InsaneJournal

London Calling Fic: Shifting
A piece a long time in the works.

Title: Shifting
Series: London Calling (Persona 3/FFXII crossover)
Characters: Akihiko/Shinjiro, Gabranth
Rating: NSFW
Length: 6125 words
Note: After Murder Is a Crime. A bit of calm in what's been a storm.



It’s not even a week after the cop picked up his pieces, so to speak, that he shows up at the chip shop right at closing time again. Well, if the guy wants a blowjob for nursing him through nine hours of what was close to an overdose, or maybe the shit he’d taken was cut with something nasty, or maybe they’d accidentally killed two guys and his body couldn’t deal with it or anything at all—if that’s what he’s here for, Shinjiro’s not going to begrudge him that. Still, he hates that the guy saw him like that. Aki always said he made a terrible patient, and he’s sure this much resentment shouldn’t be tied up in being grateful—it was enough Gabranth didn’t take him to a hospital or even arrest him, let alone take him back to his apartment. Hell, he made him soup, when his guts finally settled. Out of a can, but still. So he tries to look—indifferent, at least, and not blush or scowl, while he’s flipping the neon sign off. Gabranth has the decency, at least, not to ask how he’s doing.

“Want some?” Shinjiro’s sure the way he says it is open-ended enough, but he also scrapes the last of the chips out of the warmer, sets them into a paper cone. They’re a little rubbery, but he’ll get all kinds of shit if he fires the fryer back up now. He drenches the whole thing with vinegary brown sauce—the cop, at least, knows how to eat his chips right—and holds it out.

“Thanks,” Gabranth says, and he takes two, then takes the whole cone while Shinjiro cleans the counters, mops up, and when Shinjiro hangs up his apron, he takes the last of the chips, licks salt from his fingers pretty deliberately.

“So what’s up?” He leans against the back door, waits. Gabranth seems to like coming after him, and that suits Shinjiro just fine, but he’s not moving. Might be here to give him a polite ‘fuck off,’ then. Wouldn’t blame him for that, either. Wasn’t pretty, what the guy had to see the other night.

“How’s your friend?”

Shinjiro freezes. What’d he say about Aki? The nervous twist in his stomach hits fast and hard—there are parts of that night he doesn’t remember, and he’s afraid of what he might have said—to a cop—

“He’s fine.” And that’s mostly not a lie. The bruising on his neck is starting to fade, though Shinjiro would put money on his throat still being an ugly shade of yellow-green until the month is out. Aki’s skin holds onto a bruise, and maybe that’s some of the reason he’s always tried to finish a fight as fast as he can. Most of the time that works. They’re back in their caravan, too, and when either of them get to staring at that spot on the floor, they pull the curtain Aki rigged from a sheet Fran gave them, so it’s just them and the thin mattress. Mostly, they play cards, but Aki just gave him a look when he suggested, last night, they play for clothing.

“That’s good,” Gabranth says, and there’s nothing on his face that makes Shinjiro think he confessed or whatever. Gabranth just seems to be looking him up and down, not like he does when he wants some, but like he knows Shinjiro wouldn’t give him a straight answer to a question about himself anyway. Finally, he says, “You busy tomorrow?”

That’s always a loaded question. “Why?”

“Wondered if you and your friend wanted to make some extra money.” He looks a little uneasy about the asking, and Shinjiro can feel the hair on the back of his neck start to prickle. There must be something of it on his face, too—the number of things that can follow a question like that are so varied, and so many of them Shinjiro doesn’t want to think about now, but he’s in debt to this guy, and he’s still not sure exactly how much—but Gabranth’s eyes get a little bigger, and he shakes his head. “I’m moving into a new apartment. I could use a hand shifting the boxes. Fifty pounds each, if you’re interested.”

Fifty quid’s more than he makes in three shifts. And Aki lost his job at the Y when he couldn’t come in those first two days after—after what happened, and he’s not boxing again for a good while. It’d make a difference. But it’s also too much money to help someone move, isn’t it? “What’s the catch?” There has to be one. Like he’s moving stolen stereos, though that would be pretty shitty for a cop. Then again, he didn’t bust a kid obviously on drugs, so who knows what his deal really is?

“No catch.” Gabranth grins a little. “It’s worth it to me to get it done in one day. I hate moving.” He says it like he’s done it more often than he’s ever wanted to do.

