown next to it. With Gabranth’s handcuffs. He doesn’t otherwise move until Gabranth stands beside him.

He undresses Shinjiro, peels his shirt up and off, and the stiffness of his joints, the unsettledness that is everywhere, shifts. There is the warmth of Gabranth’s hands, and he tries to think about that, just that, instead of hissing anxiousness in his bones. Before he means to be, he is bare, and Gabranth is still half-dressed. While he watches, that changes pretty quickly.

“Back to the bathroom,” he says. “A shower will do you good.”

What he probably means is that Shinjiro smells like grease and sweat and smoke and fear. Shinjiro’s not going to argue. Because this is the shower where he and Aki just stood that one day, and since, they’ve both used it a few times, together and separate, and it’s heat and wet and if Gabranth is in there, closing the space, it’s not anything he can run from. He waits at the curtain while Gabranth gets the water hot to steaming, and he pictures himself inside the shower stall—really a huge claw-footed tub fitted with ledges and doors so it looks like it belongs in a movie—pictures himself inside, trying to get out, and his foot would slip, would have to, and he’d fall—but he doesn’t fall. Because he’s not even in there yet. But Gabranth is, and he says to get in. He’s in, and Shinjiro’s not, and he could leave now. But his clothes are in another room, and Gabranth would follow, that much he knows. He steps in, and the water is so hot it feels cold for a minute, and Gabranth stands back, lets him have all the spray for a while. It should probably hurt, as immediately pink as he turns, but it doesn’t. It just feels good. When Gabranth puts his forearm across Shinjiro’s stomach, presses up against his back, he almost feels cool in comparison. But then Gabranth’s hands are soaping him, the outside of his hips and up over his ribs. He’s gained weight since Aki came, but the last few weeks has seen some of that go, and maybe Gabranth notices. His hands linger for a moment, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, there’s shampoo lather, and Shinjiro feels a little pissed off that Gabranth can just do that, like it’s easy for him to reach, and it is, and he keeps one arm around Shinjiro like he needs the support while the other one rubs through his hair. The steam is thick in his lungs, Gabranth’s arm heavy on his hips, and he lets himself lean. He thinks it has to be too soon when Gabranth turns him, tips his head back to rinse away the suds. He keeps his eyes closed for that—because soap in his eye right now would just fucking figure—and in the hot blackness, he feels a little dizzy. He reaches, and his hand finds Gabranth’s arm again. There’s nothing else to hold onto, so he holds onto that. Gabranth tips his head back farther, until he’s unbalancing, but there’s all of Gabranth’s wide chest behind him, holding him up, and he just leaves his eyes closed. Until Gabranth’s hand closes on his cock, and it slips soapily for a minute, then they turn, and the spray rinses him, but Gabranth’s hand is still there, stroking shallowly, loosely, like a man who knows how to give a handjob in the shower without rubbing anyone raw.

Shinjiro turns his head, and he tries to call Gabranth a slut, because obviously, he is one, but the word gets lost in the swirling steam and then in the way he puts his own hand over Gabranth’s, tightens the grip until it would rub him raw, except he only takes two tight strokes like that before he’s spilling over their hands. Now he does feel dizzy, and he opens his eyes to grope for the soap again. Come goes strange under water, grainy-sticky, and he doesn’t need that part to last. Gabranth licks his neck, like he’s not wet enough, and while Shinjiro washes—slowly, because his head’s kind of light with the heat—he turns the temperature down a little bit, and then a little more, taking the heat and the steam down until it’s actually cool. It gives Shinjiro goosebumps, but it’s nice, too, and he rinses his hair in it one last time.

Gabranth rubs him with the towel so hard it almost chafes, and Shinjiro tries to push him away—he can dry himself—but Gabranth won’t budge. When he’s allover warm again, they’re back in the hall, and he’s never crossed this much space, completely naked, though Gabranth’s still got the towels, carrying them over his shoulder, like he’s going to need them later. Shinjiro makes himself go as slowly as Gabranth, though he feels like he should really dash. From the edge of Gabranth’s door, he can see the corner of the front door, too, and then he pushes into the room quickly, away from the possibility. Gabranth closes the door behind him, too, tosses the towels beside the bed, on the floor, and he comes close again.

His hands cover the whole of Shinjiro’s shoulders, and if he starts to knead, like a massage is going to do shit for this—

Gabranth shoves him, so he goes face-first into the mattress. He rolls as best he can, but it’s not easy with Gabranth already on top of him, holding down his hips, and he fights. Gabranth shoves him down harder, pins him by the shoulders, and this time he kisses him long, kisses him hard.

