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If there’s nothing left to lose, it’s quite easy, actually, to try something stupid.
So it is that Akira finds himself straightening up as he’s faced with the reality— ha!— of Akechi turning coldly away from him, hand on the door, to slip away into the frozen dark. So it is that he hears his own voice say:
“Akechi.”
A pause, a little too measured. The way his rival’s eyes shut is just barely visible in his reflection in the window; the way he breathes, careful, in-wait-out, too obvious to be natural. His hands flex at his sides.
“What?”
Akira says— inadequate, perhaps, but true— “You don’t have to leave, you know.”
A sharp inhalation. Akira grimaces.
“Not like that,” he amends, “I meant what I said. Just— um— I mean. If… if you have, what, fourteen, fifteen hours to live, do you…”
He pauses. Swallows. Holds the frozen stare in the windowpane.
“I guess I just don’t think you should spend your last night on Earth alone,” he finishes, softer than he really wants. Akechi’s brow furrows, his posture tight, and Akira can taste that he’s about to bolt, so; “It was bad when I did it, and I wasn’t even really dying.”
Akechi actually turns at that, looking stricken for a fraction of a second before cool determination sweeps back over it. “Akira-”
Akira takes a measured breath of his own. “I don’t want… to have regrets. This time.”
There’s a heavy silence. Then, quiet, “And what regrets would my staying here assuage, Joker?”
I never said anything, he doesn’t say. I thought I had time to do it better than this.
“Maybe I just want whatever I can have,” he says. It’s wistful; his voice isn’t really doing what he wants it to, but that’s—
Fine. It’s fine. If anyone deserves to see him sans composure, it’s Akechi.
Akechi, who swallows and says, again, even less certain, “Akira…”
“If I’m going to lose you either way,” Akira says, “If— if there isn’t any more reason to play this stupid game. Maybe I want to have a little bit more of you. Maybe—”
Maybe I want you to die knowing someone loved you dies on his useless tongue. Maybe that’s the most important gift I can give you. Maybe it’s the cruelest revenge I could imagine.
“Maybe it would suck less tomorrow,” he actually manages, “If I got to be a little bit selfish tonight.”
Akechi stares at him for a long time. It can’t be that long, not really, maybe a minute at most, but it feels endless, timeless, indescribable.
Then he laughs, almost silently, just once; and he says, “Whatever makes it easier for you to fight,” and he sits back down at the bar. Akira’s heart does something funny and violent in his chest that he’s pretty sure it learned from some kind of awful corny old martial arts movie.
He texts Futaba a request to hold onto Morgana, pushes his glasses up his nose, and slips behind the counter.
“Great,” he says calmly. He is perhaps less calm than he’s ever been. “Coffee?”
“It’s eight,” says Akechi disdainfully, “We have an infiltration tomorrow.”
Akira hums. “Decaf?”
“Don’t insult me.”
God, he’s such a jackass. Akira’s heart stops its kicking to compress instead, stealing his breath, so fond it aches.
“Whatever His Highness wishes,” he says; Akechi rolls his eyes. “Seriously, what do you want?”
Another endless silence. A little gentler this time, maybe.
“I don’t want anything,” says Akechi, but then he’s always been a liar.
Akira is too. They play chess. Just one game, technically, but a slow one, sedate considering the participants, and of course Akechi crushes him into paste because for all he’s better now than he was when they first played he’s really only managed to get even halfway to good at shogi. And they don’t talk about it.
Well, they talk about the fact that Akira lost, or at least Akechi cackles gleefully about it, mean and nasty and so endearing Akira forgets how to breathe. But they don’t talk about it.
That’s okay.
Eventually Akira sighs and turns off the main lights and says, “Do you want to come upstairs?”— and he’s fully expecting Akechi to say no, to demur that he’s been here long enough and they need to be rested for the fight, but he doesn’t. He sighs, instead, and rolls his eyes, and throws his fancy coat up on the rack by the version of the Sayuri that wouldn’t be here in Maruki’s “better” universe with his gloves crammed in a pocket; and he heads up without a word, leaving Akira, as always, to chase after.
By the time Akira’s finished yanking off his apron and darting up the staircase Akechi has already settled on his dogshit godawful couch, posture tight and defensive, face unreadable. He’s tucked himself into the corner, legs crossed and arms folded, a silent sentinel in a room that has never matched him.
Akira flops down on the edge of the bed and pretends not to be affected by the way that dark gaze follows him.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he says, and Akechi’s blank expression turns into a scowl.
“What the hell am I going to do with a penny.”
Akira shrugs. “Hit up the metaphor store, I guess. What’s on your mind, Akechi?”
He probably deserves the flat stare that one gets him.
“Take a guess,” says Akechi, positively dripping disdain.
