Archive of Our Own

"Shinri's pining."

Flayon announces this one evening around a mouthful of half-chewed fruit, casual as anything. It's so like Flayon to use words like tripwires; he'll just say the most off-the-wall shit imaginable, derail every conversation in the room, and leave everyone sputtering, trying to figure out how the fuck he got from point A, skipped straight over points B, C, D and E and arrived confidently at Appendix XII.3. It's disarming and more than a little maddening.

He's sharing a mismatched deck of cards with Hakka over the long meeting table, but based on the amount of bickering happening, neither of them have seemed to agree on what it is exactly they're playing. Somehow, Hakka still manages to be winning.

"What makes you say that?" Hakka doesn't seem particularly put out by Flayon's non-sequitur, more interested in strategically rearranging his hand (three of hearts, jack of spades, king of spades, draw four, Sableye, and Ringowurm, the Dragon Guarding the Hundred Apples.) He holds them to his chest and sticks his tongue out at you when he catches you looking, even though you're not even in the game. Whichever game this mess is supposed to be.

"Ionno. Doesn't he seem kind of sad lately? Kind of, mmm. Wistful?" Flayon shrugs.

"He's always like that," you say, without looking up from your screen or giving it much thought, because it's something you've always noticed about him, from the beginning, that he's never quite shaken his whole stoic-lonely-wandering-warrior schtick. It’s been months now.

Flayon squawks no he's not defensively and Hakka says, through an incredulous chuckle, what the fuck are you talking about, dude and it does make you finally stop tapping absently at the game on your display and pay full attention to the conversation at hand. They're both looking at you like you're a little stupid and, fine, often enough they'd be right, but you're not taking the L on this one. Absolutely not.

Because it's obvious Shinri's always been a little sad, and that's not on you if they can't see it. You have to figure that's kind of what happens when you let one failure dictate the next decade-plus of your life instead of getting right back on the horse and pretending you meant to fall. If you had failed out of clown college and then, fuck, you don't know, dedicated the rest of your life roaming the continent making balloon animals and denying yourself any and all emotional attachments, you'd probably get a case of the perpetual bummers too. Fortunately for you, Gavis Bettel doesn't know when to quit, and that resilience means you’re now a perfectly capable, well-adjusted adult and functioning member of society.

(Pause for laughter.)

But—no shade to Shinri! He's doing great, really!—there's always a hesitation there, a split-second between Let's go! and On my way spent realizing oh, they mean me, like sometimes he forgets that he's part of something now. He's quieter than you think he really wants to be, sits to the back or side more often than you think he deserves, as though he doesn't know where–or if–he fits in.

It's a shame, because you honestly think Shinri's pretty great. He's strong and brave and so so SO smart; he's definitely the core at the center of your little subgroup, even if he doesn't realize it, and the boys adore him and aren't shy about showing it, deferring to his perceived authority at every turn. You do too, in your own awkward way, even though you actually have seniority over him, pretending you think you're his peer when you know he outclasses you in every category. He's just that put-together.

You trust him with your life more than you trust yourself, and it's not even a fucking contest.

So it's a little alarming to realize that the perpetual deep undercurrent of loneliness has become pronounced enough that the boys see it now, too.

(It never once occurs to you that they might be right. Why the fuck would Shinri spend time pining? Like? Hello? Who wouldn't want—oh, they've moved on.)

"...Oh shit, do you think I'll get a new mom? I mean, another mom?"

"Gee, Hakka, how come your dad lets you have two moms?"

"Hahaha shut the fuck up—"

"It's cute though, right? Shinri with a crush. Who do you think it is?"

It's not cute. It's upsetting, in the dark, irritating way you get when something is happening that you don't understand and you know everyone is going to make you feel like you're the stupid one for not being on the same page. Cranky and defensive and prickly. An incessant, nagging itch between your shoulder blades that you can't reach to scratch.

Well. If Shinri is sad then it is your job to cheer him up, and he's definitely just a little sad about something inconsequential and not pining and you'll fucking prove it to these idiots when you fucking fix him. Easy peasy.

Hakka slaps his draw four on the table and Flayon starts screaming YOU BITCH, loud enough to echo through the hall, and suddenly you very much need to be somewhere else.

Actually, Shinri's out on a scouting mission and doesn't return until four days later, by which point you're climbing the walls with manic, pent up anxiety. He comes back with good news (reports of corruption have been over exaggerated, he handled what damage there was on his own, you'll have to keep one eye on that area of the map, it seems prone to glitches but all-in-all everyone there should be safe for now,) and Altare is happy, so the mood is high and the time feels right for a minor celebration as soon as you can get him alone, courtesy of a bottle of mystery spirits plucked from the liquor cabinet in the lounge. It has a tag with a goofy cartoon of Vesper's face saying MINE! on it, but on second thought, no it doesn't. No one can prove anything.

Shinri spends most of his first day back hovering on the outskirts of the group, again, and you're so keenly aware of how reluctant he is to shoulder his way into a crowd, content to simply orbit and let the louder, rowdier boys lead the show.

Could never be you.

Eventually he excuses himself from the group to go to bed early. You give him a ten minute lead before you extract yourself from under Magni's arm and do the same. It causes so much more of a disruption when you leave (Bettel, stay! It's so early, man, c'mon, have another drink, let's play a game, did I tell you about –) that you find yourself getting upset on Shinri's behalf over it. Shinri's good company, too, why didn't anyone beg him to stay?

After popping out back to the caravan for your pilfered bottle, you sneak up the back stairs. The're a portion of the second floor dedicated to visitor's quarters, a series of modest but comfortable suites meant for temporary lodging for travelers or new members. Most of you have some sort of permanent deluxe accommodations, either here at the hall or elsewhere nearby, but Shinri and Hakka are both new to this neck of the woods and are pretty far from home. They'll probably get bigger, more permanent lodging down the line if they want it. Personally, you've abstained; you have a pop-up caravan round back crammed to the gills with your entire material fucking existence because you never could stand the idea of living anywhere you couldn't just pick up and leave with the moment you got restless, and packing is for suckers.

(Flayon swears up and down that he sleeps in the robot, but you've got a working theory that he actually nests in Altare's walls, chewing the wires. You can't prove anything yet, but you'll catch his creepy little ass at it one day.)

You give Shinri's door a good, solid shave and a haircut two bits knock and lean in, listening for movement on the other side. You don't actually expect him to be asleep yet; the way you've heard it, he doesn't sleep much at all, anymore. You barely hear any movement at all before the door slides open and you find your ear very nearly pressed to the broad, bare expanse of Shinri's chest.

Jesus, doesn't this guy ever wear any fucking clothes?

You salvage the awkward situation by pulling a goofy pose and brandishing the bottle as though you'd just produced it from your hat. "Hey, big guy! Welcome back, and stuff. For you."

"What's this?" Shinri inspects the unmarked bottle skeptically, which is smart of him, because for all you know it could be home-brewed toilet wine.

"Haha, fuck if I know. Stole it."

"Er… From where?" He grimaces and holds the bottle gingerly at arms length, like it might be full of snakes, or come alive and bite him.

"Don't worry! I got it from the stash. I wouldn't take anything from the lab, if that's what you're thinking. I don't have a death wish."

"Hey, I don't know. I know you two are close. I don't actually know what you guys get up to in there." His delivery is a little stilted, like he's skirting around saying something, but you couldn't even begin to guess what. Eventually, he allows himself close enough to the bottle to hold it up to the light, squinting through the dark glass. Apparently satisfied there's nothing alive swimming in it, he shrugs and says, "Thanks. But what's the occasion?"

"Do I need a reason? Just missed you, that's all,"

He hesitates, looks from you, to the bottle, then back to you again as if deciding whether or not he should just take the offering and close the door in your face. He's got that air about him again, that deep, quiet sadness that only you ever seem to sense. You aim your dopiest, most expectant smile at him as if to say, Hey-hey, it's your good buddy Bettel! Look at how silly he is! You should definitely invite him in for a drink! And hope your meaning gets across.

"Okay," he says at last. "Come on in."

Nice.