Shinjiro bites. Gabranth’s teeth answer sharply. “Trust me,” he says, and he bites again. “Let me do this. I can help.”

Gabranth sounds like—like what Shinjiro has decided is Gabranth sounding like himself. Not like sounding like his job, but his accent thickening, and his grip strengthening, and there’s just enough heat in Gabranth’s face that Shinjiro nods again. He wets his lips, and he snarls. “Do your worst.”

Gabranth grins, and he bites again, opens his bedside drawer to take out a handful of handkerchiefs. He wraps one neatly around each wrist, over the knobbed bone, and that’s a little weird. It’s not less weird, but it makes more sense when the cold metal of the handcuffs closes around his wrists, and his hands are stretched above him, caught fast.

“Pussy,” he says. Who puts down padding before handcuffing someone?

“Just making sure you stay where I want you,” Gabranth says. “And so you don’t end up bloodying my sheets because you can’t hold still.”

“So I don’t bail on you, you mean.” Aki would like that, handcuff himself to Shinjiro, to watch him. He squirms a little, not meaning to, but Gabranth’s tongue on his arm feels better than it should. It’s his fucking arm.

Gabranth stops biting at the inside of his elbow for a moment, props himself up so he’s looking Shinjiro eye to eye.

“I won’t keep you here if you really want to leave. Tell me you really want to leave, that you want whatever it is you’ll find out there, and I won’t stop you.” His fingertips skate the lines of Shinjiro’s displayed biceps. Shinjiro shivers, yanks at the handcuffs, and the chain rattles on the wood. He hopes it’s scratching. Gabranth leans closer, and he’s lucky he doesn’t try to kiss right now. “I’ll let you go if you want to. But you don’t want to.” He bites at Shinjiro’s collarbone, teeth, then tongue licking over it. “If you didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t have come in the first place. But you did, because you don’t want that shit again.” His hands run down his arms, and his thumbs drag over the hollows of his armpits, and Shinjiro jerks harder at the metal. The touch is too close, too near and sensitive and good and it feels a lot more illicit than it should. Gabranth’s hands are already splayed over his ribs, still and easy, but Shinjiro still feels like he’s shaking. He’s not cold at all.

He bites his own tongue for a minute, then tells Gabranth to get the fuck on with it. And Gabranth grins, the smug bastard of a whore, because he’s right. He’s starting to hate that expression, especially when he pulls bullshit like this, kissing him now, and Shinjiro doesn’t think twice about closing his teeth as hard as he can on Gabranth’s lip. But he misses. Bastard was waiting for it. And he kisses instead the hollow of Shinjiro’s throat, licking into the space between tendon and bone.

“Motherfucking asshole.” It feels amazing. So of course Gabranth stops.

And he wraps another of the handkerchiefs around Shinjiro’s eyes. Gabranth ties the knot at the side, so that when Shinjiro puts his head back, there is nothing between his hair and the pillow. His first thought, though, is that he’s missing one hell of a view, and Gabranth’s chest is against his, muscled and hot. He resents that, even as he presses toward him, but then the feeling is gone, and there’s only the dip of the mattress to say that Gabranth is still there. Shinjiro lays as still as he can; he won’t try to reach, he won’t move, he won’t think about the way the anxiety still coils in his chest.

There’s another sound of the drawer, and Gabranth’s body shifting, somewhere in his torso, but that’s all Shinjiro can feel. That gingery scent renews itself, clean and sharp, and maybe Gabranth’s enough of a fucking girl to have some kind of room spray that he thinks is going to help the mood or whatever. Shinjiro’s dick doesn’t really need convincing at this point.

Gabranth’s hand closes on his ankle, and his whole leg jerks. There’s the other hand, too, on the opposite ankle, and the weight of him comes closer, until Gabranth’s thighs are holding Shinjiro’s apart, his hands holding them up, and he can just imagine what this has to look like. He squirms, and Gabranth laughs a little, low and rough, and he lays a soft bite on the inside of one leg. Shinjiro jerks again.

“Relax,” Gabranth says, and Shinjiro snarls. Getting cuffed and fucked—not like that’s never happened to anyone before. It’s never happened to him, but he can deal with it. And having the handcuffs to fight against—that’s—it hurts, but it’s something he can do. That he can fight. He does. And Gabranth lets him, just holding onto his legs, sometimes sliding his hands a little, like he likes it. Shinjiro likes it.