“Friends’d do it for free.” He’s not sure what he just offered in that. He decides it was just a comment, but it makes him wonder if he would have done it anyway. Too late now, though. Money’s on the table.

“Maybe I’m paying for the privilege of telling you to shift your arse a little faster, then.” He grins more.

“Hire real movers. They’d do it real quick.” He’s not sure why he’s being difficult, but it’s almost like fun, because Gabranth is still kind of smiling.

“Maybe I’d rather watch your arse more.”

There it is. Well, if he thinks he’s getting some kind of two-for-one deal with Akihiko, he’s probably got another thing coming. For one, they’ve never even seen each other, and two—well, Shinjiro doesn’t know. Aki’s been cool about…whatever this thing he’s got going is, but the thought of sharing Akihiko—Shinjiro’s not sure he likes the idea. The fancy gypsy was eyeing him up, too, but Balthier, at least, had enough class not to make a move while the two of them were trying not to have a breakdown. Aki, at least, managed to keep his shit together. Aki always does.

But Gabranth shrugs then, all the flirt in abeyance for a minute. “In all seriousness—I’d rather ask you than a couple of twats from the uni or two blokes from an agency who won’t particularly care if they drop some Mick’s china down a staircase.”

The term throws Shinjiro for a moment, but it sinks in. If he pays attention, he can hear the difference between Gabranth’s accent and everyone else’s here—though at first, it was hard to understand anyone at all. The English they learned in school—all the sounds clean and neat and separated—didn’t sound anything like the dropped-letter, shifted vowel mess they got coming to Edinburgh. And he’s figuring out that the accents around here matter. Not so much his own—it’s from too far away, too different a place to matter—but the local ones, or whatever had been under the crown before. He watched some drunk bawl out an Aussie bouncer outside one of the clubs on his walk home one night, the drunk calling the guy a kangaroo, of all things, and he’s heard a couple of things thrown around about the Irish, boggers, paddies. The way Gabranth says this makes him understand it’s not a compliment, and he almost asks about four questions at once, but all he does in the end is nod.

They get a time settled, and Shinjiro declines the offer of a pick-up. Instead, he has Gabranth write the address to the new place on his forearm, between the nautical star that turned out nice and the skull and bones that really didn’t. The tickle of the ballpoint makes him want to do another one, but he shouldn’t, not yet, because there’s still the Hungarian cross healing on his calf. There wasn’t anything else to do in the gypsies’ caravan, and he’d seen the double-barred motif on the woman’s own back. He’d done it in the hours when Akihiko slept, and maybe he should have been sleeping then, too, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten so bad that night after work if he hadn’t been awake for almost three days, maybe he wouldn’t have needed to—but it was done now. Gabranth writes ‘10 a.m.’ under the address, too, like Shinjiro’s going to forget, but his hands are big and warm where holds Shinjiro’s arm against the counter to write. His thumb smoothes over the permanent ink when he finishes, and it’s tempting to let his arm there, but that only gives him four hours of sleep if he takes the bus the whole way back, and assuming he could fall asleep right away, which he never does. Most of the time it takes Aki waking up enough to talk him into it, and these days, maybe they’re both not so good at it.. So he pulls back, opens the side door, and Gabranth follows him out, waits for him to lock up. He’s not making a move, but he’s not leaving, either.

“See you tomorrow.” He puts the words out there solidly, finally.

“Taking the bus?” Gabranth doesn’t head off toward the new town, like he should.

Shinjiro starts walking. “If I get to my stop before it fucks off, yeah.” He’s got about fifteen minutes to make it two blocks—no sweat there—and there would be another bus about forty-five minutes later—the schedule’s pretty thin at this hour—but then he might as well walk the whole way and save two pounds. And the way Gabranth’s hanging around, looking at him like that—like he’s concerned—that’s shit he doesn’t need. Regardless of the other night. Gabranth catches up too easily, and his legs are longer, so unless Shinjiro starts jogging, he’s not going to make much ground. He puts his hands in his pockets, puts together half a glare. “I’ll be good for two blocks.”

“Just making sure.”

“Asshole.”

Gabranth only grins. When the bus comes, he gets on, too, and Shinjiro decides before the bus is even moving again that he’ll get off a stop early, at a little knot of broken-down flats off the Leith docks. It’s the kind of place they might live, and no matter how nice the cop seems, he doesn’t want him around the campsite. For any of ten reasons.