Shinri steps aside to let you into his little suite. It's the first time you've been, even though he's only just across the hall from Hakka, who has you over all the time for drinks or music or gossip or whatever. That seems a little strange, maybe. Maybe you should have made a point of visiting sooner. Maybe a better friend would have.

His room is tidy and spartan, which seems in character for a guy who spent his whole adult life with only whatever he could carry on his back and hasn't quite learned the singular joy of accumulating so much stuff that you're constantly tripping over it. The walls are mostly bare and the surfaces–the desk by the window and the low table in the center of the room–are clean and uncluttered, save for a few predictable personal effects: a very small potted plant here, a few books lined up neatly there, a small collection of photos, physical and holo, arranged neatly and purposefully. A few very Hakka-esque drawings pinned over his desk, and a very cute soapstone carving of a fish, curled like a half moon and no longer than your thumb, perched on the windowsill. A tiny, well maintained kitchenette, with a coffee maker and a hot plate and a selection of personal condiments he probably doesn't want anyone using up (nonsense, who among you would take someone else's food? Not you, definitely,) and not much else, not when the hall has its own fully stocked kitchen downstairs. All in all, it's not sterile, not unlived in, but it's like the beginning of something, a home at the start of its life cycle. Small, but trying.

You are going to start bringing him so many fucking presents.

It's a small miracle you remember to take your shoes off just inside the door, but if you'd remembered sooner, maybe you wouldn't have worn thigh-high three-inch heels. Shinri opens his mouth to say don't worry about it, it's fine as you start the laborious process of unbuckling garters and balancing precariously on one foot, but he's probably just being polite because you're a chore he's resigned himself to for the evening and he's a gracious host. It doesn't matter, because you're going to be culturally sensitive, and also you still suffer occasional sporadic memory loss from the last time you forgot to take your shoes off in Hakka's room and he briefly channeled his mother and beaned you in the back of the head with a five-inch-platform solid wood geta.

So yeah, you'll be taking your shoes off.

Shinri offers his shoulder to lean on while you do, presses his warm hand in the small of your back to keep you from falling over. He is so damn dependable.

"Actually, I have something for you, too," he says when you've finished, "Have a seat." He moves to the little kitchenette to grab a pair of mugs from a shelf above the coffee maker while you sit cross-legged on a cushion on the floor. The chipped mug he sets in front of you is purple, and you instinctively know without being told that this is Hakka's mug. You suppose it makes sense for Hakka to spend enough time with Shinri that he has his own mug here, it just… never really occurred to you. He'd never mentioned it before.

He also drops a fat plastic package on the table in front of you before he sits down on the cushion perpendicular and starts working the cork out of the bottle.

"Gasp! Shinri! Did you bring me back a present?" The childlike enthusiasm is only about 20% bit; you're genuinely hugely fucking delighted. From the package you can tell it's food, some kind of snack, and knowing your tastes are well documented, it's probably something sugary.

You're already peeling off your gloves and tearing open the bag.

"They were my favorite when I was a kid but they're a bit too sweet for me now. I thought you might like them, though."

"Awwww, you were thinking about meee~" you tease, unserious, through a generous mouthful, making it sound a little more like awwwwoourfinkiaouteee. The snack is pleasantly textured, fluffy-crunchy puffed corn and roasted peanuts with a nice, sugary glaze that's going to prove addicting. Half the bag is gone before Shinri even gets the bottle open.

He does a sort of bashful, one-shouldered shrug. Always modest, this guy. You don't actually think he went out of his way to bring you back something from his expedition, that'd be–

"Oh, this is–" Shinri holds the open bottle under his nose, then pours a splash of it into his mug. The liquor is warm and dark, and smells spiced, which feels promising. He takes an experimental sip. "–Probably actually drinkable."

You push your mug in his direction, mouth full of junk food, and he pours a significant helping for you.

"Nice place. You thought about where you wanna go from here, yet?" you ask, after you swallow. You wash it down with a pull from your mug and let that first small, warm wave begin to spread gently through your bones. It passes without much effect. "Put in a requisition for more permanent digs?"

"Oh…no, not really. Honestly, this is fine."

You look around the tidy, barely lived-in room. "This is the starter kit, man. You're allowed to take up more space than this. Hakka's already talking about building a roost. We're gonna keep him in a coop on the roof like a racing pigeon."

This makes him laugh, big and warm and easy, a sound that translates to two gold stars and an A+ in your heart. "That's a good place for him. Keep him out of trouble."

"It's a start, anyway." You pour yourself another drink. "But really, don't you want something bigger? More personalized?"

"Maybe," he says, noncommittally. He runs his thumb around the ridge of his mug. "In time. Mostly I'm still getting used to having somewhere to come back to at all. Baby steps."

"Nah, c'moooon Shin, you need to put down roots. You keep treating this place like a motel you stay at between business trips and you might wander off one day and forget to come back."

Not that this is a recurring, anxiety-induced nightmare you've been having, or anything. Haha.

He lifts a skeptical eyebrow at you. "Don't you live in a trailer in the backyard?"

"That's the Var-Do DX 6000, fuck you very much, it's the best convertable tent/caravan all-in-one on the market. And I'm not going anywhere, dude, my friends are here. I'm happy here."

He nods without conviction.

"Your friends are here, too," you continue, feeling, with a desperate sort of urgency, that it is absolutely vital that he agrees with you.

"That's true," he says thoughtfully. "I can't leave you guys alone. You'd start cannibalizing each other within the week."

"Oh absolutely. But none of us has any meat on our bones so we'd all starve anyway. We need you, Shinri, who's going to keep up from killing each other? You keep us in line, you're–"

"The dad."

"Yeah! You-"

"I don't want to be the dad."

He tosses back another shot in the hole left by your stunned silence. He sets the mug back down and exhales a low, chesty growl through his nose that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up and your stomach do a cartwheel. You reach over on auto-pilot and pour another splash of liquor into his mug.

"The thing about being the dad," he continues, "is no one really wants their dad around. Dad's aren't cool. They wear socks with sandals and make dumb, out-of-touch jokes. They set curfews and enforce rules. You roll your eyes at dad when his back is turned." He sighs. "The kids wait until dad goes to bed before they're allowed to have fun."

"What are you talking about, dude?" you laugh, doing your level best to make it you're talking crazy talk incredulous and not ha ha whatever do you mean nervous, because, okay maybe he's onto something. You're not keen to admit it, especially not to his face, but he has…a certain effect on people. And it's not a bad thing, to be reliable and make the people around you feel safe and cared for. That's really all it is. Maybe the bit's gone on a bit too long, though.

Is this why he keeps hovering on the outskirts? Won't shoulder his way into the circle?

You toss back another shot. "No one thinks that about you. You're just…cool, okay. You've got your shit together, and we're disasters. It's intimidating. That's all. No one's– we're not waiting for you to leave to have fun. You're great, man. We all adore you."

"That's sweet. You're so sweet." The liquor has started going to your head already, probably, because you're starting to feel a little warm. You peel off your jacket, let it pool around you in a sloppy black-pink-purple half-moon on the floor with the gloves. "But they do," Shinri concludes. "I know you do. It makes me feel old. And kinda cringe."

"No, c'mon man–"

"I'm not even that old! They act so shocked when I say or do something they think is out of character, because they've built me up as someone I'm not, some kind of pure, polite, respectable…" He trails off, having lost the point of his train of adjectives. Downs another shot. He's nowhere near smashed yet, but he's definitely starting to get lubricated. "But that's not even who I am. I didn't ask to be the responsible one, y'know? I didn't volunteer to…to herd cats or be a hall monitor." He looks down into his mug and he just looks so fucking sad, like a pathetic, oversized, unusually handsome puppy, it makes you want to go downstairs and start knocking heads together. "I don't know why it's surprising. I have feelings too. I'm a guy, too. I want to be horny and act stupid and have fun, too. It's not weird. I don't want to be a dad, I never wanted to be your dad. I want to be loved."

