Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/4440629. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Katekyou_Hitman_Reborn!, Gangsta._(Manga) Relationship: Gokudera_Hayato/Yamamoto_Takeshi Character: Gokudera_Hayato, Yamamoto_Takeshi Additional Tags: Prostitution, Crossovers_&_Fandom_Fusions, Angst_with_a_Happy_Ending, Implied/Referenced_Drug_Addiction, Hand_Jobs, First_Kiss, First_Time, Developing_Relationship, Mutual_Pining, Begging Stats: Published: 2015-07-28 Words: 6423 ****** Stay ****** by tastewithouttalent Summary "Yamamoto doesn’t look up. He doesn’t have to look to know the way the glow of the streetlights outside their uncovered windows will wash Gokudera’s silver hair into something otherworldly gold, will turn his eyes dark and his skin to moon-pale beauty." Yamamoto stays up late waiting for Gokudera to come home from work and begs him for a favor. Yamamoto is still awake when Gokudera comes home. It’s a rarity. Usually he goes to bed shortly after the sun goes down, to press his shoulders against Gokudera’s thin ones and fall asleep to the sound of the other’s breathing on the good nights, or to tangle himself in the blankets and chase the missing body heat into almost-nightmares on the bad ones. He doesn’t know what’s different about tonight: if it’s the restlessness in his blood making itself known again, if it’s too many pent-up bad nights and worse days, if it’s the memory of the shadow behind Gokudera’s bright eyes when he shut the door behind him as he left. What matters is that it is different, that hours slide by with Yamamoto awake to track them, and when the door eases open with late-night care he’s sitting in the dark waiting for it. It takes Gokudera a minute to see him. Yamamoto can hear his sigh of relief at coming home, the scuff of shoes on the floor as he toes them off by the door as if their floor is anything good enough to worry about preserving. The light stays off, consideration to Yamamoto’s assumed sleep, and it’s not until Yamamoto has heard the sound of footsteps -- one, two, three -- that he catches the sudden shocked inhale, the creak of the floor as Gokudera rocks himself backwards on his heels. “Takeshi?” Startled-loud, hissing in the quiet like there’s anything worth whispering for. “What the fuck are you doing?” Yamamoto doesn’t look up. He doesn’t have to look to know the way the glow of the streetlights outside their uncovered windows will wash Gokudera’s silver hair into something otherworldly gold, will turn his eyes dark and his skin to moon-pale beauty. He knows how the other will look, remembers the image like it’s burned into his mind, and he knows if he sees that now his heart will break itself open with the sight. “What’s wrong?” Louder, that, harsher; Gokudera steps forward, a few long strides to span the distance, and then he’s leaning hard on the table, rummaging through the dark shapes in front of Yamamoto like he’s feeling for a puzzle piece by touch. “Shit. Did you take just the downers again?” “Don’t go,” Yamamoto says, barely over a whisper, murmurs the words to the glint of cheap metal rings off Gokudera’s reaching hands. “I told you,” Gokudera is saying, too loudly to be listening to Yamamoto’s words. “You can’t treat Celebrer like a game, you have to take them together, where the fuck are the pills?” Yamamoto reaches out, closes his fingers hard at Gokudera’s fumbling hand. His hold fits entirely around the fragile bones of the other’s wrist, stalls the reaching movement. He can feel the way Gokudera is shaking, the tremors of panic coursing through him like some new drug made to touch his human blood instead of the broken alternative in Yamamoto’s veins. “I took them both,” he says, louder this time. Gokudera goes still under his hold, at his word, silent as he almost never is. Yamamoto can smell something sweet, sugar or too much perfume clinging to Gokudera’s skin. “Don’t go.” “What?” Gokudera says. Yamamoto can hear him fighting for his usual growl but it comes out shaky, fright throwing him back in years to something far closer to his age in truth instead of the feigned maturity he fights so hard for. “What are you talking about?” “Stay,” Yamamoto says, and he turns away from the table, reaches out for Gokudera’s waist instead. He catches a glimpse of gold, yellow-washed silver and the glint of illumination off an overly-ornate belt buckle, but then he’s leaning in, pressing his face against Gokudera’s shirt to block the vulnerability of his vision. “Stay with me.” “Are you drunk?” Gokudera asks, uncertainty lacing over his tone. His free hand comes out, ghosts over Yamamoto’s hair without quite touching, lands deliberately gentle at the