Gabranth reaches again for something—his body elongates and returns, the motion pressing Shinjiro’s legs up even more, and Gabranth holds like that for a moment, holds him down with his knees almost to his ears, and he kisses him, long and slow and wet, and then something is nudging at his asshole, not Gabranth’s finger because it’s cool, damp-feeling without the greasy slickness of lube. It pushes in, pushes in and stays, right where the muscle is tight, and Gabranth’s fingertips come up to his mouth, slip between their lips together, and it’s the fresh spice of ginger that touches his tongue. As soon as he gets the taste, the burn starts.

“What the fuck?” It gets hotter, and he tries to kick, but Gabranth’s still pinning him down, holding him double, and Gabranth reaches again. The—it’s a whole piece of ginger, shoved up his ass, and Gabranth fucks him with it. It can’t be more than three inches long, smaller than any one of Gabranth’s fingers, but it’s like sweet fire at his very core. He clenches his teeth and hisses, writhes but he’s not going anywhere, and the way the sensation builds, more than doubles, trebles—it burns and it doesn’t hurt. He feels like he’s going to come almost before it registers that it feels good. He wants to see. He wants to look at Gabranth, glare at him with as much heat as the ginger’s filling him with, but there’s something perfect and anonymous and freeing about the blackness over his eyes. He moans, just lets it go, because he doesn’t have to see the way Gabranth reacts to it, the smug, satisfied look, and fuck, he wants to see it, because Gabranth reaches again, and he lifts up a little. He misses the weight as soon as it’s gone, but Gabranth’s torso is still close against his legs, and then his hand is blessedly on Shinjiro’s cock. Not moving at all, just a solid presence, and that’s enough.

The orgasm shakes him, and it makes him clench tighter around the ginger, and it just keeps getting hotter, the more pressure there is, and he’s panting and Gabranth is holding his left leg tight against him because he’s having trouble keeping from kicking again.

“Gabranth—” He’s not going to beg. But he has to say something. A name is something. A name is too much. He turns his face and digs his teeth into his own arm, tries to stifle the whine that’s trying to come up from his lungs. He thinks it worked, but then Gabranth moves back a little, and he slips the ginger plug out. It still burns. Gabranth’s hands are both on his thighs again, pressing them apart, and his tongue licks stripes over Shinjiro’s cock. He is shaking now, because he’s too sensitive, it’s too soon, but Gabranth’s actually licking him clean, not just licking him, because there’s the pressure that says it wants what’s there, what’s trying to cling to his skin, and Shinjiro twists hard away, but his hips settle back where they were. Because it kind of hurts, but it still feels good, and the ginger-burn still covers everything.

The drawer-scrape sounds again, and Shinjiro tries to pull Gabranth back down, pulling with his heels, but Gabranth pushes his legs up again, and he’s holding him almost doubled-over. He wants to look and he’s so glad he can’t, to see himself stripped down so bare and kind of trembling, and when Gabranth’s fingertip, well-slicked and only lightly touching, circles his asshole, he arches. He’s not sure if he’s trying to get more, to get Gabranth to push in, or if he just has to move, somehow. Either way, he barely can.

The handcuffs are a blunted pressure on his wrists, and it’s two fingers at once that finally push in. He yanks harder on the cuffs and he does kick this time. Gabranth pushes his legs down, wraps them around his waist, holds his knees down with one arm while his other hand keeps on its deliberate, steady pace.

Shinjiro’s cursing and he’s not sure when he fell back into Japanese. He doesn’t care. Like this, he can say anything he wants to, and he does. He calls Gabranth every insult he can think of, thanks him and damns him three times over, almost chokes when Gabranth’s fingers curve up hard and everything goes white behind the blindfold for a moment. He’s almost twenty. Coming three times in half an hour is what you do when you’re fourteen, what he and Akihiko used to do—it didn’t ache like this does now, but it didn’t leave him reeling and churning like this does, either. But Gabranth slips his fingers out before he falls over the edge, and Gabranth is moving again, Shinjiro’s knees caught in the crooks of Gabranth’s elbows, and there’s the insistent push of Gabranth’s cock filling him. He wraps his fingers around the cuffs’ chain, tries to pull himself up a little, but there’s no strength left in his arms, and he can’t straighten his legs, and he doesn’t really want to, but that’s why he should.