The L-word is like a slap to the face, leaving you teetering on your heels and wheeling for balance. You can almost, almost believe he means it in a friendly way, a brotherly way, the same way you L-word the boys, except you know–you know, intrinsically, instinctually, by the twist of sadness in his voice–that's not how he means it. He may circle the group in a slightly larger orbit than the rest, but he is loved. The guild is a brotherhood. You're all loved.

But that's not what he's talking about. His crush–it's someone in the guild. It's one of the boys.

It has to be. Right?

You're white-knuckling your mug so hard it hurts.

He steals a quick glance at you, probably catches you looking exactly as cartoonishly shell-shocked as you feel, then looks sheepishly away. "Hey, don't say anything to Hakka though, okay?"

"O-of course not." You kind of have to assume Hakka's the exception anyway: it's not Shinri's fault his soft, supportive dad vibes spread and infected everyone else, but even if they hadn't, Shinri and Hakka would still be whatever it is that they are. A dark, terrifying thought burbles to the surface of the quagmire and you're forced to consider that it might be Hakka Shinri's pining for. It makes sense, and might explain why he's being so weird about it instead of just doing the normal thing and confessing or whatever it is people do when they catch feelings. The father/son thing is mostly just a bit, you think, but Hakka really does look up to Shinri like that, and Shinri's almost ten years his senior. It could get…uncomfortable.

You look down into your mug (Hakka's mug) and realize you wouldn't win in a fight against Hakka, which is a thought that surfaces completely unbidden, for no particular reason you can tell. You got lucky once, but it probably won't happen again.

"Trust me, I get it," you say at last, forcing your voice into something light and jovial. Deflect, change the subject, become the butt of the joke: "Are you kidding? I'm the crown prince of Never Taken Seriously. I'm a joke first and pretty face second and a person third, at best. At least they respect you, fuck."

Shinri huffs a wet little laugh; good. Redirect before he starts crying. You're doing great. "Everybody loves you, Bettel," he says with the kind of indulgent tone he might use if he were playing along with a child.

"They love a punchline, man. They love to know someone's a bigger fuckup than they are. That's my job, making people feel better about themselves. That, and what, filing? Because I can't be trusted with anything else." You throw your head back and laugh, a loud, wild thing. "You want to be loved? God damn, all I want is someone to be nice to me."

Quietly, he says, "I'd be nice to you."

"You are nice to me, dude, you've never not been nice to me," you say without thinking, because no one is nicer to you than Shinri. Hakka and Magni are your best friends, and Flay is always sweet in his own bizarre, unpredictable way, but Shinri is…different, somehow. Yeah, he's got the kind, comfortable, supportive dad energy going for him, but it's more than that. Man has the unwavering patience of a saint, and even when you've deliberately tested it, he's never once lost it. He's never called you stupid, or even implied it in a roundabout way, and he's always been quick to defend you when someone else does.

And he reminds you to eat when you don't feel like it, to drink water when you haven't been, and he never judges you too harshly when you've never tried something everyone else loves, and meets you halfway with a here, try it like this, you might like it this way. He's implied, on more than one occasion, that he actually admires you, which is frankly a little insane. He picks you first for teams, and he knows just what to say to shake you out of your sour moods, and he always laughs at your jokes, he brings you back presents when he travels —

And, and, and—

And honestly, it's a fucking miracle he doesn't put those big, strong hands around your scrawny neck and strangle the life out of you, because you still don't see it from a mile away, even when Shinri leans close and presses his liquor-damp lips to yours.

It only lasts a second; he's careful but sure, not pushy or eager, it's just…a brief, fragile thing that ends with the very soft, wet sound of lips parting, barely audible, even in your shell shocked silence, over your thundering heart and the beginning stages of what is shaping up to be lifelong tinnitus in your right ear.

He hovers in your personal airspace and you watch as his eyes open in slow motion; fierce, inhuman green-blue like pristine tropical shallows, teeming with dazzling golden fish and the sort of beautiful, razor-sharp coral that will slice open your feet the fucking second you dare dip your toe in, and he waits for you to say or do…something.

"What the hell," you giggle, "was that."

Well. Probably not that, asshole.

"I–" Shinri begins, then stops, then exhales a defeated, deflated little chuckle, the exact kind one makes when they realize they're actually an enormous fucking idiot. You're familiar with that one. You and that haha, well fuck feeling go way, way back. "Nothing." He settles back down a normal, not-close-enough-for-kissing distance from you. "It was nothing."

Then, tighter, as he swallows around the word and his face darkens with shame, "Sorry. I guess I'm drunk."

He's saying something else, but it fades into a bassy, far-distant-thunder rumble as Something Big and Complicated starts happening in your head, like a storm cloud gathering on the horizon. You reach over and clap your hand to his arm and say, "Shut up, man," and focus on keeping the poor, stressed-out little brain-hamster in your head spinning frantically on his wheel. "I'm trying to think."

He obliges. Because he's always so nice to you.

Shinri can't actually be that drunk. He's a big, healthy dude and it would take a lot more than three shots to get him wasted enough to put the moves on someone, a thing you've never once seen him even consider. Shinri is, however, sad. He's pining, Flayon says, he wants someone he can't have and he's feeling ostracized by his own brothers and the great yawning gulf of longing loneliness is threatening to swallow him. That still bothers you, like an itchy tag in the back of your shirt that you can't get to lie flat, but this isn't about you, this is about Shinri. You're here to take his mind off it, to make him laugh or get him drunk or make him forget. But it seems like what he wants—what he's asking for—is something more….material.

Huh.

So like…normally, this revelation would have you calling it a night and beating a hasty retreat. Anything else would be wildly out of character. The thing is…the thing is.

The thing is.

You kind of…don't want to?

Huh. That's a first.

It's almost—almost—like you're actually very eager to wriggle into the space between Shinri and the unspecified object of his affection. It's almost—but not quite, because, haha! Who would do such a thing? And why would such a thing ever occur to you?— like you came up here with a bottle of booze to get yourselves both a little liquored up and do exactly that.

Almost, but definitely not, because honest to god you didn't even know it was an option.

"Uhh." You swallow nervously. "This is. Is this allowed?"

Shinri doesn't say anything for a long, long time. Then he sucks in a breath and says, "Bettel. Sorry–has no one explained bisexuality to you?"

"No! I mean, yes, I know about—!" your face burns hot because obviously! But you spend so much time thinking about companionship or…intimacy as a someday-eventually-in-the-future-but-not-now inevitability that you stopped thinking of today as yesterday's tomorrow. You've been thinking of it as a when-I-grow-up concern for so long, you got to be twenty-seven without ever realizing you've been grown up. And now a very handsome dude—one of your best friends—has kissed you and is looking at you like today might be the day he wants you to start Thinking About It.

The list of people you'd be comfortable exploring those possibilities with begins and ends with Shinri, but you didn't know there was a list at all until like. Ninety seconds ago.

Your ungloved hand is still on his bare (pleasantly firm) forearm and it's so warm oh my god. Why is he so fucking warm. You're sweating.

Fuck.

You reluctantly remove your hand and wipe your damp palm on your shorts.

"Fuck you, man." Yes, that was obviously the correct thing to say! You are so good at this. "I meant: us specifically?"

"Uhm." He honestly doesn't seem totally confident, himself. "Why not?"

"I don't know? Seems like it might be an HR violation or something."

"You think Axel would care?"

"Well, no." The thing about Axel being HR is that it effectively means you don't have HR at all. The only good Axel does in HR is familiarizing himself with the rules so he can challenge himself to break them. Then, the uncomfortable truth: "I just didn't realize you were…an option?"

Shinri visibly winces. "Ouch," he says, not unkindly, but still.

"It's not you! Dude, you're objectively crazy hot and everyone knows it—" You know he's extraordinary in a way you've barely ever noticed yourself, except to be noncommittally jealous of. Even your brother, who only whistled and said holy shit, look at that guy when you brought Shinri back from Xenokuni, knows, and even then you were possessed with a powerful urge to do an act of violence against him you hadn't felt since you were both twelve and still regularly beat the shit out of each other for the crime of existing. "Haha! You're fuckin….husband material, man. You're literally a catch. I promise it's not you."

