Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/4366157. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: F/M Fandom: Persona_3 Relationship: Arisato_Minako/Mochizuki_Ryoji Character: Mochizuki_Ryoji, Arisato_Minako Additional Tags: First_Time, Angst_and_Porn, Teenagers Stats: Published: 2015-07-18 Words: 2754 ****** For Glad and Golden Hours ****** by bookoftheazuresky Summary Ryoji had only turned on the lamp while he was waiting, so the whole thing had an air of surreality about it. The winter twilight was deep, the ever-present cloud cover reflecting the lights outside to give a blurry illumination. She pulled him over to the bed and sat. He sat back down beside her, fingers entwined with hers. “I don’t actually know what I’m doing,” he confessed. Notes For my friend DivineMadness, who was like, "Sure you can write me porn." In fandom we don't say "I love you," we say, "I will write porn to cheer you up," and it's beautiful. The title is from the carol It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. 12/31 – Thursday, evening – Full Moon   When SEES told Minako to take their decision upstairs, she was relieved. And then guilty for being relieved. The looks Mitsuru and Yukari shared with her were full of sympathy, almost more than she could bear. That the team allowed her to make her goodbyes in private was a blessing and a curse; she knew half of what was keeping her strong was that she couldn’t go to pieces under their eyes.   She climbed the stairs with a mixture of resolution and dread, her legs heavy. She kept her eyes on the dull greens and browns of the carpet. She almost walked past her floor, then shook her head at her own foolishness. The steps between the landing and her door were endless miles and over too quickly. Her hand hesitated at the scratched handle of her door. It was as if she’d never seen the battered wood composite before. Her eyes picked out dents from Junpei thumping way too hard and scratches on the bottom from Koromaru’s blunt claws. In the months since she’d come here, this room and building had become her home.   She pulled in a series of breaths, the first swift and hard, then gradually slower. By the fifth exhalation, she had herself under control. She gripped the doorknob and decisively pushed the door open.   Ryoji was sitting on her bed with only her desk lamp for light, fingers tracing the squares of her bedspread. He looked up as she came in and her knees almost buckled. When Ryoji smiled at someone, he put the whole force of his relationship with that person into it. She’d been able to track his feelings for her with the gradual progression of his smiles. This one was just as full of affection as any he’d ever given her, but had a force of grief behind it just as powerful as that sweetness.   She had looked up Thanatos, once, in the mythology section of the library. The dry passages had said that Thanatos as Death was thought of as peaceful, a sweet lover to give a last kiss to the living before taking their souls to the underworld. She’d never really connected it to the Persona of that name, but of Ryoji, she could believe it.   She had crossed to the bed before her brain even realized what it was doing. Her hands came to cradle Ryoji’s face, looking into his drowningly blue eyes. Then she kissed him.   Ryoji stayed stiff and startled for a moment, then kissed her back, his lips moving gently against hers. His hands slid up to her shoulderblades, cradling her against him. Minako fisted her hands in his shirt, feeling a few tears escape her control.   He pulled back, gently. She let him, scrubbing a hand across her face to wipe off the tears.   “Don’t cry,” he said, sounding near to tears himself. “Please-“   She cut him off with another kiss, a harder kiss. She bit his lip, tasting blood, then put her hands on Ryoji’s shoulders to push him down onto the bed. He blinked up at her, eyes wide, mouth lax with surprise.   Her sweater came off over her head; she tossed it into the corner. She fumbled with the fastenings on her skirt before it came undone to puddle on the floor around her feet. A careless kick sent it the same way as her sweater.   She looked back at Ryoji, clad in nothing but her bra and a pair of leggings. His surprise had given way to full-on shock. Somewhere in the back of her head she had been hoping that she would know what to do once she’d gotten her clothes off. Minako came to the conclusion that, nope, she had no clue.   “You know,” she said, voice shaking just a little, “most boyfriends would catch a hint when their girlfriend starts getting naked in front of them.”   Ryoji gulped. It was a totally human reaction, the most human she’d seen him since before…She shoved the thought back down where it belonged. She crossed her arms self-consciously in front of her chest.   “Minako, this was really not what I was planning on…” he trailed off.   “I’m not going to kill you,” she said, hands tightening on her arms. “We decided, all together, that we weren’t going down without a fight. Since that’s done, I want to-“ she stopped, stymied for a moment by the weight of her pronouncement. How she could discuss murder and the end of the world without so much as losing a syllable, but not discuss sex without tripping over her own tongue was a mystery for the ages. “I want to make love to you. If this is the end of the world, I want to at least do that with you.”   “Minako,” Ryoji said helplessly, pushing himself up onto his elbows, “I’m not human. I’m-“   “I don’t care. I don’t. There are two answers. ‘Yes, I want to have sex with you.’ And ‘no, I don’t want to have sex with you.’ I told you what I wanted, so tell me what you want.” She scrubbed her hands up and down her arms. She wasn’t sure if it was chilly in her room or this was a stress reaction. Either seemed equally likely.   Ryoji sat up all the way. She could almost see the thoughts chasing their way through his brain, though she couldn’t have said what they were. Slowly, he reached up and tugged off his ever-present scarf, letting it drop to the floor at the foot of the bed.   All the breath went out of her lungs. Now she felt her cheeks coloring. Heat spread from her cheeks to the rest of her body. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her whole body was the color of her bedspread. She waved in his direction. “Maybe some reciprocity?”   Ryoji chuckled, an infectious sound. Minako found herself grinning as she watched his pale, graceful fingers work the buttons on his shirt. He shrugged out of it and his suspenders and dumped the shirt on top of his scarf. His chest looked like it had when they’d taken the trip to Kyoto, thin and without any hint of softness. His hands paused at his belt buckle, then undid it. He met Minako’s eyes, then pushed his pants down to join the rest of his clothes. He wore boxers.   Minako found herself giggling, not even sure what she was laughing at. She covered her face and let her body shake with the force of the laughter forcing its way out of her body. Ryoji’s hands landed on her shoulders. She was still giggling when she peppered his face with kisses, which turned to shivers when he returned the favor.   Ryoji had only turned on the lamp while he was waiting, so the whole thing had an air of surreality about it. The winter twilight was deep, the ever-present cloud cover reflecting the lights outside to give a blurry illumination. She pulled him over to the bed and sat. He sat back down beside her, fingers entwined with hers. “I don’t actually know what I’m doing,” he confessed.   “Me neither. Let’s find out together,” Minako said. Sometimes the only battle plan was to jump in and sort out the chaos later.   With that in mind, she scooted back to lay on her pillows. An encouraging tug brought him closer, one arm brushing her shoulder as he gathered his legs underneath him. She threaded her fingers through his hair, disarranging it, then pulled him down for a kiss.   It didn’t matter that the only places he was touching her were his hip next to hers, the arm bearing his weight, and his mouth. A pleasant fizz was spreading across her body as her blush had earlier. Her hand fisted on the comforter as their kisses deepened, tongues sliding slickly over each other. He pulled back, breathing against her mouth, then trailed kisses down her jaw to her ear. His mouth was warm and ticklish, spreading heat under her skin. She moved the hand on his head to his neck, cradling his skull, then down his spine. He felt warm, alive, human, under her hand. She wanted him closer.   “Um,” she said. He backed off from where he had been laying kisses on her neck. His eyes were startlingly dark, the blue contracted to a thin ring around the pupil. He was breathing faster too. “Maybe we should get naked?”   He swallowed. “Okay,” he said, his voice lower and rougher than his usual pleasantly high pitch. It made her shiver, heat gathering in her belly. She reached down, not dropping his gaze, to the front clasp on her bra. She pushed it off her shoulders and dumped it off the bed. She shifted her hips, aware of the warmth of Ryoji’s thigh, then slid her fingers under the waistband of her leggings and panties. She lifted her bottom of the bed to get them clear, then discarded them. She watched, mouth dry, as Ryoji shifted to get rid of his own underwear.   They paused, their breathing the only sound in the room. Then Minako pulled him down to her once more.   Instinct had her tangling her legs with his, wrapping her arms around him. He responded by mouthing her shoulder, her neck, kissing his way down to her collarbone. For all his paleness he was warm, especially where his erection pressed low on her belly. She’d thought she would be embarrassed to feel him naked against her. Instead she panted into his hair, hands moving restlessly over his back. Each rub of her thighs was wetter than the last. She had touched herself thinking of him before, the glimpse of his wristbones and his slow mischievous smiles at the forefront of her mind, but this was so much more than that.   He latched onto her nipple, mouth working on her breast. Minako let out a startled sound that bled into a moan. All thought fled her mind as she luxuriated in the sensation, writhing underneath him. His mouth eased up and she almost protested before he transferred his attentions to her other breast. Ryoji caught at her hips to still her writhing and pulled back. “You have gorgeous breasts,” he told her earnestly. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”   She panted, nipples peaked from the stimulation and the chillier air. His hands travelled up her sides to cup her breasts, fingers exquisitely clever on the sensitive skin. Her hands had fallen back to the bed and twined restlessly with the comforter. It felt good, great even, but she wanted those graceful hands somewhere else.   “Ryoji,” she groaned. She grasped his wrist, then guided it down. He paused as he took in her embarrassed flush, then slowly and oh-so-carefully touched her bare sex. His fingers were maddeningly tentative as he watched her face, gauging her reactions. Then he found her clit, and her head dropped back. His touches gradually firmed as he took her moans for encouragement. His fingers were slicked with her wetness, turning everything even more sensitive as she built up to orgasm.   She clutched at his shoulders as she came, her body shivering with reaction. A fine layer of sweat coated her skin in defiance of the cool temperature of the room. She blinked dazedly up at Ryoji, smiling thoughtlessly. He bent down to kiss her, a soft meshing of lips that was almost unbearably sweet.   A twitch of his fingers between her legs almost brought her hips off the bed. She was still sensitive, but she was looking for something a little deeper now. Wordlessly, she guided his slick fingers deeper, until he had two fingers inside her. It was almost a completely different sensation to having her own inside her, since she always knew what she was going to do. She couldn’t predict what Ryoji was going to do, which made it all the more exciting.   She wasn’t exactly impatient to get to the next part, since in the back of her head there was a timer ticking down, but she was ready to go before he was ready to stop. “Come on,” she said, “I want it.”   Ryoji was back to looking uncertain, though he had color high in his pale cheeks. “Are you sure?”   “Ryoji,” Minako said.   He hesitated for a moment longer, then his face set. “Okay. Can you…um, help?” Minako nodded eagerly. They spent a moment arranging themselves, all hands and hips. Then Ryoji lined himself up and pushed.   Minako squirmed at the feeling. She wasn’t sure why it was more intimate than having his fingers inside her, since logically it was the same sensation, but it was. She was making love to her boyfriend, maybe the last thing they would ever do together. She immediately banished that thought, shoving it out of sight. She would deal with it later, but now was now.   Ryoji was unraveling, his unhappy concentration lost. That was almost better than feeling him moving inside her. They moved together, at first awkwardly, then with more fervor. Ryoji was gasping for air as his hips shifted, his arms and shoulders hard with tension. She clutched at them, tugging him down for a kiss. Their mouths met sloppily and they kissed until Ryoji tore himself free to fill his lungs again.   Minako wiggled her hand to the place where they met, then started circling her clit. Tension was building up again in her core.   “Minako,” Ryoji breathed, “Mina, I love you-“   As easily as that, she tripped into orgasm, a strangled cry in her throat. Ryoji kept moving, his rhythm completely lost. She shuddered around and beneath him, and he buried his face in her throat and sobbed as he came.   They lay in a tangle of limbs for what felt like forever, their bodies cooling in the chill that seeped in through her windows. Finally, he moved off and away. That fiercely unhappy look was back on his face. He ran his fingers up the side of her face, brushing away some hair that had escaped from its pins.   “I have something for you,” he said, breaking the silence. Ryoji got off the bed, ducking down to retrieve something from the pile of his clothes. Ignoring the satisfied ache in her core, she sat up. Now that she wasn’t touching him, he was back to looking like a spirit in the faint light of her desk lamp, his pale skin unreal.   He found what he was looking for, then turned to her. It took until he held the item out to her to recognize what it was. A translucent ring, of no material she recognized, sat in his palm. She took it, her fingers shaking slightly. The end was so close she could almost taste it. She could put it off, for another minute, and another. But not forever. The clock had been counting down since they first met, since Aigis had sealed Death within her, since madmen had decided that the world was no longer a place that anyone should live in.   She slid the cool stone onto her ring finger. It was barely visible, but she could feel it when her fingers curled into a fist.   “We should get dressed,” she said.   “Yes. There are some things that you’ll need to know, if you want to confront Nyx.” He smiled weakly at her. “I’m sure everyone will be worried.”   They dressed swiftly. Minako had to fight her urge to linger over it. She didn’t regret any of the time she’d spent, but midnight was approaching and she couldn’t just wish it away.   When they were done, he spent a long moment just looking at her. She was certain that he felt the same as she did, that he wanted nothing more than to stay up here with her until it was time for him to go.   “Minako…thank you for everything. I wish,” he swallowed. “I wish we had more time, but I want you to know that I love you. Whatever happens, I don’t think that will change.”   She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “I love you too.”   He kissed her one last time, butterfly soft. Then she squared her shoulders, hardening herself against the loss. There was still one last conversation to have before she could come up here and weep.   The last day of the year was dying outside, white flakes of snow beginning to fall. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!