Gabranth leans closer, puts his mouth on Shinjiro’s, and he’s barely moving at all, can’t be getting much out of it himself, but he kisses like nothing’s ever felt better, tongue and teeth everywhere, scraping at Shinjiro’s lower lip until even that feels as sensitive as all the rest of him does. Gabranth’s mouth moves, under Shinjiro’s jaw, rasps stubble across his throat.

Shinjiro gasps, and even behind the blindfold, his eyes are clenched tight, and then Gabranth pushes his right leg up more, until it’s over the bastard’s shoulder, and it’s only the fact that it’s not comfortable, not at all, that keeps him from coming again. He’s not coming now, but he will, he will, and it’s going to hurt. He wants it. He wants to know what that feels like, wants to see if he’ll actually pass out because he feels like he might anyway.

With his arm free, Gabranth closes his hand on Shinjiro’s elbow, holds him there where his arms are stretched up and caught, and he rocks his hips, and he groans like Shinjiro would if he could find the breath. Gabranth’s hand shifts, down to his bicep again, and he knows Gabranth is going to touch under his arm again, knows it’s going to happen because it has to happen because he’ll jerk and try to stop him but he won’t say stop because he doesn’t want to stop and it doesn’t matter because they’re past stopping. Gabranth’s thumb falls, drags again over the wispy hair and the shallow curve, and it tickles but it doesn’t and he can’t really be getting off because Gabranth touched him there. Except he is. He thinks his moan sounds too much like the pain and not enough like the pleasure, because there still is that, somewhere, underneath too many feelings all at once, pleasure somewhere in the spinning whirling that Gabranth keeps twisting further, his teeth set on the skin of Shinjiro’s throat and his cock still driving deep, hitting sharp and sharper—

What registers next is the elastic sound of a knotted rubber hitting the rubbish bin, and Gabranth’s hands rest on his shoulders for a minute.

“Close your eyes,” he says. “I’m going to take off the blindfold.”

Shinjiro’s not sure if they’re open or closed. Even his eyelids feel spent. When the cloth lifts away, the room is dimmer than it was before, maybe. Maybe it’s just his eyelashes, or the fact that Gabranth’s between him and the light in the corner. It’s just hard to keep them open, and then Gabranth’s hand is in his hair, rubbing gently. Shinjiro turns his head a little—he doesn’t like people messing with his hair, not generally, though sometimes Aki can get away with it, and Gabranth likes taking liberties—but it’s too much effort to say anything. Gabranth releases the cuffs and moves his arms for him, one at a time, slowly, and his shoulders will be sore in the morning. His ass is already sore. Still sensitive. Heated. The handkerchiefs on his wrists aren’t too tight, and Gabranth leaves them there, runs the tip of his finger under the cloth edges to be certain. The fabric isn’t too tight, but he’ll still probably have bruises there, because the touch aches, the skin there puffy-feeling. Then Gabranth slides down beside him, and his eyes are bright, alert, and if he felt like he could lift his arms at all, he’d hit him for looking so fucking perky. But Gabranth doesn’t start chattering again. He puts his arm around Shinjiro’s shoulders, turns him enough to put his cheek on Gabranth’s chest. It puts his twitching, aching cock against Gabranth’s thigh, too, and he inches back barely—then slumps close again. The contact is warm, and he’s goosebumped everywhere now, though his cheeks are red and his heart’s still racing in the overload-fog.

Gabranth draws the blanket up, covers them both, though he throws heat like a furnace and can’t possibly want it. With his right hand, he takes the bottle of water, and somehow there’s a straw in it.

Shinjiro sips, knows better than to drink too fast, but even holding himself up for that much is too much, and Gabranth puts the bottle back on the bedside table.

He closes his eyes again, and the handcuffs clink again. Clink, and one closes around his left wrist. He’s laying on his right arm, and he will be damned if he’s moving it to get tethered to something else—but he hears the mechanism click closed. From one slitted eye, he sees it on Gabranth’s right wrist, and Shinjiro tries to move his hand, pull it closer to his chest. Gabranth follows the movement, so there’s no tension in the chain at all.

“Fucker.” He’s sure Gabranth can’t actually understand what he said, because he doesn’t lift his head.

“I’m walking you home when you wake up,” Gabranth says. It’s not a question, but his voice is soft, and it sounds like himself. Shinjiro will fight that out with him in the morning.