But how do you explain to him what it's like to preemptively remove yourself from every potential equation? The reason you haven't thought about Shinri like that isn't a failure on his part, it's because you don't spend a lot of time thinking about that sort of thing unprompted, in general. It's like….all your friends are obsessed with a film you've never seen, and they reference it constantly, and it's the basis of all their favorite in-jokes. You've been around them long enough to recognize when to laugh, or even parrot the references yourself, sometimes, to fit in, but you still don't really get it. You've been meaning to see the film yourself, you're not opposed to it or anything, it just…keeps slipping your mind, because it just doesn't seem that urgent. You've gone this long without seeing it, after all.

Shinri is saying, hey, wanna watch a movie with me? It's pretty good, and it's only after he's extended the invitation–plugged you into the equation–that you suddenly want to see this film very badly, and you're beginning to form some hypotheses on why exactly you feel so sick at the thought of him watching it with someone else.

"...It's me," you finish lamely. What else is there to say?

"I…sort of figured." Shinri says, very gently, and with the sort of caution that implies he knows exactly what you're trying to communicate. He's smart and sensitive like that. He drags a hand down his face. "Ouughhh, I shouldn't have done that. I'm so sorry."

"Nono, it's….it's okay! It's fine! Really." Now the hard part, because honestly? You're a bit of a cinephile, and you've been meaning to see this one for years: "I mean, it was barely anything, right? Haha, how would I even know if– it was over so fast! Hardly felt a thing."

Cool! You sound totally fucking deranged. You're doing great. Keep it up.

"It would probably take like…twwwooo?" you hazard through a nervous giggle, "Maybe three? More? To know if….if. Uh. You know."

The silence that follows is deafening. Your tinnitus rings like an ignored electronic security alarm far in the distance.

"...Yeah?" Shinri posits, after what feels like a lifetime. Maybe the corner of his mouth ticks up a fraction of an inch, but you'd be hard pressed to say for sure, since you're only stealing glances at him through the corner of your eye while pretending to inspect the contents of your mug. You lift the mug for a super casual and not-at-all-awkward sip only to find it completely dry. A fact you would have known, incidentally, if you had actually bothered looking at it.

Does your clownery never cease?

Shinri huffs a fond little half-laugh through his nose and moves to pour you another shot. You down it eagerly, let the warmth flood your bloodstream and loosen your bones before you brave another proper look at him.

He's leaning on the table with his chin in his hand, just…looking at you. Considering you, thoughtfully, probably thinking about what a stupid fucking goofball you are, unable to work up the courage to just ask for another kiss, or how you don't deserve it, and that it was definitely a mistake to give you the first–

"You might be right."

"Whuh?" Listen. You don't hear it often.

"I think you might be right." Shinri downs another shot himself, exhales a growl through his nose, and says, softly, "Okay."

There's not so much space between you that he can't cross it with a shift and a lean, putting all of his considerable weight on his palm on the floor by your knee and leaning close, looming over you like a wave about to crash.

He smells so nice up close, earthy and masculine, maybe cedar or sage, and something else too, underneath, something electric, sharp like the air before a thunderstorm. Part of you recognizes that electricity as danger, a terrible force of nature and a thing to shelter from until the storm passes, but it's a small, stupid part of you and frankly it doesnt know what the fuck it's talking about. It'll keep its mouth shut if it knows what's good for it.

Shinri reaches out and gently cradles the side of your face in one of his big, careful hands. He doesn't deliberately urge you closer, but he doesn't have to; you lean into his touch instinctively. God, he's just unfairly good-looking. Strange how you never noticed how thick his eyelashes were before. His bone structure is incredible, actually. You'd kill for his cheekbones.

"I'd kill for your cheekbones," you say, because the little brain-hamster in charge of filtering your most insane and unhinged thoughts has died of a stress-induced heart attack, rest in peace you useless little shit.

"Well," Shinri chuckles, a warm sound you hear low in the pit of your stomach, somehow. "I'd like to keep them, if that's okay. I like them where they are."

"Me too, now that you mention it."

He smiles, a dimple in his left cheek and a flash of sharp teeth; so much of him is something fierce and dangerous wrapped in something soft and comforting, like he could either tuck you into bed or put you in the ground, and honestly? Either option sounds like a really incredible way to spend the evening.

He closes the distance and kisses you, and this time, you're ready.

It's soft like the first, brief and sweet, a careful toe in the water, and this time you have the wherewithal to respond before he breaks. A friendly little mutual smooch. He looks to you for feedback.

"One more," you say.

So he kisses you again, slower and more deliberate, and doesn't break after the first parting smek of your mouths, but tries for two, three more of the same: soft, careful, but laced with the beginnings of something warmer, richer, deeper.

"'Nother," you squeak, voice breaking.

And so he fucking kisses you. Like a unexpected wave, he knocks you off your feet and pulls you out of the safety of the shallows and into the deep with his breath in your lungs and his teeth in your lower lip, hooked like a fucking fish. You whimper, probably, but hand to god you don't actually know. If you do, he swallows the sound down into his chest and smothers it with a growl of his own.

"That was three," he says, voice thick and syrupy, when his mouth is his own again, and already you are craning toward him, needy for more. "What's the verdict?"

"Oh, you know." Your voice is unnaturally high and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. "Not bad, not bad. It's– there's a– I mean, who can really—"

He cuts you off. "Come here," he says, settling back on his cushion.

"'Kay," you chirp, and obediently crawl around to his side of the table on your hands and knees. He takes your face in both of his hands and kisses your bones into fucking jelly. Mercifully, he gathers up your useless body and pulls it close.

You aren't totally sure what to do with your own hands anymore, he's just got so much bare skin and you don't think you'll survive that kind of contact just yet even while he's breathing fire straight into your belly, but when he senses your awkwardness, he helps guide your arms around his neck instead. It puts you half in his lap, your thin, narrow chest pressed into his big, plush pectorals and separated only by the thin, flimsy silk of your shirt. He's so fucking big, jesus christ; you can feel the size of his hands when they settle on your waist and it makes you lightheaded and warm all over. He's probably twice as wide as you, easy, and he cradles you close to his body like you're something skittish and fragile, too new to the world to be left to your own devices.

"You good?" he breathes against your mouth. Your arms are wrapped so tightly around his neck that he couldn't get the space to back up even if he wanted it.

"Mm-hmmm," you giggle, giddy on dopamine.

"Tell me if you aren't."

"Mmm. You good?"

"Great," he purrs, between soft kisses. "Fantastic. Thanks for asking."

Encouraged, one of his hands moves up into your hair to cradle the back of your skull and wow wow okay, the other slips down to rest on your bare thigh, large and hot and fuck, okay. Okay. Skin contact now, okay. His mouth begins to leave the safe-zone of yours, travels slowly along your jaw, and lands in the hyper-sensitive divot behind your jaw and below your ear. Everywhere his stubble scrapes your skin sparks fireworks and everywhere his hands touch melts like butter and then he starts mouthing at your throat in a way that, combined with the large, warm hand subtly kneading the meat of your thigh, is making your shorts feel almost unbearably too small.

"Oh god," you moan when his teeth graze your throat, because oh god, and when he startles, moves to pull back, you whine. "Well don't stop, fuck!"

He laughs and continues, encouraged, occasionally letting his hands wander (threaded up through your hair, fingers under the hem of your shorts, a handful of your ass) until those hands start to flutter as if frustrated, like he wants to use them for too many things at once but can't decide where to start, and finally he has to rest his forehead on yours to catch his breath and collect his thoughts.

"Bettel. Would you like," Shinri says, measuring each word very carefully, as if to keep from growling them instead, "to stay the night?"

"Guh?" you say, the very pinnacle of eloquence, "Huhwuh?"

"I'm asking if you want to take this to the bedroom?"

In an aghast, conspiratorial stage whisper, like the ridiculous, goddamned cartoon character you are: "Sex?"

Shinri tries very valiantly to smother a laugh, fails, and almost chokes on it instead. "Mostly I was thinking it would be more comfortable, but if you–"

"Ye. Yah." Normally you'd be terrified at the suggestion, but there's just not enough blood left in your brain for fear at this point. "Yuhuh. Yes."