“Nothing better to do at five in the morning?” At least Gabranth isn’t sitting too close, isn’t trying to put his arm around him. There’s another guy sitting in the back, bottle wrapped in brown paper hanging at his side, and Shinjiro looks instead at the window opposite, the streetlights passing in white bursts.

Gabranth stretches his legs out, the denim worn and comfortable looking, but it looks like the left knee is going to give out any day. “Not really,” Gabranth says. He scuffs the heel of his boot—his uniform boots—over an old piece of gum on the aisle. “What’s better than this?” The irony in his voice drips, and here, he can really hear the difference in Gabranth’s voice, like it’s deliberate.

Shinjiro snorts, and there’s something that feels strange about this. Like Gabranth just admitted something, but Shinjiro’s not sure what. Doesn’t make any sense at all, why he wants anything to do with Shinjiro, especially if he’s not getting anything out of it except a long-ass ride on a near-empty bus. It’ll be half-six before it goes back around toward Gabranth’s side of town.

He still calls out his stop early, and Gabranth just waves when he gets off.

When he gets back to the caravan, Aki’s waiting up for him.

“You gotta stop doing this,” Shinjiro says. Aki’s not a nightowl, and even if he sleeps until mid-afternoon to catch up (which he doesn’t), the way his body wants a daylight schedule etches in under his eyes so fast.

“Make me,” Akihiko says, the rasp in his voice almost gone. He puts a hot mug in Shinjiro’s hands. He’s still pissed about the other night, and Shinjiro won’t complain about it. He hasn’t got the right.

He gets his boots and coat off, and work’s all right, but he hates how greasy everything feels after a couple of shifts. Maybe Gabranth will let them steal a shower at some point tomorrow, if the water’s on at the new place. They did all right when Aki had his job at the Y, for showers and laundry, but now they’re considering hitting up one of the tourist hostels just to get everything clean.

He drinks his tea and Aki’s staring at his arm. It’s strange to be here in so much light, but he bought a battery lantern the first day they were out of the gypsies’ place. He can’t say for sure, but he thinks it’s been on constantly, from sundown to sunup. He’s okay with that.

“What’s that?” Akihiko takes his forearm, turns it so he can read Gabranth’s writing, all capitals, and Shinjiro shifts to keep the angle from hurting.

“That cop. He was at the chippie tonight. Offered fifty apiece to help him move tomorrow.” He hazards half a grin. “That worth being back downtown by ten?”

Aki looks at him, and of all the times he’d like a rock to crawl under—

“What?” He scrubs at his hair, and it kind of sticks in the back, where the sweat settles during the whole shift. “We need the money.”

Aki looks away, and he pick at a dry spot on his cuticles.

Goddammit. It wasn’t supposed to make him feel guilty. He writes the address on the back of a napkin, then puts his arm around Aki’s shoulder. Aki jabs him in the ribs, but he sets the alarm so they’ll make the nine-forty bus. He lets Shinji keep his arm where it is when they fall back, and Shinjiro’s smart enough not to suggest anything else.

***

Gabranth is already taking boxes from the back of a moving truck, and he seems a little surprised to see them. He puts down the box in his arms, and he looks like he hasn’t slept at all. He puts out a hand.

“You must be Akihiko,” he says. Akihiko takes his hand, and he shoots Shinjiro a look. He doesn’t remember telling Gabranth Aki’s name—he’s said more than he meant, and he has no idea how much.

“What’d you do, spend all night loading the truck?” He takes a box without being asked. Sooner they’re done, the sooner they can get out of here.

Gabranth shrugs. “The rental opened at six.”

Akihiko takes a box, lifts it like it’s easy. Even without a gym, he’s still a gym rat—Shinjiro bets he does push-ups five hours a day now. Then Akihiko looks in the back of the moving truck, squints. It’s not even a quarter full, no furniture but a bare mattress and springs.

“Overkill, isn’t it?” There’s so little in here that Shinjiro actually feels a little guilty at the thought of walking away from this with a hundred pounds. But Gabranth kind of smirks, and he knew there was a catch.

“This,” he says, “is all that has to go in. There’s some that needs to come out.” He gets his box again, and it must be full of books or something because his biceps tighten under his shirt-sleeves, and he leads them into a big Georgian greystone. The rent for the month has to be close to what they’ll pay for a year. Shinjiro didn’t think cops made that much.