He’s at a crossroads here. He could fold first, say something so sincere it would make Akechi want to throttle him and hope it works, or…
He could also be really, really annoying.
It’s not even a choice, in the end. Akira grins brightly, kicks his feet, and says, “You’re so captivated by my good looks and devilish charm that it’s awed you into silence.”
“Oh my god,” says Akechi.
“I fucked up a gambit earlier and it made you dream of kissing me under the moonlight. You’re trying to figure out how to phrase a last-minute marriage proposal.”
“Akira.”
“Do you think gay marriage is allowed in this reality? We could test it. Maybe if I text him Maruki will make it so the courthouse is still open at this hour.”
Testily: “I have no desire to go to a courthouse with you ever again for any reason.”
Fair enough, but, “Even if I wore one of those bunny suits?”
Akechi abandons his protective-armadillo posture in favor of dropping his face into his hands. His voice is muffled when he asks— rhetorically, probably— “Why didn’t I go home?”
“I’m telling you, it’s the devilish charm,” says Akira. “I’m irresistible. You’re drawn to my raw sexual magnetism.”
“I want to throw you out a window.”
“New kink for me, but I can work with it.”
“Are you incapable of being serious for extended periods of time? Are you punishing me?” He massages his temples. “What the hell do you want, Akira?”
Akira, who had opened his mouth to say yes and maybe, shuts it again. Pauses.
Says, “I just want to spend time with you.”
“Why? To aggravate me?”
Akira frowns. “No,” he says, “It’s- I don’t know. I told you, I just want… as much of you as I can have. If you’re going to be gone.”
Akechi lowers his hands, his expression doing something uncertain and complicated. “So why the jokes?”
“I mean, my name is-”
“Joker, I swear to god.”
He laughs. “Okay, okay. I guess it just seemed like you didn’t really feel up to a big serious talk, so I was—” He pauses. Swallows. Shoves it back down. “I didn’t want to spend all night in miserable silence.”
“I don’t see what there is to talk about,” says Akechi quietly. “This is already over. You don’t have anything to fix.”
“Maybe, but… whether or not you’re, like, existentially alive, you’re here,” Akira says. He pushes himself to his feet, padding over to the couch to put a hand carefully on Akechi’s arm(Akechi flinches) and bend closer to him(he matches this, seemingly unwittingly— the thing about magnetism was a joke, but by the way he moves…) “And as long as you’re here and I’m here I feel like— I mean-” He forces his breath steady. “I don’t know, man. I care about you.”
Louder this time, more unsettled: “Why!?”
Hell of a question. Akira shrugs.
“Guess I just have bad taste,” he says. He sits down next to Akechi and, in a moment of what is either bravery or deep stupidity, leans against his shoulder, pressing them together shoulder to hip to knee. “Maybe I don’t— mm.”
Akechi exhales shakily, but he doesn’t go for a gun, which is probably progress. “Spit it out.”
“I don’t want to lose you at all,” Akira admits quietly, “But if I have to, is it so stupid to take what I can get?”
“You keep—” Another breath, sharp but measured; Akechi’s hands flex in his lap. Akira wants more than almost anything to lace their fingers together. “Stop talking around it, Akira. What do you want?”
Everything. Nothing. To hold his hand, to shatter him to pieces, to kiss him and kill him and fuck him and make him smile from across the room. To drag him down to the courthouse where they fell apart the first time and bend reality until it breaks so he can have the honor of being Japan’s first and only seventeen-year-old existentially questionable gay widower. To make him a cup of coffee with slightly more sugar than he says he wants and hear the satisfied little sigh he always does when he tastes it. To rip his throat out with his teeth, carve out his own heart and make him eat it, to—
“I want whatever you’re willing to give me,” he says quietly, “For as long as I can have it.”
“Akira…”
“I hope you’re not dead,” he adds, “I don’t trust that you’re dead. Maybe Maruki was lying. Maybe there’s something else. But if there isn’t— if this is it—”
His will wavers. He slips his hand over Akechi’s, gripping his palm, and the fact that he isn’t rebuffed makes it even harder not to cry. “—If this is the last time I’ll ever get to be with you, I just…”
“You’re only hurting yourself,” says Akechi. He squeezes Akira’s hand.
“That’s okay. I’ve always liked a little pain.”
It’s meant to be a joke, but the trouble with trying to make the truth funny is it doesn’t always work; Akechi just looks at him, face calculating and a little sad, and then he sighs, and slumps against him, and brings their joined hands up to press his lips against Akira’s knuckles.