So he scoops you up in an effortless, frontwise piggyback kind of thing, hands under your ass and your arms and legs wrapped around his neck and waist and–okay, so, there's no way he doesn't know how hard you are, now. There's no possible way he can't feel that against his stomach. You squirm a little, as if you could spare yourself the embarrassment if only you could hold your pelvis away from him, somehow, but he holds you so close that you only succeed in grinding against him instead.

"Easy," he chuckles into your mouth. He's unbothered by your squirming, like your weight means nothing to him even when awkward. For a thrilling moment he even tips you over into one arm when he passes the kitchenette and reaches over to snatch a bottle from the counter and goddamn if that doesn't manage to somehow make you even harder.

In the bedroom, he lowers himself to his knees and drops you gently into an impossibly soft mattress on the floor in the center of the room. You have the good sense not to say didn't figure you for a mattress-directly-on-the-floor kind of bachelor, hell yeah man, but only because you'd already made that mistake once with Hakka, who rolled his eyes and derisively informed you it's a futon, dumbass, it's supposed to be on the floor. Shinri wouldn't do that, because he's nice to you, but you REALLY don't want to say anything stupid to make him remember who it is he's with and change his mind about this.

You know you're not his first choice. You're probably not even his seventh. Literally anyone else would be better equipped for this (except maybe Vesper, but let's be honest, even he probably at least has extensive theoretical knowledge on the subject,) but you're quickly coming to terms with the fact that this is now only maybe forty percent about what Shinri wants or needs, and sixty percent you being suddenly, uncharacteristically horny and needing to absorb his attention like a sponge–

"Bettel, you're shaking."

Now that's an understatement. Your bones are vibrating at previously unmatched speeds with nervous, anxious energy. Your teeth are chattering. It's humiliating and you really hoped he wouldn't notice. Never in your life have you had stage fright this bad, not even on your very worst nights in front of your most hostile crowds.

"Okay well you don't have to draw attention to it, fuck." The last word comes out a little choked, a little wet. "I don't know what I'm doing, okay? Give me a break. Fuckin...handsomest dude on the face of the planet has me in his bed and I'm just supposed to know what to do with that? If I'd known this was where we'd end up, I would have at least done some sit-ups."

Shinri lifts an eyebrow. "Sit-ups?"

"Yeah. Not that it was going to make much of a difference, I'm never gonna be able to compete with all… that." You flap your trembling hands in the general direction of all of his rippling, organic, free-range masculinity. It's almost obscene. How does a guy even get like that? Hard work and a sensible diet? God, never in your wildest dreams. "But like. Maybe it would've made me feel better, I don't know."

Shinri goes quiet for a moment. His eyes flick down to where your shirt hangs open, exposing your chest and stomach, pale like the underside of something cold and wet that lives under a rock and hasn't seen the sun in a good long while, and it's all too easy to imagine him thinking well now that you mention it, I hadn't realized what a scrawny, malnourished twink you are, so I think I'll pass, actually.

What he actually says is, totally deadpan, "You're joking."

"Haha, no?"

"Bettel." He swallows–you can see his Adam's apple bob with the force of it–and says, with a voice so goddamn gentle that your fucking idiot brain immediately rejects it as being meant for you to hear, "You're beautiful."

He might as well be holding your hand over an open flame, the way it makes you recoil in your own skin to get away from it. "Okay, alright," you say flatly, turning your face away and expertly deflecting. "Listen, you don't have to butter me up, okay, I'm already willing."

"I'm not." And it's so sure and definitive, such a firm certainty that you don't have the heart to argue. Doesn't he know it's all smoke and mirrors? Lip gloss and glitter eyeshadow, a cinched waist and heels to make your legs look good; liquor-infused confidence and dopey charisma and a criminally insane luck stat. You're meant to dazzle from a distance, not to be scrutinized this closely. The facade never holds up under close inspection.

But his hand comes up to tuck a lock of shaggy hair behind your ear, before he lets it trail down your neck, your clavicle, and slip warm and slightly calloused under the open half of your shirt. His one hand spans so much of your body that it leaves you breathless and dizzy.

"You're so pretty, like a doll. It's really not fair." He flashes what probably passes for a bashful smile for Shinri, but he's just so fucking handsome it doesn't really translate as anything other than smoothly confident. "I want to undress you."

What the fuuuuuuck. It's all you can do to keep from just screaming out loud. You manage to smother most of it behind your hands, but it's still not your proudest moment. "Aauugghhh fffuuuucck, man, c'mon! You can't just say shit like that."

Shinri laughs, deep and comfortable. "Why not? It's true." He tilts his head and lids his eyes at you. "You look so pretty all dressed up, but I think you'd look prettier dressed down."

A cartoonish sound that is half delirious laugh, half indignant squawk escapes between your fingers clamped tight over your mouth. This is insane. Shinri's nuts, he has to be. Out of his fucking mind. How else can he just say this shit? But his hand is questing beneath you to find the zipper of your cincher and you instinctively arch your back to give him room to work. The cincher falls away, and he tugs the tails of your shirt out of your shorts, wraps his warm hands around your waist and bodily lifts your hips off the futon to press a series of scruffy kisses to your tummy. Predictably, you make terrible, unsexy sounds in protest, but he just laughs, hot against your skin, and says, "You are so fucking cute."

Shut up, you try to say, but manage only a strangled whimper, which just makes him laugh harder.

And then, while he's got you with your ass off the mattress, he tugs your shorts and underpants down to your knees, eases you back down to the futon, and pulls them the rest of the way down.

Oh Jesus.

This is. A lot. It's a lot, okay, it's so much. Never in your life have you felt so completely exposed, so vulnerable. He might as well be peeling your skin back in layers, exposing all your naked nerves directly to the elements. You hide your face in the dark safety your hands, convinced, with a child's logic, that if you can't perceive him, then he won't be able to perceive you either.

But he does, because after a long, breathless silence that feels like torture, he says, "Oh, Bettel." The sound of him moving, shifting fabric and adjusting his own position. "You're gorgeous."

You don't really have the words to argue with him anymore, especially not when he eases your knees apart and settles, heavy and warm, between your thighs. He nestles his face into the highly sensitive junction between your hip and thigh, the scrape of his stubble pleasant like fingernails on your scalp, and presses kisses against your skin. You push the heels of your hands into your eyes so hard that stars flit behind your eyelids.

"Is this okay?" His warm breath ghosts over your leaking dick, like fingers without the benefit of touch, and it sends little electric shivers all throughout your nervous system.

"Uh huh," you squeak.

"You don't have to look," he says, softly, "but please let me see your face."

So you whimper and reluctantly pull your hands away from your face and fist them in the futon instead, but you're not yet brave enough to look down. Your feeble little human brain is in no way equipped to handle the sight of Shinri looking up at you from between your knees; even the half-formed, imagined version of it is too much to look directly at, like the sun, or an Eldritch cosmic horror beyond your comprehension. It will break you.

"Thank you," he sighs, clearly pleased. He's smiling, you think, adding that detail to the Frankensteined image in your mind you won't even try to look at. He's happy. You've made him happy. He presses several long, lingering kisses to your soft inner thigh. "You're doing so good, Bettel. You're doing great."

Oh my god, he has no idea. It's an honest to god miracle you don't come then and there.

There's the innocuous, wet sound of his mouth opening, meaningless and not worth noticing in literally any other context except when that mouth is already just a fraction of an inch from your aching, dripping erection and even with this blatant, incredibly obvious warning, you are still not prepared to feel his tongue lick a hot, wet stripe up the underside of your dick.

You're going to have to come to terms with the fact that what little dignity you ever had has excused itself for the night, because you won't be able to control or defend anything that comes out of your mouth for the foreseeable future. You squawk something embarrassing and he just laughs, the asshole, a rumbling chuckle like the earth shifting beneath you.

"God, you're so fucking cute," he purrs, lips ghosting over your sensitive cockhead. He slowly milks a thick bead of precum from you with his hand, just to lap it up with the tip of his tongue. You could fucking scream. "You have no idea. I want to–just–" He only growls, low and threatening, and like a chasm in the earth, he swallows you whole.

