Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/223110. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Hikaru_no_Go Relationship: Fujiwara_no_Sai/Shindou_Hikaru, Shindou_Hikaru/Touya_Akira Character: Shindou_Hikaru, Touya_Akira, Fujiwara_no_Sai Additional Tags: Underage_Character, Masturbation, Bathtubs, Angst, Loss, Imagination Stats: Published: 2011-07-13 Words: 1011 ****** The Lowest Ebb ****** by sekaiseifuku Summary It was one of those strange things that had existed as background noise – just beneath the surface of his consciousness – that he’d only noticed when it had grown into a deeply-rooted presence that had made itself impossible to ignore. Notes Spoilers for chapter 124/episode 60. Apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - title was stolen from his Loss and Gain. I'm sure he never imagined his lovely work would be perverted in such a twisted way. Hikaru slid out of the heated water of the bath and sat on the edge of the tub. He’d stayed in too long and he could feel the heat radiating off his skin, warming the air immediately surrounding him by at least a degree or two. He could faintly hear traffic on the road a few blocks away, but more immediate to his awareness was the soft pattering of water falling from his body, the heavy sound of his own breathing and the too-rapid sound of his pulse thundering in his ears. He was lightheaded … and not just from the heat. He tried to clear his mind, to think of anything other than the vague sense of urgency and unsettling need within him. It was strange … something he couldn’t pinpoint. He didn’t know what it was, exactly, or when it had begun, but he knew it wasn’t recent. It hadn’t begun this week or even this month. It was instead one of those strange things that had existed as background noise – just beneath the surface of his consciousness – that he’d only noticed when it had grown into a deeply-rooted presence that had made itself impossible to ignore.The time when he could have stopped it, if ever such as time had existed, had long since passed. Now, the only thing he could do now sit back and watch helplessly as it grew into … whatever it would. He tried to shift his thoughts away from that thing and back to the only thing that mattered. Back to Go. He thought about the last full game he played with Sai before he disappeared and began to replay that game in his mind, trying to concentrate on the flow of the stones as the patterns of the game began to take shape. He tried to visualize the scene in his mind, calling forth the image of the goban sitting on the floor of his room. He tried to see Sai sitting opposite him, a delighted smile on his face … but all he could bring into focus was Sai’s hands. Hikaru had never seen Sai hold a stone, but it was easy to imagine. He could imagine what Sai would have looked like reaching into his bowl, caressing the glossy black stones with pale, graceful fingers before placing them firmly on the board with that air of easy confidence he had always had about him. Sai had had such beautiful hands. He imagined holding those hands in his own, feeling the touch of Sai’s skin – not the cold, ghostly absence of touch he’d always associated with him, but the warmth of flesh, soft and alive and in his grasp. Sai had burned with such passion that Hikaru was sure he would have been hot to the touch, perhaps as hot as he himself was now. He ran a finger over his own hand, closing his eyes and imagining the skin and ropy tendons belonged to Sai – that the heat he felt was from Sai’s skin, flushed pink with excitement from a game. Or something else. He ran his fingers over his cheek and his lips, thinking thought about what it would have been like for Sai to have touched him like this, those elegant hands traveling down his neck and mapping the planes of his chest, rubbing the peaks of his nipples until they were over-sensitized and hard to the touch. He thought about how Sai’s hands would have felt moving along his sides, his arms, his back. They would have been everywhere, stroking, teasing, caressing … grasping him from behind and pulling him forward, coaxing him further into arousal until his heart raced and he felt he couldn’t catch his breath. He thought about what it would have been like for Sai to finally run his fingers gently over the head of his cock before taking it firmly in his grasp. He couldn’t stop the moan that escaped his throat at the thought. If Sai had been able, would he have wanted it as much as Hikaru did? As he stroked himself, Hikaru thought about how those lips might have tasted as he pulled him down to claim Sai’s mouth. He thought of the press of Sai’s body against him and on top of him and how his hair might have felt as it cascaded in a curtain around them, heavy and soft and smelling faintly of a maddening combination of fresh autumn wind and incense from a butsudan. It would have smelled just as Touya Akira did. And with that, the image in his mind shifted. The shape of the body on top of him changed – the figure became more slender and fragile-seeming, but still hard against him and possessed of the same intensity of purpose. His hair shortened and the billowing robes dissolved, replaced by thin trousers and a crisp cotton button-down … there was so much less between them now and somehow this phantom seemed more solid, more there. It was completely different, but the hands … the hands remained the same. One was wrapped around his cock, working it harder and faster, while the other tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. Hikaru thought that they could stay like that for endless moments, breathing the same heated air, foreheads pressed together. “Shindou,” the apparition whispered against his mouth, cultured voice rough with need and desire. The echoing sound of that voice in Hikaru’s mind was enough to push him over the edge. He clenched his eyes tightly shut as his climax hit, the feeling almost frightening – as if that unknown thing had suddenly been transmuted into a pleasure he couldn’t possibly hold within himself and exploded outward with a force he could scarcely believe. The taste of blood infused his mouth with the sharp taste of copper as he bit his lip in a desperate effort to remain silent as the waves of pleasure crashed over him. His gasps echoed in the enclosed space of the bathroom, impossibly loud. He didn’t know whose name he would have called had he not stopped himself. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!