Through the foyer—the place has a foyer—he can see boxes. Gabranth leads them up a set of stairs, makes a sharp right into an office, and says they can put the stuff down here, out of the way.

Out of the way of what, Shinjiro wants to ask, but Gabranth leans into another upstairs room and points at the biggest goddamn bed he’s ever seen.

“That has to go in the truck.”

Now Shinjiro knows why he asked about the both of them. It’s going to suck, even if the thing comes apart. It has to come apart, right?

Gabranth doesn’t take them back out to the truck yet, and it must be a pretty nice neighborhood if he’s not worried his stuff will get stolen, the door on the truck all open like it is. Instead he leads them into the kitchen, countertops all the way around, wood floors that glow—actually fucking glow—with expensive old age. Gabranth checks the side of the kettle with his bare fingertip, yanks it back, shakes his hand.

“Tea or coffee?” He’s already throwing bread in the toaster because there’s a new loaf on the counter, and he’s reaching for the refrigerator, fishing out butter and jam.

Shinjiro and Akihiko both stare for a minute, but then Aki remembers his brain, says, “Tea, thanks.” It’s steeping before Shinjiro remembers he hasn’t answered. But there’s two mugs waiting, and he thinks maybe Gabranth made him tea, before.

The breakfast break doesn’t last long, but there’s something decadent in actual toast, the kind of thick, sharp marmalade that costs four quid a jar. Gabranth leaves his mug on a bookshelf by the door, like he’s definitely coming back to it, and walks back out with a corner of toast still clamped between his teeth. Aki and Shinji drain theirs, even though it’s too hot. It seems wrong to let it get cold, as good as the tea is. They follow.

The boxes come in easily enough, and it seems like Aki’s okay with Gabranth. Not that any of them talk much at all, but he hears a stray snip of conversation about boxing—Gabranth says he knows a little about it—maybe he mentioned that and Aki explains the fact that his throat’s still bruised that way, too.

There are only a few boxes in the pile to be put back on the truck—like a lot of the stuff is staying, and Gabranth says, when he looks at it all, that he’s just kind of subletting from a friend who’s going to be away for a while. That’s why only some of it goes back—the things “Z” needs now. Shinjiro almost says something about the fact that the bed’s going and most of the books aren’t, but things are weird enough without him making dirty jokes about some guy he hasn’t met. And it’s a relief that they don’t have to clear all these bookshelves, where there aren’t enough gaps for him to think that the boxes are full of books. Which means that unless the boxes are full of lead, they have to be lighter than Gabranth’s stuff—it seems like all he has are books and two suitcases, a really ugly lamp, the bare trappings of a kitchen—not like he’ll need that here—and a couple of framed pictures between his towels and sheets.

Gabranth calls a break to measure doorways, the clearance over the banister at the bottom of the stairs. Shinjiro and Akihiko mill, and it looks like the place was lived in—the books well-thumbed, the leather couch worn like someone sat in it—and that makes how nice the flat is a little more bearable.

They get the bed down the stairs in pieces. The posters on each of the corners come off easily enough, and they manage one apiece and Gabranth takes two. The headboard and footboard are a little worse, the wood so quality it’s dead heavy, and they get things a little sideways at the foot of the stairs, where it’s one corner and then another, immediately, to hit the door, and one of the edges dings the plaster. There’s a dent. Shinjiro and Akihiko freeze, and Shinjiro is sure all their money’s now going to patching that hole, but Gabranth laughs it off, and they bundle the whole thing into the truck, strap it down and pad the wood with old blankets. Gabranth takes them back upstairs, points at the wall where the bed’s left edge used to be. It’s full of dents, and there’s definitely a shoe-print on the cream-colored paper.

“I don’t think he’ll mind,” Gabranth says, and he picks up one end of the mattress.

All right, then.

* * *
It’s getting late in the afternoon when they finally finish, and Shinjiro’s not feeling any remorse at the prospect of taking Gabranth’s money now. He feels exhausted, and it’s not just all the boxes or the fact that he hasn’t slept a full night in what feels like years, it’s just being here. Not knowing the whole of anything. But Akihiko almost seems like he’s having a good time—Aki always was a little more social—and he and Gabranth are talking about rugby when the truck’s door slides down and the lock clicks home. Gabranth says someone’s picking it up—“Drace,” he says to Shinjiro, that butch lady-cop, like it’s any of his business—in the morning, and driving the whole thing wherever it’s going. Somewhere in the north.