“Idiot,” he murmurs, letting go, and Akira says, “Yeah,” and—
It’s not what he had imagined. The Akira of November had fantasized about biting and wrestling, sharp and angry; the Akira of July had daydreamed about soft laughter under endless blue, fingers linked and mouths still sweet with drinks that cost too much; the Akira of two weeks ago had distracted himself almost to the point of injury imagining being called names by a rough-voiced monster in a skin-tight suit.
It’s not quite gentle, in reality, but it’s certainly not violent— it’s just warm, an insistent press of plush lips against his, strong hands catching his waist and tugging him close. He knots one hand in Akechi’s dorky sweater vest and tangles the other in his hair, a soft noise escaping him as he leans in as much as he can.
“You can’t honestly think this will make it easier,” Akechi breathes, so Akira kisses him again to make him shut up. It seems to work; when Akira licks into his mouth he makes a pleased noise and tugs at him, urging him into his lap, cool fingers slipping under his shirt. His thighs are strong between Akira’s, his lips insistent, teeth hungry, and damn holy shit this is a lot better than the awkward fumbling he’d done in middle school—
Every thought flees Akira’s head at once when Akechi slips a hand into his hair and tugs, yanking his head back and a noise he hadn’t even been aware he could make out with it. The smug little bastard chuckles breathlessly against his skin as he ducks down to kiss below Akira’s jaw, dark and self-satisfied. Akira doesn’t even have the bandwidth to be indignant about it, so he does his best to maintain conversation instead.
“If I wanted easy I wouldn’t— ah- be into you,” he laughs, the sound turning into something between a moan and a yelp as it earns him a sharp bite, then another, that smart mouth working bruises all down his neck. “Mm- should have known you’d- you’d be bitey. H-holy shit.”
A tongue smooths over some of the sore spots, longer and warmer than Akira was maybe expecting it to be, and Akechi says, serenely, “I’m going to make it fucking impossible to hide that you did this. It’ll go away in reality, but I want every one of your little flock to see you and know.”
He shivers. Akechi notices.
“Do you like that?” he asks. It lands in a weird halfway-point between mocking dirty talk and genuine uncertainty, like he’s not sure if he’s right, so Akira forgoes his instinct to tease in favor of dropping his head more fully into Akechi’s grasp and making a sort of needy, incoherent noise of affirmation; that gets him a fond laugh, his rival nuzzling the junction of his shoulder for a moment, the hand under his shirt tugging him closer. “Oh, you really are cute, huh?”
“Told you,” Akira manages, strangled. Akechi nips his skin.
“Yes, yes, your devilish charm,” he laughs. He pulls back, licking his lips(and holy fuck, his tongue actually is weird— for a second it’s long and twisting and eerie-burning-red, his teeth too sharp, and then he spots Akira looking and it’s suddenly regular and human again) and meeting Akira’s eyes with a smile. “I’m helplessly enthralled, et cetera. Tell me, when you say whatever I’ll give you—”
“Assume I am down to try basically every weird fetish until proven otherwise,” Akira says, maybe too fast, and Akechi snorts. “And also yes, I want to make out and-or sleep with you. If that was— uncertain.”
“I still don’t really understand,” says Akechi fondly, scratching the back of his neck— which is apparently a lot more sensitive than he thought it was, holy shit— “But… if it won’t break your resolve…”
Another kiss. This one is deeper, needier, possessive hands exploring Akira’s body as that fucking tongue of his snakes into his mouth, and it’s absolutely not worth it to break the thing early but when they do come apart Akira says, “Hey, what the hell is up with your tongue, by the way?”
Akechi blinks. His face goes slightly red, an expression on it like he’s not sure if he should be embarrassed or smug— after a moment of reading Akira’s energy, though, he seems to settle on the latter.
“What, this?” he says, and drops that pretty mouth of his open in a wide, unsettling grin. His teeth are wrong, suddenly, between one moment and the next— sharp and shark-jagged, edged in red— and as his tongue lolls out it unfurls over his bottom lip and down his chin, inhuman and monstrous. It’s one of the hottest things Akira has ever seen, but he also feels like someone would have surely noticed it if he’d had all that going on in interviews.
“Um,” he says, strangled, his own face burning, “…Yes?”
Akechi laughs and shuts his mouth; when he grins again he’s back to humanity, teeth just their usual amount of sharper than average, tongue pink and expected. He says, “One of Loki’s little gifts. I can’t change a lot about my appearance outside the Metaverse, but I do enjoy what I have. Honestly, I was a little worried I’d lost it when I felt Hereward; I’m glad to have been wrong.”
“That’s— wow,” says Akira. Akechi hums.
“Honestly, I’d be amazed if you didn’t have a similar ability,” he says, letting go of him so he can bring a hand to his chin, eyes far away as he thinks.
“Akechi-”
“—Given both your capacity for wearing different masks and the nature of Arsène Lupin-”
“Akechi…”
“-as a famously fluid figure, it would only make sense-”
“Akechi.”