His mouth is magma-thick, all heady heat and vacuum, careful and deliberate and relentless, and already you're mewling, pathetic, because it's so nice, it's so nice. Your primitive monkey brain recognizes his warmth and wetness as home where your advanced human forebrain already knew that of Shinri, and, combined, all you want on a molecular level is to curl up on his tongue and let him suck you down to nothing like a god-damned Werther's original.

Shinri must catch your hands gravitating back to your face because he growls a throaty, negative "nuh-uh" directly into your dick (holy shit) and reaches up to wrap one hand around your wrist, uses the other to pull the tie out of his ponytail, and then directs your hand into his hair. His hair is soft between your fingers and his scalp is warm, and he purrs a low, pleasant hum of satisfaction at your touch that reverberates all through your bones. Glad to have something to do besides just lie there and let him ruin you, you rake both hands back through his hair, crack one eye open so you can smooth it all away from his face—

And he's fucking… looking at you, while you're tonsil-deep in him, god, he's fully transfixed on you, all of you, like you fucking deserve this kind of attention, like you're worthy of the effort, the sacrifice. His gaze is fierce blue-green fire and it sears your skin wherever it touches because it is simply too goddamn much to be looked at like that, it's too hot, it's too much, he's too fucking good– You can't, not like this–

"Shinrishinrishit–" You fist your hands in his hair, close to his scalp–just to push him off! Honest!–but the sound he makes, a strangled, throaty moan, and the way his eyelids flutter and his eyes roll back when you pull your cock free of his wet, wrecked mouth–jesus christ. It almost ends you.

He likes it.

"Too much," you choke, before he can ask, while he's still wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He likes it and you couldn't handle it, you can't keep up with him, he's going to kick you out and find someone who can, Hakka would probably—"Sorry, sorry, it's–"

"It's okay." His voice is hoarse, rough, and it's so fucking hot you want to weep. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Sorry–"

"You don't have to apologize." He crawls back up to press a slightly sticky kiss to your temple, and it's such a tender goddamn gesture it makes you want to shrivel up and die. "It's all good. I'm sorry, I thought– you're so good at being the center of attention–"

"Not like that," you laugh in spite of yourself. "Haha, fuck. Never like that." Your face burns and you won't look at him, embarrassed, but he's so patient with you, nuzzling your ear with his nose and letting his big warm hands coast up and down your body in soothing, unhurried stokes; you're still wearing your open shirt, and though it doesn't offer any actual coverage at this point, it's a small comfort you'll keep. "Sorry, can you just–Can you stay up here? With me?"

"Of course. Anything you want."

It feels like a childish request, one he'll see through instantly, because what you want is to keep him close enough that you don't feel like such a goddamn spectacle. If he thinks it's silly, he doesn't say so, but then again, in the shift of bodies, he's ended up half on top of you with his groin pressed into your hip, so it's possible he's got other things on his mind. A small, shimmying squirm confirms; Shinri dips his head and muffles a pained groan into your neck.

"You did that on purpose."

"I don't know what you're talking about," you say, as you do it again, because it's kind of hard to tell but it feels like Shinri might be packing some serious heat and you'd be lying if you said you weren't curious.

So the first act was a little rocky, maybe, but the movie isn't over yet.

He takes a moment to compose himself. "Listen, are you still good to–"

"Anything you want," you say, which is not entirely true: you're sure there are things he could do to you that your tiny circus-peanut brain couldn't even begin to comprehend, wouldn't ever conceive of on its own in a million years, but you are aching and you trust him to meet you on your level. "Just stay close."

"I can do that," he murmurs against the corner of your mouth. "But I need a second, let me just–" and he sits back on his heels to hook his thumbs into his waistband-

"Are you fucking kidding me," you lament under your breath when he pulls down his shorts, freeing what is definitely the most biggest, best looking dick you have ever seen in your life, arcing up his perfect, flat stomach, flushed dark and as exquisitely made as the rest of his stupid, perfect body.

"It's not a contest," he cuts you off, firmly.

"Okay, but if it were-"

"It's not. Stop it. You're amazing, okay?" He says it with such intensity that it snaps you out of your miniature pity-party before it can spiral into a full-blown rager. His bright eyes are fierce and his tone leaves zero room for argument. He's not playing around. "You're fucking perfect. It's actually not fair how fucking gorgeous you are, so just…shut up, okay?"

"Okay! Okay. Alright." The shock of it bullies you into compliance. It's not that he raised his voice—he didn't, he doesn't, and in the end it's more of a desperate plea for you to be kind to yourself than it is any sort of order—but the conversation is over. So you just swallow and nod. "I mean, goddamn though, dude. I had no idea."

Shinri laughs a snuffly sort of laugh in spite of himself, like he might actually be a little embarrassed. This fucking guy. "I…it's not a big deal. You'll be okay?"

It takes you almost a full thirty seconds to realize he probably means when I fuck you because you got so caught up in the statuesque curvature and perfect proportions of Shinri's unfairly epic dong that you temporarily forgot you weren't having a friendly dick measuring contest just for shits and giggles.

A truly manic, unhinged cackle escapes your mouth before you can clamp your teeth down to stop it. The thought of him actually, actively fucking you is giving you the nervous, needy shakes again; shivers up your spine and an ache in your belly you don't know how to satiate. "I don't know? Will I??"

He kisses you down off the ledge in your mind and you immediately melt like butter on a hot griddle. How is he so fucking sure of himself, how is he so confident? Why is he so good at this?

(There's a sort of fantasy you're concocting of Shinri doing his wandering ronin thing, fighting corruption beats and catching the eye of grateful, willing citizens who pay him back with their mouths and hands and bodies, but you can't think about that now. If you think about all the people he's fucked before you and all the ones he'll fuck after you, you Will Not be Okay. Hakka wouldn't get in his head about a big dick; if Magni knew, he'd consider it a challenge–)

"You'll be fine," he assures you in a low, smooth purr, bringing you back to earth. "Just relax, okay? I got you."

"'Kay," you chirp, letting him melt away your fears and doubts. You would follow him into the mouth of an active volcano if he asked, but he already knew that.

He finishes kicking off his shorts and reaches for that bottle he'd grabbed from the kitchen. There's just enough time for your eyes to land on the label (cooking oil, extra virgin) before he's nudging his knees under your legs and curling over you, kissing you sweet and languid, close like he promised, and then slipping his hand between your thighs and pressing one oil-slick finger into you and- oh, wow, okay, that's. It's not bad, just different, foreign to you like low tables to sit at and fluffy mattresses on the floor, a thing that doesn't make a ton of sense to you at first but is growing on you incredibly fast, actually. The stretch is a not-pain that feels nice by virtue of intent; this doesn't feel like it should be possible, or allowed, but it is and that's thrilling. Your bones and muscles are loose with the dopamine but your nerves are buzzing electric and your head is hazy with something like lo– lust; you hold him in place with arms around his neck when he dips his face close to scrape your cheek with his rough stubble and whisper encouragement into your ear, you're doing so good, Bettel, just relax, you're doing great, I'm so proud of you, you sound amazing, while you open to him, slowly, until he's ready to add a second finger and, eventually, impossibly, a third. Sometimes he hits a spot inside of you that you're beginning to suspect is the one you've only ever heard about second-hand and honestly have kind of assumed wasn't actually real, but practical application is changing your mind real fucking fast. Like he's pressing a goddamn power button in there and waking up your whole body, slowly, bit by bit, for the first time maybe ever.

"Shinri," you whine, needy like a child, because it's so much and also not enough, not even fucking close.

"Ohmygod," he answers, choked and directly into your mouth, like you've sucker punched it out of him. Maybe you have; when was the last time you said his name? He slowly draws his fingers out, leaving you hollow and empty, before pistoning back, and it makes you want to scream but mostly because it's not enough, he's not close enough, it's not hard enough or deep enough or thick enough and–

"Please, Shinri, c'mon," you beg, desperate, pathetic thing you are, eager to be seen and loved but too scared to ever fucking do anything about it but be a goddamn public spectacle and hope for fucking crumbs. But now Shrinri's three fingers deep in your guts, and you're a shivering, shaking mess begging for more, showing him more than you've ever shown anyone and unsure if you'll survive the ordeal.