Gabranth tells them to have a seat, pours big glasses of orange juice like he just picked them up from football practice, and says he’s going to get some food because there’s nothing much in the refrigerator, though it looks pretty full to Shinjiro. Whatever. The door closes behind him, and the important thing is that Gabranth offered them the shower, and he really does leave. Because they watch at the window while he walks toward the rest of the city, wait ten minutes to see if he comes back in to try to catch them at something. He doesn’t, and he lets them alone with all of his stuff, and…whoever’s stuff is all over the place, too.

Shinjiro stands, taps at the power button on the glossy, high-tech turntable that was there before Gabranth moved in. “Should take his stereo, just so he learns—”

Akihiko’s fist in his arm cuts him off, makes him laugh a little, but seriously, who leaves strangers alone with everything like this? He refuses to entertain the notion that Gabranth doesn’t consider him a stranger.

“Shower,” Aki says, and he grips his bicep as they walk to the bathroom. Shinjiro took a piss earlier, and he thinks the towel rack is heated. Aki opens his backpack, takes out clean clothes, and Shinjiro has to kiss him for that. Aki always thinks of that kind of stuff, and maybe they can manage to wash what they’re wearing now. It’s possible to do it at the campsite in the sink, and they have been, but it’s a lot different knowing it’s been through a washer and dryer. But even better than even thinking about those things is the shower itself. Shinjiro sits on the toilet seat and tries not to look too much at the mirror while Akihiko gets behind the curtain. Just the feel of the steam is good. Then Aki leans out, his hair silver with wet, and he flicks water across the bathroom.

”You coming?”

The relief he feels is shocking, somehow, too much to say anything. He climbs in behind Akihiko and wraps both arms around him, hand on Aki’s tattoo, and squeezes a little. Akihiko lets him, leans back a little, and the salt of sweat on his neck cedes to the slightly chlorine taste of the city water. He licks. Aki lets him. It’s the first time since that night he didn’t come home, the night Gabranth had to take care of him.

They stay in Gabranth’s shower until the water starts to go cool, washing each other four times over for the sheer pleasure of it. They’re both hard, too, but neither of them move really to do anything about it—it’s somehow too strange, here, now, not knowing when Gabranth is going to come back, and there’s something too good about the hot water to get distracted fucking around. It’s a miracle, Shinjiro thinks, that Aki is letting him touch this much, after how bad he screwed up. He puts his hands on Aki’s waist, rests his forehead against Aki’s shoulder, and just lets the water hit. They haven’t done this—not since the dorm, sneaking together to the boys’ bathroom at three in the morning. It feels like two lifetimes ago.

They share a towel to dry off, and it is warm, the rack warm, too. When they go downstairs, Gabranth isn’t back yet, so Shinjiro pokes around until he finds a tiny closet that holds a washer and dryer, tosses their stuff in. He tosses his jeans in, too, keeps the towel around his waist. They always need a wash.

He sprawls in his towel on the sofa, and Akihiko’s got a book already open in his lap, but Shinjiro is rifling through one of Gabranth’s boxes, the one with the pictures and the towels. He does put one of them behind his head, so his wet hair won’t mark the leather. It unearths a picture of Gabranth, obviously him, though his hair’s longer, his arm around a plump red-haired woman who can only be his mother. There is another arm around the woman’s shoulders, a hand that rests over Gabranth’s collarbone, but half of the photograph is missing, and he can see the edge is folded back beneath the glass. He flips up the tabs that hold the backing on the frame.

“What are you doing?” Akihiko closes the book, inches closer.

He lifts the black cardboard out and looks up. “Helping him unpack.” Shinjiro takes the picture, unfolds the flap. It’s Gabranth on the other side, too. He smoothes the whole thing on his lap and he looks close—it’s not Gabranth—the one on the left a little shorter, a wider grin on that one’s face.

Akihiko says, “Twins,” and there’s something far away in his voice, like he’s remembering something, missing it, and it’s too much.

“Hot,” Shinjiro says, and he folds the picture the way it was, puts the backing on again. He wonders why that half of the picture’s hidden, but he’s got his secrets, too. He puts the picture back in the box, and he’s glad he did, because the door opens without warning, and there’s Gabranth, two big bags in his hands. He looks at them both, tilts his head toward the kitchen, listens a minute.