“-although I suppose Loki’s nature involves more true shapeshifting than— hm? What?” He blinks, tilting his head.
“We were sort of doing something?” Akira says. He’s trying not to laugh. He’s also trying not to pout. He has no idea how effective either attempt is.
“Oh,” says Akechi, and, “Yes,” and, “Whoops,” because despite the fact that he is a bitter and jaded murderer with a mean streak the size of the grand canyon he is also, at his core, a huge fucking dweeb, and Akira would love to keep kissing him.
It’s a wish he doesn’t need a megalomaniacal demigod to grant; Akechi’s lips are on his again as soon as he’s done speaking, his hands running along Akira’s body— feeling up his sides, his hips, pulling him closer with a rough handful of his ass. His tongue pushes deep into his mouth again, deeper than it should be able to, and it’s weird and inhuman and a little gross and he almost gags when it rubs up against his soft palate but it’s good, too, addictive, like the burning length of it is filling him up completely. It forces its way into his throat and he hears himself whine, hips jerking, hands spasming, pressing every inch of himself he can into Akechi’s hold.
He’s so caught up in the freaky unnatural kiss that he barely notices it when Akechi’s hands hook under his thighs, so it’s genuinely very startling when he’s picked up— he yelps, clinging tighter to Akechi on instinct, nearly choking on the tongue in his throat. It’s still a bummer when it retracts, though.
“Whoops,” says Akechi again, completely unrepentant this time. He hitches Akira slightly higher; it’s only a couple of steps to the bed, but it’s still a hell of a ride, and Akira is cackling in breathless disbelief as he’s tossed back onto his shitty mattress, even as the menace carrying him snickers and follows him down to bite ravenously at his lips.
“You— you jackass,” Akira laughs, “You could have warned me!”
“Wouldn’t have been as funny, though,” Akechi points out. He runs a hand up Akira’s torso under his shirt, roving greedily over his skin, his grin twitching even wider as a brush to one nipple makes him gasp and twitch. “I want to make a ruin of that composure of yours, Joker.”
Akira, nobly, does not ask if that’s a reasonable dying wish. He wants to sustain the vibe. Instead he huffs and drags him closer and says, “Do it then, coward.”
He’s answered with teeth on his neck, breaking away just long enough to yank his shirt over his head so Akechi can work more marks into him; he glances up as he mouths down his chest, holding Akira’s eyes with his own burning ones as his freaky evil nightmare tongue curls out of his mouth and along his skin, twisting over and around his nipple, knife teeth just grazing his areola— Akira slaps a hand over his own mouth to muffle the noise that wants to drag out of him, which makes Akechi’s eyes fold with amusement.
He lifts himself up slowly, drawing off Akira’s chest with an obscene undulation of his tongue, and says— rough, low, unhinged in a way that sounds half like he wants to fuck Akira and half like he wants to rip him apart, “Don’t hide from me.”
“I- ah-!” he twitches and gasps, hips jerking, when Akechi’s hands snap out to trap his wrists with one hand. He’s always been physically at least a little stronger than Akira is, and he’s not being nice; even though with the mediocre leverage he’s got it’s probably an escapable pin, realistically, it’s still— a lot. “Akechi—”
“You want whatever I’ll give you? You want me? Give me all of you, then,” he says. He does a funny kind of sinuous-freaky sort of wiggle that ends with both of them naked from the waist down, Akechi straddling Akira’s hips, curling over him so he’s all he can see and grinding against him so he’s all he could possibly think about. “Be mine for a little while, Akira. Let me have you.”
Akira doesn’t quite have the articulation left in him to say you already do, so he just moans instead, rutting his hips up, laughing breathlessly when he hits an angle that makes Akechi curse and grind down.
“Hah— exactly, just like that,” he breathes. “I want the worst parts of you, the parts you don’t want anyone to know you have— mmh- I want— want your voice, Akira, want your greed, I want—” He folds and presses his forehead to the crook of Akira’s neck, panting into his skin. His voice is soft, reverent, as crazed as it’s ever been. “I want you, you stupid, angry, mortal thing. You want to be selfish, Akira? Be— fuck- be fucking selfish.”
And Akira—
Tomorrow, he’ll prise himself delicately from arms that tried twice to kill him; and he'll get up, and he’ll put on one mask and then the rest, and he’ll be a hero again. Tomorrow he’ll make the choices he needs to have made.
Tonight he jerks one wrist out from the temporarily-clawed grasp of a boy he should hate and tangles his fingers in hair he’s never stopped wanting to touch, and he drags him up so he can nick his lips on the teeth he got from the monster at the core of his heart, and he loves him so much it’s almost enough.