Better go out with a bang, then.

(Pause for laughter.)

"Bettel," he says, and his pupils are blown black holes ringed in aquamarine. Again, tighter, lower, more a growl than a word: "Bettel," and thank fuck for that, because if he says someone else's name, you will seriously fucking puke.

His fingers leave you again and you whimper like a forlorn puppy in their absence; he shifts, fits hips between your thighs, directs your legs around his waist, and sinks slowly into you, inch by thick, perfect, oil-slick inch until his hips press flush against your ass and it's all you can do to keep from openly weeping.

"Holy shit," he breathes, like you're the impressive one. Like you're doing anything besides just lying here, taking it, too full to do more than breathe.

"Mmhm," you agree, a high, wordless whine, and pray his idiot monkey brain is signaling to him that your heat is his home, too. Your fingers press into the flesh of his back and shoulders, trying to find the happy medium between clawing bloody trenches in his skin and not doing that.

Shinri starts to move, and he moves like he knows what his body's for, like he's familiar with all of his individual muscles and what they're capable of, their full range of motion and possibilities. He moves like he has a plan, and doesn't just hurl himself face-first into the world, undernourished and over-caffeinated, hoping for the best, like some people you know. He rocks forward and it's not one clumsy motion, but a half dozen interlocking deliberate ones; smooth and fluid and impossibly precise: thighs lift pelvis tilt back arch stomach tight shoulders flex, like, what the fuck. How the fuck. How does he do that?

At this rate it will not take long; he fills you so completely that he hits that button with every push and every time, every cell in your body burns a little brighter, buzzes a little louder, until you feel like you must be visibly glowing like an old lightbulb about to surge and burst. Your hands hook and dig into his skin until he groans a broken, hungry thing and your fingertips come back hot and wet; you focus on his face and oh, he's fucking wrecked, hair dishevelled, pupils blown, eyes wet, color high— he likes it, his blood is under your fingernails and his cock is sheathed in your guts and he's yours, tonight he's yours, his heart might belong to someone else but he called you pretty, he thinks you're beautiful, and you're starting to mostly even believe him. No one knows him like you do, no one else appreciates him the way you do, not really, not when they keep boiling him down to old or dad or responsible and they don't know how sweet he is, or how silly, or how sad, or how incredibly fucking hot and none of them have ever seen him like this, fucking wrecked, undone, coming apart over you, inside you. How quickly you've gone from trying to slither out from under his gaze to needing so desperately to be the only one he sees.

There's a shift of weight: from supporting himself on two elbows to one, Shinri frees a hand to wrap around your aching, neglected dick—you could have got there without ever touching it, you're sure, but now that he has, it's fucking over. You're too wound up, too sensitive, and it hits you from the inside out like a thing you can't escape from, something ravenous trapped inside your skin with you, but your body reacts like it thinks it has a chance anyway, with a violent shudder and a desperate, hopeless arch and a broken wail of non-specific but colorful profanity.

If you'd thought about for .5 seconds before tonight, obviously you would have pegged yourself as a screamer.

You've emptied yourself in a sticky splash across your belly, and Shinri falters, slows, and looks down at you like he's surprised, eyes wide and awed. He actually sits back on his heels to look at you, and in all your debauched glory and you're too fuckin wrecked to be embarrassed anymore, you're barely more than a gasping, sweaty smear on his mattress now. It's whatever. Eat up, big guy! Enjoy the show.

But you're in danger of sinking into a state of sleepy unresponsiveness too quickly and you desperately want him to join you, but you can't think of anything else to do to help get him there except curl up to meet him and fist both of your hands deep into his hair and fucking pull. You yank back and down, snapping his head back and exposing the long, strong line of his throat and he growls a curse, thick and deep, through teeth clenched against pain.

But, of course, he likes it.

He likes it enough that his hips snap forward and still while he fills you with molten heat and you desperately cling to him with your arms and legs like a drowning man clinging to flotsam.

"You," he accuses, fumbling for your mouth for a smiling kiss, and gently eases you back down to the mattress. He leaves you empty and it's an unbearable absence, hollow and lonely without him, so you whine and try to pull him back down with you. Maybe you will claw open his chest cavity and sleep inside him tonight, maybe then you'll feel close enough to be satisfied.

"Wait, wait–" he scrabbles for his discarded shorts and uses them to carefully wipe down your stomach and thighs, a gesture so incredibly tender it leaves you speechless. No one talks about this part, no one warned you about your partner lovingly wiping your ass like a baby so you don't ooze on the sheets after.

Jesus.

The shorts get folded up and tossed aside and when he turns back to you, he freezes. "Oh." Shinri thumbs the corner of your eye and shows it to you: "Bettel, your mascara's running."

Sure enough, when you touch your face, your fingers also come away wet and black. This, ridiculously, absolutely destroys the last molecule of your already treacherously fragile composure. The surge of hormones and complicated, unfamiliar emotions coalesces in a gross, childish sob, and you can't stop yourself from cracking, wailing, "It's supposed to be waterproo-oo-oo-oof–!"

"It's okay! Bettel, don't cry– it-it looks good!" He tries his best to smother a relieved laugh, and bends down to kiss your face. "It looks good. It looks metal."

"You're j-just saying that to make me f-f-feel better. I'm a mess." You throw an arm across your eyes. You're dressing it up in theatrics but it's real, the urge to sob yourself empty, what the actual fuck is happening. "Don't look, I'm hideous."

"No! No, you– I mean, you're a mess, yeah." Shinri gently tugs your arm away and positions himself in your field of view. He smiles a crooked, slightly wicked thing, and your eye catches and lingers on one of his dragonesque canines. Stick a fork in you, you're capital-D Done—but if he wanted to gnaw on your throat a little, tear out your jugular as a treat, fuck you'd let him. "You're a mess, but you look amazing." A beat, while he tips your chin aside to admire the line of darkening bruises trailing down your throat and collar; you can't see them, but you know they're there. Deep and bassy, from the back of his throat like something more, something greater-than-human: "I did this to you."

"Oh. Oh I see," you sniff, snot bubble at the back of your throat. "You're a freak."

He laughs, but not unkindly. "Bettel, if you thought any of this was freaky, then you're going to be in for a big surprise."

"I mean, it was a little fr– wait." You sniff, swallow the snot, extremely sexy on your part. God, you're irresistible. "I am?"

He tilts his head, questioning, and grins crooked and a little bashful. "I mean….probably? I've got some, y'know. Ideas. I usually do."

"No, I mean. You want to keep…?" Seeing each other? Screwing around? You settle for a vague, indecipherable hand gesture that, at best, means me, you, your bed.

This is obviously a huge mistake. Shinri's goofy, slightly feral, post-coital smile fades bit by bit until there's almost nothing left, just a crooked, unsure thing on stilts, and the color of his eyes seems to go darker, deeper; no longer the bright turquoise of the warm, welcoming shallows, but something sadder, lonelier, and more distant. Okay, so it's definitely been established, in more ways than one, that he's not your dad, but that doesn't change the fact that disappointing him is sincerely the worst feeling in the whole fucking world. Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh no, what have you done now.

"Not if—only if you want to," he says, eventually, diplomatically. He clears his throat. "I…" but he never finishes his thought, and instead does the dreaded, hopeless haha well fuck chuckle, exhausted and exasperated. He manages half of a deep, steadying breath before plants both of his big, beautiful hands over his face and smothers a groan.

"Nonononono it's good it's fine, I'm down, I am!" You're actually so down for it that it's embarrassing. Like you could be down again after a fifteen minute break, or sooner after a sports drink and maybe a sandwich. But Shinri rolls over and plants himself face down in his pillow, laces his fingers behind his head like he's a gullible school kid in a public safety video and you're an atomic bomb he's hoping to protect himself from, and whines something wordless and wretched and completely unintelligible.