“Good,” he says. “You found the washer.” He puts the bags down on the coffee table, and Shinjiro’s sure he’s hallucinating because he smells ginger. Gabranth starts taking boxes out, opening the lids. “What kind of soap does it take?”

“The powdered stuff. There’s still most of a box.” Shinjiro’s tongue is answering without his permission, but—that’s sushi. He looks at Gabranth, and he can feel Aki staring. He didn’t even know there was Japanese food here, at least none in their budget, and he can’t look at the logo on the bag or his brain might cramp. There’s no reason for him to be this nice, but…there’s real ramen, and he never thought he’d miss it like he does, so sudden, but the smell makes his throat tighten.

Gabranth pushes the coffee table closer, goes to the kitchen, comes back with plates. He’s kind of blushing. “I didn’t have a bloody clue what I was ordering, but it looks good.”

Neither Shinjiro nor Akihiko move. Gabranth takes a few bottles of—no way—fucking Ramune from the other bag. It’s nearly five pounds a bottle here, and it’s just fucking soda. But Aki punches the marble down into the bottle and he smiles. Shinjiro can’t bring himself to say something smartassed. So he just takes a big mound of seaweed salad.

“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” he says, and the food’s so good he almost makes a noise.

Gabranth just shrugs a little behind his chicken karaage. “I’ve been away from home, too. You get to missing things.” He takes a bite, puts it down, comes back with a couple of takeaway packets of brown sauce from the kitchen. He dips the chicken again, takes a bite. When he swallows, he says, too, “Drace has been going on about this place, too. Just a good excuse.”

Shinjiro shakes his head at the—the desecration—and takes a bite of tuna roll. Beside him, Aki’s putting away eel like it’s going to swim away. There’s enough food for six, but there aren’t any leftovers.

Akihiko takes the plates to the sink, and Shinjiro picks up the cardboard containers, ties the plastic bags around them so they won’t smell before putting them in the rubbish bin. He doesn’t remember being this full in…ever. From the sitting room comes the sound of moving furniture, and he looks.

The couch is now a bed, wrinkled sheets on it that Gabranth is tucking back over the mattress corners. Aki comes up behind him, and when Shinjiro glances, Aki’s eyes are narrowed.

“Thanks, but—” The offer was to help him move, whatever Shinjiro’s done with him before notwithstanding.

Gabranth shakes his head, looks at Shinjiro with a wry smile. “I’m not that kind of pervert.” Shinjiro’s not sure what he means by that, but Gabranth tosses a pillow, and it hits him in the chest. “You two can stay if you want. Just wanted it to be clear if you did, you’d have somewhere to sleep.” He finishes his soda—it’s orange—and stands up. “I’m going upstairs, because I’m bloody knackered. If you decide to go,” he says, and he says it to Akihiko, “lock the door on your way out.” He takes out his wallet, separates out five twenty-notes, puts them in Aki’s hand as he passes. Shinjiro’s trying to decide if he’s insulted, but Gabranth just goes upstairs to the mattress and springs that they put where that big bitch of a bed had been. Shinjiro goes to get their clothes from the dryer, and the buttons on his jeans are pleasantly hot. He takes Aki’s bag, stuffs their clean things in it, and he stands beside the door. Akihiko goes back to the coffee table, picks up the book from before—one of those glossy jobs, full of expensive photography of famous temples. Mitsuru’s house was always full of those.

“Bet you could borrow it,” Shinjiro says, and Akihiko shrugs. He sits on the edge of the sofa-mattress, and—fuck. The light’s good, and there’s a lock on the door and there’s a shower and it’s clean and—and normal and Aki wouldn’t be having to deal with any of this if it weren’t for him. Aki should be in college, halfway through an engineering degree or something—he sits down beside Aki, and the mattress feels way better than a pullout should, and when he lies back, Aki hooks his ankle around Shinjiro’s. Yeah. Not going anywhere. He owes Aki this much.

He lies there for a while, Aki flipping through the book, skipping the Taj Mahal, the temple in Salt Lake City, and he stops on the pictures of Kyoto. Shinjiro’s pretty sure Aki’s never been there, but the shapes are familiar. He looks for a moment, and something burns in the back of his throat, so he gets up, gets another glass of juice. When the hell was the last time he had juice? He holds the cup and stands at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey,” he calls up. “The television hooked up?” There’s a little twelve-inch behind the chippie counter, because Raj has an embarrassing Coupling addiction. The show’s shit, and so’s most of what’s on, but sometimes the old Python re-runs are fucked up enough to be funny, and Aki used to watch Sky Sports at the Y. Mostly he wants some noise. He doesn’t know how to fill the silence here.