other’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?” “Don’t go,” Yamamoto says, and it sounds like a sob, goes raw and desperate in his throat. He breathes in, tries to catch air back into his lungs, but his nose fills with the smell of some stranger’s perfume, the suggestion of smoke and hothouse flowers tangled together with clinging sweat, the imprint of someone else’s body all over Gokudera’s clothes. He chokes, gasps to spill the intrusion from his lungs, and then he’s pushing, fumbling his thumb under the hem of Gokudera’s shirt and shoving it up his chest, clearing bare skin for his touch instead. There’s still the perfume there, the foreign scent laid onto Gokudera’s skin as much as his clothes, but when Yamamoto presses in close and breathes deep there’s Gokudera underneath, the comfort of familiarity still present under the contaminant of another’s presence. “Hey,” Gokudera snaps, his voice overloud over the top of Yamamoto’s head. “What the fuck are you doing, Takeshi?” “Don’t leave,” Yamamoto repeats against Gokudera’s skin, the words pressing wet to the other boy’s body. Gokudera hisses, his stomach fluttering tension at the contact, and Yamamoto presses in closer, catches Gokudera’s shirt between his hands to pin it up against his ribcage. His pants ride low, cutting across sharp hipbones puddled with nighttime shadows, and Yamamoto twists in his chair, slides to the edge so he can tangle his knees with Gokudera’s. “Stay,” he says, sharp and demanding, and then he tightens his mouth and presses a kiss against the taut of the other’s stomach. He can feel the tension ripple through Gokudera, the hand at his shoulder tightening in the threat of a shove without the action. There’s a hiss of an inhale, the start of a sound, but what it turns into is “Takeshi,” shivering into the shape of a warning and a plea at the same time. If Yamamoto were less tired, he might listen. If this were the first night he stared down nightmares of reality in the shadows and not the hundredth, he might stop. If he couldn’t still taste the poison-sweet of perfume on his tongue, he might apologize. But: “I love you,” is what he says, clear and deliberate against Gokudera’s skin, and when that gets another shudder of reaction he kisses again, open-mouthed and anxious against the other’s stomach. “Stay with me, Hayato, don’t go back out.” “Get off me,” Gokudera says, his voice shaking so badly Yamamoto can’t pull apart the muddle of emotions under it. “I love you,” Yamamoto says again. “Shut up,” Gokudera snaps, a hand coming down to shove against Yamamoto’s head. Yamamoto submits to the force, tips sideways under the blow, and Gokudera’s fingers end up tangled in his hair, the weight of his rings catching painfully against the strands. “Don’t be a fucking idiot, Takeshi.” “Hayato,” Yamamoto says, hot and wailing against Gokudera’s hip, and when he turns his head to find the shape of another kiss at the top of those indecently low pants he can hear the way Gokudera’s breathing stutters over him, the way his hips tip forward by a half-inch before he can catch himself. It goes through him like fire, scorching out into his veins and leaving him breathless with the possibility he had considered but never really quite believed in full. “Stay,” he says, punctuates with a kiss, slides a hand higher up Gokudera’s chest. Gokudera hisses, pushes at his hair, but his hand somehow ends up cradling the back of Yamamoto’s head, his fingers tangled inextricably in the dark of the strands. “Don’t go out again.” “I can’t,” Gokudera finally says, his fingers curling into a fist and dragging at Yamamoto’s hair. It would be enough to draw his head back if Yamamoto weren’t caught against the magnetism of Gokudera’s bare skin, weren’t panting for air against the other’s stomach. He can barely smell the perfume at all anymore; Gokudera is flushed warm under his touch, the outside scent giving way to the smoke-and-sweet that is Gokudera, that finds its way into all of Yamamoto’s life without trying. “You can,” Yamamoto insists. He kisses a path up Gokudera’s chest, prints the shape of his mouth across the suggestion of bone under the skin, the illusion of fragility that he knows makes Gokudera so popular to those who buy him for a few hours. “I can work, I’m good enough to work for hire.” “No.” Sharp, hard, the fingers dragging hard enough to yank him backwards, and Gokudera’s leaning in over him, a knee shoving alongside him on the chair until the other boy is all but straddling Yamamoto’s lap. “No, no way you’re working as a killer.” His tone give the word teeth, sink it in deep at the back of Yamamoto’s head; Yamamoto can feel the heat of shame flare over his cheeks, grab hold of his