"Shinri, no, c'mon. Obviously I want to. I just figured, y'know. You weren't– you're already–" You swallow nervously, gathering courage. It was so nice to not think about it for a little while. "I know that you like—"

The dead brain-hamster on his immobile wheel gives one last post-mortem spasm.

Wait.

Wait.

"Wait." You pull yourself upright. "Is it…It's not me, is it?"

"Wfffsshuu?" Shinri says, without lifting his face from his pillow.

"Flayon said you had a crush. He said you were pining." It seems absolutely absurd to suggest, even when you're already mostly naked in his futon and sticky with his satisfaction, and you can feel your ears burning at the idea of saying it out loud and being potentially wrong. Could there be anything more self-centered and humiliating? A frenzied giggle begins to take root, spread, and flower. "It's not me." You're cackling now, manic with disbelief. "Tell me it's not fucking me."

He turns his face to fix one narrow, blue-green eye on you. His face is so, so red. He moans, clearly mortified, "You just realized? Bettel, I thought it was obvious! I thought we– that this was– I thought you knew."

"Shinri, I don't know shit! Me?? God. Why me? Have you met me?"

He sits upright too. "I have. I like you, Bettel–"

With great sympathy: "I'm so sorry."

"–You're my friend–"

"Gross."

"–You're sweet–"

You fake a retching sound.

"–You make me laugh–"

"Wait oh my god that's so hot. Tell me more about how funny I am."

It catches him off guard and he chuckles fondly, soft and warm and deep in spite of himself. His laugh is pleasant, genuine, satisfying, a reward for a job well done. His laugh is why food never really feels important. You are made of something completely different: you thrive on attention on a cellular level, absorb laughter and photosynthesize it into life-sustaining energy, turning your face to follow your audience like a sunflower's face follows the sun. Yeah, bacon double cheeseburgers are good, but have you ever made someone laugh so hard they gasped for air and came up short?

(Have you ever made a miserable friend laugh through their snot and tears, in spite of themselves? Have you made a grown man giggle like a bashful schoolgirl? Is there really anything better?)

"I just like you, okay? You're cute, you're charming, you make me happy. I wouldn't be here if not for you. I was lonely and now I'm not, because of you." He reaches out and tries to smooth down your chaotic sex hair, a sweet but ultimately useless endeavor. It feels nice, though, and you lean into it anyway. "You make me feel…like I'm part of something." He sighs. "You're good for me, Bettel."

"Fuck," you breathe. With an enormous amount of difficulty, and without making eye contact, you manage to eke out a vague, begrudging, "Well. Y'know. Y-you too."

"Awww." He chuckles and pulls you forward to press a kiss against your forehead. "Don't hurt yourself, buddy."

Giggling: "Shut up."

"Mmhm." Then, "Hey...you don't have anywhere else to be tonight, do you?"

"You're kicking me out already? Jokes on you, I don't know if I can walk. You'll have to drag me."

"Nono…" He shrugs and tucks his hair behind his ear in a gesture that is far too cute and bashful than should be allowed on someone of his size and physique. "The opposite, actually. I like to cuddle."

Everything in you goes gooey soft for him. You feel such an enormous surge of fondness for this big, soft man that it makes you want to fucking barf. Smart, handsome guy like Shinri could have anyone, easily, but he's settling for you, for some godforsaken reason. He was pining for you, moping over you like a forlorn puppy, can you believe it? He thinks you're cute and sweet. He thinks you're funny.

Maybe he's on to something. Maybe he knows what he's talking about.

"Well. You're in luck, cus I'm clingy."

Shinri pulls up a blanket invitingly and you slip underneath beside him. At first, you just lie there, rigid and nervous like he wasn't just fucking your brains out ten minutes ago, until he turns over on his side and drapes his heavy, warm arm over your waist. His hand rests against your hip, thumb stroking gentle little half circles into your skin. He drops his voice into that low, satisfied purr and exhales into your hair.

It's nice. You always imagined this sort of closeness would feel invasive or claustrophobic, but Shinri's big and safe and cozy, and you find yourself thinking you could get used to sharing space with him like this. You roll toward him and tuck your cheek against his chest; his heartbeat is slow and steady.

"I'll probably break your heart," you say, after a while, because you know it's true and you won't be able to live with yourself if he gets blindsided by it. Shinri deserves the world, but you don't have the world to give him. What if you just aren't built to give him the kind of affection he craves, or absorb the kind of affection he has to give? This whole thing? It's nice now, in the sex-chemical drenched afterglow, and maybe will be for a few weeks, but it's also a fucking five act tragedy in the making.

"What if," he says sleepily, pressing another chaste little kiss to the top of your head, "we don't worry about that right now? What if we work on, like, getting lunch, or something easy, first?"

"Okay," you secede, not entirely convinced. But he's warm and comfortable and everything he says makes pretty good sense. "Okay, I think I can manage that."

"Mmm. I get to pick."

"Uh oh. He's gonna take me out for mystery street food. If you're trying to kill me for my money, you're going to be disappointed."

He laughs. "I'll go easy on you, don't worry."

"Mm." You know he will. He's nice like that. "I trust you."

He doesn't say anything else for a long, long time. Eventually, his hand stops moving and his breathing slows and you're sinking into the softest, deepest layers of sleep yourself, when his voice comes, low and barely audible, "Maybe…like, a garden room? Out back, overlooking a pond…."

And then you're fucking out.

It's early and you're standing barefoot in the hall outside Shinri's room with half your clothes in your arms while he leans on the doorframe looking soft and dopey and god what you wouldn't give to spend the morning with him, but you've already been away from Phantom for too long and it's giving you the kind of dull, relentless headache that will only get progressively worse until you go crawling back to him (haha he's so cute), so you'd better suck it up and make your exit soon. Also you haven't really decided how you feel about everyone knowing just yet, because you're unsure how serious it is, or how Shinri feels, so maybe you don't wanna get caught in the act—

"Bettel?"

Oh look! It's Hakka! Haha, never mind.

"Mornin' Hakka," Shinri says brightly, like absolutely nothing's out of the ordinary and he's got nothing to hide. Maybe he doesn't? Okay.

When you turn, Hakka's pale eyes are darting back and forth between Shinri—standing in the doorway wearing only a pair of loose sleep pants hung low on his trim hips—and you—holding your boots and coat and gloves, shirt open and a garden of violet bruises blooming down your throat—like he's trying to do the math, and c'mon man. Even you'd know the answer to this one, if you were in his geta. But he still squints and mouths wordlessly in disbelief, doing complicated algebra in his head, until you decide to put him out of his misery, because you think it will be funnier that way.

You step forward as if to walk past him, but stop and dip down to speak in his ear.

"Well," you drawl, with more confidence than you have sense, "I guess… this makes me your new mom?"

And then you start running.

You're aware you can't beat Hakka in a fight, not again, but if he wants a chance, he's going to have to catch you first. He will, of course, when you trip face-first down the stairs, and also he's got that goddamned tengu thing, so he would have caught you anyway. He'll grab you by the front of your shirt and shake you like a ragdoll wailing Bettel why did you fuck my dad!? and you'll only laugh so hard you cry because actually his dad fucked you, but if you try to give him specifics he'll just bounce your head off the floor and concuss you.

Shinri will catch up with you and placate Hakka and pick you up and dust you off while you pout Shinwiii, he kicked my ass and he'll say well you kind of deserved it but he'll still put an arm around you and kiss your temple and make you blush and then walk you back to the caravan to clean you up and also make out a little before breakfast.

He'll point across the yard to the south wall of the guild hall and say I think that's where I want my room to be, and tell you about the room he wants, built in Xenokuni style with walls he can slide open to the fresh air, and the pond and garden he'll be able look at when he has his coffee in the morning, and you try not to let it go to your head that he'll be close to you, which is surely a coincidence. The light is just best here, that's all.

But yesterday he didn't want a room, didn't feel like he needed or deserved one, didn't feel like he was part of the group, and now he's brainstorming landscaping with you, so maybe you've finally, actually done something right after all.

5/5 stars. Would watch again, with the right company.