“Ought be,” Gabranth says, and he leans into the hallway, no shirt, towel hanging over his shoulder. “Remote should be on top of the console.” He steps the rest of the way into the hall, bare-ass naked, and walks toward the bathroom. The pause to stretch just there is bastardry, plain and simple, but Gabranth doesn’t make any other moves, only heads for a shower. His thighs are—they just are, but he keeps the urge to touch or bite or just lick to himself. He sits next to Akihiko and flips endlessly through noise until Aki takes the remote, stops it on Coupling, tucks the remote under his leg. Shinjiro calls him a girl, tries to take it back, and Aki whacks him in the arm with the book. From there, the only thing to do is tackle him, and Akihiko grins, twists him over, pins him into the bed. Aki always paid too much attention in gym class, and he said one of the guys at the Y was teaching him wrestling. The ridiculous grin on his face is worth the fact that Aki’s winning, and he can’t help but lean up, kiss him. He waits for Aki to move away, give him the cold shoulder again like he probably deserves, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just glances up, glances over the back of the couch at the stairs, waits a moment, then kisses Shinjiro back. Upstairs, the water kicks on, and Shinjiro reaches, cups the back of Aki’s head, opens his mouth. This time, Akihiko does pull away, shakes his head, moves Shinjiro’s hand to his back, thinks better of it, pushes Shinjiro’s hand until it’s right on his skinny, perfect ass. Shinjiro pushes his luck and wriggles his hand under the waist of Aki’s jeans, his briefs, until it’s bare skin. Aki looks at him, bites his lip, then bites under his jaw. He’s going to have a fucking hickey. He tilts his head back, pulls Akihiko closer.

In the background, there’s the televisions jingles at commercials, the clanking of the old, expensive pipes, the excess of hot water, and there’s the hot of Akihiko’s mouth, his hands, and there’s no sense getting their clothing messy if they just washed it. The sheets are smooth and soft and he’d think how sad it is that that’s good enough to think about, but then Akihiko’s on top of him again, biting down his chest, licking across the upside-down kanji on his ribs. That one hurt, but it’s one he’s glad is there, one he did for himself, when he decided to leave Japan. When Aki gets his tongue on his hipbone, drags his teeth on the jut of it, he knows he’s not going to be able to wait. He half sits up, taps Aki’s side.

“Turn around,” he says, and Aki just stares at him for a moment. Then he grabs the remote, clicks the volume up three more bars, and he shifts, his knees on either side of Shinjiro’s face. It’s awkward, the angle’s completely awkward, and he’s afraid Aki’s going to get more of the scrape of his teeth than he wants, but when he gets Aki’s cock in his mouth, and there’s the heated wet around his own, the geometry doesn’t fucking matter. Aki’s muffled moan is pure, perfect vibration, and he gives it back, pulls Aki’s hips toward his mouth, just a little, and it’s enough, just like this.

When Aki comes, it almost chokes him, but it’s good, and when he does, he digs his fingers hard into Shinjiro’s thigh, like he means it, and it finishes him. When he gets his breath back, he rolls out from under, turns, and even though they’re kind of upside down on the mattress, the pillows in the other direction, they lay there for a while. Aki turns onto his side, but he reaches, pulls Shinjiro against his back. Shinjiro tugs the sheet up over them both, sort of, and Akihiko takes his hand, tucks it over his chest.

He’s tired. They’re both tired, and he twitches a little, drifting off, and Aki grips his arm tighter.

“Don’t make me hold you down.” He sounds…comfortable, though his throat rasps a little more now. Akihiko yawns.

“Maybe later,” Shinjiro says, and the television’s still a little loud, but he’s not moving to switch it off.

When Akihiko’s mouth on his neck wakes him sometime near dawn, they’re still the wrong way on the mattress, but there’s a blanket where there wasn’t one before, and the television lies silent. He spares a sleep-fogged thought for wondering that he didn’t wake up when Gabranth did it, for being a little worried, but Aki stretches against him, his hands warm and nothing at all damp in the air, and maybe, for this hour, there isn’t anything to worry about.