tongue and spill words unwilling from his mouth. “You’d rather make yourself a whore?” Yamamoto is expecting a hiss, a punch, something vicious and raw and explosive as everything about Gokudera is. Even in the dim lighting he can see the flush that burns over the other’s sharp-lined features, that casts his pale skin into something dark and crimson, and Yamamoto braces himself for the catch of rings at the corner of his lip, the relief a well-deserved slap cracking across his face. He’s not prepared for Gokudera’s blurted, “Of course it’s better” any more than he’s expecting the pressure of lips crushed against his mouth. It’s dizzying to have his expectations so inverted; he’s still reeling from that when Gokudera whines against him, shoves in so hard against him that he loses his balance and topples backward in a crash of limbs and furniture as he, Gokudera, and the chair all go down at once. Gokudera lands on top of him, crushes all the air out of his chest, and for the first moment Yamamoto is left speechless just from the impact, his vision blurry as his body tries to recall how to function. “You are a fucking idiot, Takeshi,” Gokudera informs him in this moment of bruised distraction. The words are hot at the corner of his mouth, biting like expensive alcohol or too much pepper on bland food, and even in the dizzy skid of their fall Yamamoto turns in towards it, trailing the possibility of contact without thinking. “Who did you think I do this for?” His mouth is back before Yamamoto can parse a response. There’s a moment of uncanny grace -- deliberately gentle movements, easy and practiced in a way that shudders discomfort along Yamamoto’s spine -- but then the hand in his hair tightens, Gokudera arches in closer, and the motion goes rough and raw at Yamamoto’s lips. Yamamoto opens his mouth -- to speak, to encourage, to gasp, he doesn’t know -- and Gokudera lick past his lips, his tongue sliding hot against the roof of Yamamoto’s mouth like he’s trying to taste him from the inside out. Yamamoto’s hands come up, seek out the rumpled-up edge of Gokudera’s shirt, and this time when his palms meet flushed-warm skin Gokudera groans against him, rocks his hips forward like he’s trying to pin Yamamoto in place where he’s sprawled on the floor. “Idiot,” Gokudera says when he pulls back enough to speak, while Yamamoto is preoccupied with trying to gasp as much air as his lungs can hold and put together all the pieces that have made this reality, Gokudera’s legs against his and Gokudera’s hips flush with his own and Gokudera’s skin hot and sweat- slick under his palms. “No way I’ll let you work as a merc.” “Hayato--” Yamamoto starts, reaching for words he can’t frame past the thud of his heart beating too-fast in his chest, as if he’s taken a whole handful of Celebrer uppers at once. “Not after all this,” Gokudera says over him, fast and brittle-hard like Gokudera always is, the shove of his hands so desperate at Yamamoto’s hair they form more of a pull than a caress. “Not after we’ve made it this far, you’re not getting blood on your hands.” And then he’s close again, cutting over the gap between them with a raw desperation in his movements like he’s coming up for air, like the crush of his mouth to Yamamoto’s is some drug he’s strung out on. Yamamoto turns his chin up, opens his mouth to the force of Gokudera’s lips, and his hands are sliding of their own accord, mapping fingerprints across the dip of Gokudera’s back and down to the waistband of his jeans, his hands seeking for some kind of hold to prove that this is real and not some hallucination brought on by too much misery and too much exhaustion. He gets his fingers tangled through one of the belt loops, his thumb fitting under the gap of the denim, and Gokudera hisses against his mouth, rocks down so hard against Yamamoto’s hips that his vision goes white in the first burst of friction. “Fuck,” Gokudera is gasping, his mouth breaking away from Yamamoto’s in the first shuddering reaction. His weight lessens, his hips coming up over his knees, and Yamamoto starts to voice protest but Gokudera’s fingers are shoving against his pants, pushing the button free and dragging the zipper down so fast Yamamoto can’t process what’s happening until there are fingers against his stomach and sliding down past the edge of his clothes. He catches on, then, starts to sit up in a burst of frantic energy, but Gokudera’s hand is pushing against his cock, the other boy’s grip tightening around him, and he’s groaning, putting voice to the heat that surges out into his blood to knock him blind and incoherent. “Shut up,” Gokudera snaps, but it sounds like a laugh, and when Yamamoto forces his vision into focus Gokudera is grinning at him, the edge of his teeth feral and satisfied at whatever he’s seeing on Yamamoto’s face. Yamamoto doesn’t have control over his expression any more than his voice; he could be frowning, for all he can tell, could be shouting, could be pleading for something, less or slower or faster or more, he can’t tell before the sound drags itself free of his throat. He’s arching up, bucking reflexively against Gokudera’s hand, and the slide of the other’s hand is skilled enough that it twists something dark and jealous in his chest before the heat is too much, before the fire eclipses whatever shadow was forming for him. He wants to turn away, to shut his eyes and cover his face and pull this impossibility longer somehow, but Gokudera is still staring at him, his eyes wide and mouth parted on how hard he’s breathing, and Yamamoto has never been able to turn away from Gokudera. So: “Hayato,” he gasps, spine curving involuntarily, arching him off the floor until he can feel the ache between his shoulders, can feel the strain against his thighs. His inhale tastes desperate, weighted with the relief of tears, emotion too-long suppressed breaking itself free of years-old restraints. “Hayato, stay.” “Idiot,” Gokudera says, the insult hot with affection, and Yamamoto breaks, his fingers seizing into desperation against Gokudera’s hip and waist as his body quivers itself into satisfaction. Gokudera keeps moving, even after Yamamoto is limp and shuddering at the floor, each stroke of his fingers drawing another tremor of sensation from the other; by the time he draws his hand away Yamamoto can’t breathe except in overfast hiccuping gasps, can’t ease his grip on the other’s body. “There,” Gokudera says, his voice only barely trembling telltale for emotion. “Happy now?” He leans up, away, shakes his hair back from his face like he’s trying to draw back into himself, like he’s trying to pull away mentally as well as physically. “No,” Yamamoto says, pulls at Gokudera’s hip. “Come back.” Gokudera leans back farther, refusing to capitulate to the tug, so Yamamoto sits up instead, willing his exhaustion-shaky muscles to obey him. It’s worth the effort for the sudden proximity, for the shadow of Yamamoto’s shoulders that casts Gokudera into the silvers and greys that so suit him, and this time Yamamoto is the one to lean in and catch the other boy’s mouth with his own. It’s clumsy, he’s sure, lacking both Gokudera’s experience and Gokudera’s confidence, but the other still whines against his mouth, still rocks in closer like he can’t help himself when Yamamoto licks against his lower lip. He keeps a hand against Gokudera’s back, enough pressure to hold him where he is if he tries to bolt, but the other slides sideways along the edge of his jeans, fumbles against the belt buckle to shove the leather free of the metal. “Take your shirt off,” Yamamoto says, when they break apart long enough for him to kiss at Gokudera’s cheek, at the line of his jaw, at the dip of his throat where shadows catch and pool. It’s getting better, at least against Gokudera’s skin, where the heat of his blood is overriding the sticky slur of perfume on his body, but the shirt is still clinging to the smell of someone else as if in defiance, until even the texture of the fabric is enough to knot into misery in Yamamoto’s stomach. “What?” Gokudera says, growling like he always does when he’s uncertain about what’s going on, but then Yamamoto opens his mouth, licks against the angle of his collarbone, and whatever protest he might have offered gives way to a shudder Yamamoto can feel ripple against his bracing hand at Gokudera’s back, rock against the reach of his fingers at Gokudera’s belt. Gokudera twists, catches at the edge of his shirt, and for a moment there’s a tangle of arms, fingers skimming against Yamamoto’s elbow and fabric dragging past him in a cloud of that cloying scent; but then the shirt is gone, Gokudera’s hands are back against Yamamoto’s hair, and when he leans in to press his mouth to skin all he can smell is Gokudera. “I love you,” he says again, wrenches Gokudera’s button loose of the denim and shoves frantically at the zipper. “I’ve loved you for years.” “Fuck,” Gokudera says, his voice shaking audibly and his hands tightening at Yamamoto’s hair. Yamamoto half-expects to be pushed off, shoved away and back into the cold of the room, but when Gokudera shifts it’s to rock in closer, to drag Yamamoto’s shoulders in flush with his chest. “I know.” Yamamoto gets his pants open, works his hand in past elastic-taut fabric, and Gokudera’s hot to the touch, the shape of him fitting against Yamamoto’s palm like they were meant to be together. Gokudera’s back flexes when Yamamoto tightens his fingers, the other boy arching himself in closer until his cock bumps Yamamoto’s shirt, and Yamamoto strokes up over him, draws a hissing groan of reaction out of his throat. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Yamamoto says against Gokudera’s shoulder, the words dragging against the other’s chest as he rocks up over his knees, the tension of reaction settling against his thighs until he’s arcing up into straining effort for more. “You should have told me.” “I couldn’t,” Gokudera pants, and it sounds a little like a sob and Yamamoto can feel him shaking from the tension of his position, pulls him in closer to take some of the strain from him. “You would have done this and everything would be ruined.” “It’s not ruined,” Yamamoto gasps, the burn in Gokudera’s skin catching contagious against his own. His wrist is cramping, pinned into an awkward angle between them, but Gokudera is arching back against him, clinging to the back of his neck like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “This isn’t ruined.” “Takeshi,” Gokudera says, the name fracturing along a line of heat, and then he tips his head back and moans, a low shuddering note that is somehow infinitely better than all the times Yamamoto has imagined it. Gokudera’s shaking, gasping rough inhales of air as his orgasm trembles along the line of his back and spills hot against Yamamoto’s shirt, and Yamamoto can’t breathe for the pressure of gratified desire in his chest. “I love you,” he says again, the repetition making it a mantra against the dark, ducks his head in against Gokudera’s shoulder while the other is still catching his breath, still easing his fingers out of the death-grip he has on Yamamoto’s hair. Yamamoto’s fingers are sticky, he can feel the ache in his wrist running all the way down his arm, now, but he doesn’t move away, even when Gokudera’s hands slide out of his hair to fall limp and exhausted against his shoulders. “You’re an idiot,” Gokudera says, the words flat of any real judgment. Yamamoto can feel the weight of the other’s rings against the back of his neck. He laughs, bumps his head against Gokudera’s shoulder and turns his head up to breathe in against his sweat-clean skin. “Yeah.” There’s another pause, a breath of silence made long by unspoken words; Yamamoto slides his hand free, reaches around to fit his arm around Gokudera to match his first. Gokudera doesn’t protest the sticky catch of finger against his skin; he just sighs, slouches forward to drop his forehead to Yamamoto’s shoulder. Yamamoto can smell a faint, familiar spice against his hair, a suggestion of cinnamon clinging to the strands like it always does. “What are we supposed to do?” Gokudera asks without lifting his head. He sounds angry, the question more rhetorical than sincere. “We can’t pay rent with romance.” “We’ll figure it out,” Yamamoto says, tightening his hold on Gokudera without entirely intending to do so. “Just stay here with me, we’ll figure something out.” “This is my something,” Gokudera snaps, and he’s pushing back, now, the force of his hands enough to overcome Yamamoto’s hold. His eyes look black in the shadows, his frown dim and hard to parse. “This is the solution. It’s this or go out on the streets.” Yamamoto sets his jaw. “Or I could--” “No.” Yamamoto has argued with Gokudera before. He prefers to avoid it, doesn’t like the needless stress of a true fight beyond their usual easy banter, but when it’s necessary he holds his own, even carries his point more often than not. But there’s something in the set of Gokudera’s jaw, the tip of his head, that says this is a no as firm as Yamamoto’s own, that all the arguing in the world will just leave them both exhausted and frustrated and no closer to compromise. “Okay,” he says, capitulating this point even as he braces his arm tighter against Gokudera’s back. “You don’t go back out either.” “If we can’t pay rent--” “Then we’ll go back on the streets,” Yamamoto insists, fast and loud enough that his voice cracks on the words. The memories are too close to avoid, recollections of empty stomachs and days of wet clothes when it rained and the withdrawals the worst of it, when their supply of the pills more important than food ran low and he had to ration them through the shaking fits of his body’s bred-in addiction. But it’s sincerity on his tongue, the trade worthwhile even for that, just for the gratification of Gokudera in his arms and the smell of cinnamon in his nose. “It’s not worth this.” “Idiot,” Gokudera says, draws his hand back to make a fist and smack it against Yamamoto’s shoulder. His rings dig in against the skin, threaten a bruise but avoid a cut. “It is worth it.” “It’s not.” Yamamoto pulls harder, crushes Gokudera is so close the other hisses half-formed protest against his hair. “It’s not worth it, I promise it’s not.” He can feel tears tensing against his throat, the heat burning an ache behind his eyelids before he shuts his eyes to the threat. “Please.” There’s a pause, so long and so quiet Yamamoto can hear Gokudera breathing against his shirt, can hear the catch of his own inhales on the knot of jealous misery in his throat. It’s too much to ask, he knows, the same knowledge that has stopped his voice before now, but he can’t let Gokudera go, can’t loosen his grip on the other. “Fuck,” Gokudera says. His hand draws back, crushes against Yamamoto’s shoulder again, with more force this time. “Fine.” It’s a growl, a surrender, unwilling and raw at the edges; Yamamoto can hear the effort it costs Gokudera, the way he takes a breath to say something more. So he turns instead, lifts his chin and tips his head and crushes a kiss hard against the line of Gokudera’s jaw. He can feel the way the other startles, can feel the catch of silver hair caught against the damp of his mouth, but he doesn’t pull away, and then Gokudera is turning his head to meet him and they are kissing again, slower than the first time but just as desperate, Gokudera pushing so hard against Yamamoto that they would fall if not for Yamamoto throwing out a hand to brace them upright. “Idiot,” Gokudera says between kisses, and “I love you,” Yamamoto replies, because it’s either that or start crying with relief and gratitude in equal parts. Gokudera’s hands are braced against his head, holding him steady for the deliberate drag of Gokudera’s tongue over his lower lip, and Yamamoto lets him, doesn’t make any attempt to pull away. It’s far better to let his lips part to the friction, to whine encouragement against Gokudera’s mouth to get him to come back in for a proper kiss, the scrape of teeth and the slide of his tongue rough and raw and desperate in a way Yamamoto never expected to have reciprocated. Yamamoto doesn’t realize, right away, that his skin is flushing into the heat of arousal again, that his cock is going hard in the tangle Gokudera has made of his clothes. It’s Gokudera’s laugh that tips him off, a low rumble of sound that runs straight down his spine to tense in his stomach, and then the other is drawing back, letting one of his hands go to drag over the bottom edge of Yamamoto’s t-shirt. “Already?” His fingers are sticky, the pattern of his rings cool against the heat of Yamamoto’s skin. The casual drag of his fingertips is the most amazing thing Yamamoto has ever felt. “Fuck, Takeshi, are you always this fast?” Yamamoto opens his mouth to coordinate an answer, self-defense in the shape of years of unrequited feelings, but what comes out is a whine, what he does is rock up off the floor to press himself against the middle of Gokudera’s palm. It gets him a laugh, a sharp burst of sound, and then Gokudera is drawing his hand away, leaning in for a lingering crush of his mouth to Yamamoto’s before sliding backwards and away. “C’mon,” he says, and he’s moving and Yamamoto’s following, a desperate reach for the other’s hip or jeans before a sticky palm meets his, fingers close around his wrist to drag him to his feet. “Let’s at least make it to the bed this time.” Yamamoto doesn’t make any attempt at protest, doesn’t want to even if he could find the words for it. They’re moving fast, stumbling across the floor, and Gokudera isn’t letting his hand go, has their fingers tangled together so tight Yamamoto can feel the anxious affection in the dig of the other’s grip against his hand. Gokudera is turning back as they approach the bed, reaching out for Yamamoto’s hair as he takes the last few steps backwards, until his mouth is against Yamamoto’s again when he kicks the bed and nearly drags Yamamoto down atop him before they catch their balance. “Are you going to bother getting your clothes off this time?” Gokudera asks, tipping his head up so Yamamoto can see the light catch off the quirk of his smile, can see his eyes go dark in the moment before he extricates his hand from Yamamoto’s and falls back over the tangled sheets. His skin looks very pale against the dark of the fabric under him, the lines of sharp bone rising to press against skin when he arches to push his jeans off his hips; it’s a distraction, pulls Yamamoto’s eyes to the slide of Gokudera’s fingers and pulls his breath right out of his lungs until it’s hard to look away for even the few seconds it takes to peel his shirt off his shoulders and toss it aside. The weight of the tags catches in the collar of the t-shirt, the chain tangling against Yamamoto’s hair, and by the time he’s separated fabric from metal Gokudera is kicking his pants aside, pushing up on an elbow to sprawl over the bed in a mess of elegant angles and shadows sticking to the contours of his body. “Hurry up,” Gokudera says, twisting fluidly to fumble under the edge of the bed, the light from the window painting a stripe of gold up his reaching arm to the glint of piercings at his ear. “It’s not like I have all night or anything.” Yamamoto’s smile comes easier than it has in days, his laughter spilling easy with relief and affectionate inextricable on his tongue. “Right,” he says, and “Sorry,” and Gokudera is offering him the shape of a frown along with eyes so dark they could be an invitation all by themselves. He has the bottle he was looking for, is dragging rings off his fingers with careless haste; Yamamoto stares for a minute, watches the thoughtless flex of narrow fingers as Gokudera strips jewelry off his skin, and then looks down, fumbling with his clothes with as much speed as he can muster. It takes a moment, the fabric clinging sticky against his sweat-damp skin, and by the time he looks back up Gokudera is spilling liquid over his fingers, tilting one knee wide with the accidental grace of a well-practiced motion. Yamamoto whines, breathless near-protest, drops to a knee at the end of the bed, between the angle of Gokudera’s legs. The inside of his thighs look moon- pale in the dark, shadows collecting at the dip of his knee and the sharp edges of his ankle; Yamamoto leans in, braces a hand alongside Gokudera’s hip, watches the other’s eyes trail his movements while narrow fingers come down between them. “I wanted to do that,” he says, half-plaintive and half-laughing. Gokudera raises an eyebrow, quirks the corner of his mouth; Yamamoto can see the shift of his shoulder as he moves, the barely perceptive shudder of reaction as he slides a finger inside himself. “No way,” he says, drops the bottle to the floor and reaches up to wind his fingers in against the back of Yamamoto’s neck again. Yamamoto shivers, ducks his head to the pressure, lets Gokudera’s voice wash over him. “I’d have to talk you through it, it’d take too long.” He shifts his hand, moves in some way Yamamoto can’t quite clarify but can see the effect of, the ripple of movement that tenses along Gokudera’s back and over his shoulders. When he speaks again he sounds a little bit breathless, the words softer over heat. “Next time you can bottom for me and I’ll show you how to do it.” Yamamoto’s skin flares hot, his body flushing into fire at the idea of Gokudera between his knees, the press of slick-smooth fingers easing inside him, and he has to whimper, has to duck in to kiss at the corner of Gokudera’s mouth, to press his lips to the taut edge of amusement caught there. “You’ll like it,” Gokudera says and doesn’t ask, turns his head so his mouth fits against Yamamoto’s. There’s a moment of lingering friction, the warm wet of Gokudera sucking against Yamamoto’s lip, threatening pressure with the very edge of teeth before he lets go. “I love you,” Yamamoto says, his mind refusing to remember anything but that one truth, braces against his elbow so he can fit his other hand against Gokudera’s hip. The other boy is hot to the touch, like his blood has turned to fire, and Yamamoto can feel the rhythm of his movements like this, the shift of his hips in time with the thrust of his fingers. “Yeah,” Gokudera says, arches off the bed as he slides his fingers free and matches Yamamoto’s hold on the other’s hip. “Come on.” He hooks a leg around Yamamoto’s, their knees angling together like puzzle pieces, and when he arches this time he’s pulling Yamamoto down, drawing them into alignment in one graceful motion. Yamamoto can’t breathe, can’t think straight; his tags are catching at Gokudera’s chest, the metal falling to lie flat at the other boy’s skin, and he has a brief moment to wonder if the microchips will pick up Gokudera’s heartbeat instead of his, return the wrong data for these few minutes. Then Gokudera pins them together, urges Yamamoto closer, and he’s fitting against the other boy’s entrance, the slick of the lube catching against the lingering stickiness at the head of his cock. “Hayato,” Yamamoto says, the name like a prayer, and Gokudera says “Come on,” and he does, obedience and desire overlapping into perfect persuasion. Friction catches against his skin, heat and motion and the hiss of anticipation from the boy under him, and he’s sliding forward, fitting closer with Gokudera than he ever has before. Gokudera sighs, exhaling hard like he’s letting go a tension of years, and Yamamoto’s heart is pounding harder, frantic rhythm against his ribcage as he sinks in deeper, as his senses collapse into tension and friction and heat surging up his spine and trembling through his fingers and over his tongue. He whimpers, incoherent appreciation hot in his veins, tips his head forward to press against Gokudera’s shoulder, and Gokudera is arching up against him, his arm fitting around Yamamoto’s shoulders and his fingers digging bracing force into the other’s hip. “Fuck,” he’s saying, hissing words against Yamamoto’s ear, “Fuck, Takeshi,” the sound coming with as much force as if there’s meaning to it. Yamamoto draws back, slides back into the overwhelming heat, and Gokudera groans overloud against his ear, arches up so hard his cock presses hot and hard against Yamamoto’s stomach. “Hayato,” Yamamoto manages, and then he has to shut his eyes, has to tip his chin down so he can gasp and fill his lungs with air gone to steam before it passes his lips. Gokudera’s slick against him, any trace of that foreign perfume long since lost to the salt-sweet of sweat clinging to his skin, until when Yamamoto breathes in all he can taste is Gokudera, the spicy sweetness of the other boy’s skin and the almost-oil tang of his own, the thin metal of his tags the only thing between them now. When he braces his arm steadier to slide his hand in against Gokudera’s cock he can hear the almost-sob of appreciation from the other’s lips, can feel the way Gokudera curves up to meet him, and then it’s like dancing, falling together into a sweat-slick rhythm Yamamoto has never experienced and still knows as perfectly as he knows the pace of Gokudera’s breathing. Time slows down, stretches into an infinity, until everything has always been this moment of heat and breathless movement and the slide of Gokudera’s skin against Yamamoto’s, the two of them fitting together until even the light from the window can’t find a gap between their bodies. Gokudera comes first. Yamamoto isn’t thinking about the movement of his hand, the strokes coming as easy as the deep thrusts of his hips, and the tension against Gokudera’s spine comes in waves, long shuddering reactions to his movements that feel like just part of all of this. It’s not until the other’s leg goes tense that Yamamoto notices the catch of Gokudera’s breath, not until there are fingers dragging at his hair that he blinks himself into attention, and then Gokudera gasps a desperate inhale and comes, shaking under Yamamoto like he’s trying to go to pieces, like it’s only the other’s hold on him keeping him together. “Fuck,” he’s saying, and again “fuck,” and then, as harsh as if it’s a whole string of curses, “I love you so much, Takeshi,” and Yamamoto goes hot, all his body flaring warm with reaction, and barely manages a “Hayato” against the tangled soft of Gokudera’s hair before everything goes white and endlessly warm in his veins. He’s trembling, on some distant plane, his body shivering through waves of satisfaction washing over him, but he’s lost to it, breathing himself into the smell of cinnamon and the heat radiating off Gokudera’s skin. They’re still for a moment after, heat giving way to warm comfort, the catch of sweat against bare skin coming back into focus as Yamamoto comes back into himself. He’s pressed flush against Gokudera’s body, the weight of his tags pinned between them; they must be registering two heartbeats, he thinks vaguely, wonders if the rhythms are fitting together half so well as their bodies are. “God,” Gokudera says, his voice shaking in his throat. “I need a shower.” Yamamoto laughs, a startled burst of sound against the other boy’s throat, pushes himself up and sideways to bare a little more of Gokudera’s skin for the cool of the night air. Everything is still hazy-pleasant in his veins but he can feel the sweat evaporating off his shoulders, leaving his skin chill in its absence. Gokudera heaves a breath of relief as Yamamoto tips sideways, loosens his grip on the other’s hip to drape an arm across his face; his wrist catches gold in the dim lighting. “I love you,” Yamamoto says again, aiming the words at the line of gold, at the spill of silver against the sheets. Gokudera pauses a moment. Then he slides his arm up, lets his wrist fall over the bed instead, and when he turns his head to look at Yamamoto his eyes catch the light, dip down to Yamamoto’s mouth and over the lines of his face before coming back to his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, his fingers at Yamamoto’s neck sliding away to skim the line of his jaw, to press idly against a cheekbone. “I love you too.” When Yamamoto leans in to kiss him, he can feel the smile on Gokudera’s lips. 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