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It's happening again.
Parado's eyes open reluctantly, glaring up at the tall, grey ceiling. Bugsters don't need to sleep, but sometimes Parado likes to indulge. He has memories of how it used to feel: stretching out in the grass under the afternoon sun, nodding off in class with his head pillowed on his crossed arms. He doesn't do it a lot, especially now a days. But… sometimes he'll bore of level-grinding and scheming and fighting and he'll decide to let himself take the night off. He’d taken the mattress from Gemn’s apartment—since it’s not like he’d need it anymore. He'd even managed to find the same sheets he'd as a kid. The starchy cotton and the bright cartoon faces of the Mighty Action X crew are comforting after all this time.
It’s nice—as long as there aren’t any distractions.
Parado raises his hand from his side to clutch at the left side of his chest, as if it will somehow alleviate the feeling. This hollow, visceral ache that resonates from somewhere deep inside his chest. It comes in waves that ripple through his limbs and weigh them heavy against his sides. A pressure that keeps increasing, until he feels he might just sink through his makeshift bed and through the concrete floor and down into the depths of the earth itself.
His heart isn't dancing, it's drowning.
It's annoying , and it’s all Emu’s fault.
It didn't used to be like this. He didn't used to feel what Emu feels so acutely. He didn't feel them at all; he just knew how to read them. It was his body, his mind, once upon a time—he should be good at knowing how it works. Then they'd fused again, after so long, because Gemn couldn't keep his stupid mouth shut, and Parado wasn't going to let Emu die before they'd even started the real game.
Since then, he'd started to feel it, little flickers of Emu's feelings right alongside his own. A rush of a challenge, whenever they fought—a feeling he hadn't felt since they were eighteen, playing together. It'd been exhilarating at first, a positive feedback loop of adrenaline that kept him wanting, pushing—that kept growing every time they clashed.
Then other emotions had crept in sometimes. Strange tickles of affection or frustration, or a ghostly, bone-deep ache when Emu thought about him .
Lazer.
Sometimes Parado can feel the shape of his name, Kiriya , on his lips.
It'd been easy to ignore before. Parado doesn't care about Emu's fickle, hypocritical emotions. It'd been weeks and weeks, you think Emu would find something else to care about, something other than some quirky, weak, NPC. But then, ever since Lovelica had been killed—
A hot tear runs down his cheek. Parado slaps a hand over it, like he's swatting a mosquito.
Okay. That’s enough. Time to pay Emu a visit.
Parado's vision pixelates and flashes rapidly with color as he teleports into Emu's bedroom. It’s small and well-lit under the light of the full moon. Parado's gaze flicks over the apartment. It’s sparsely furnished, but heavily stocked, with gaming memorabilia and textbooks and used cups that scatter over every available surface. It’s a bit of a mess, but the floor is clear. They’d always been kind of bad at keeping things orderly. Emu sleeps with his bed in the middle. He's curled under a blanket now, his bare ankles peeking out from underneath, his skin washed blue. He looks small like this, fragile almost. It makes Parado even more annoyed, somehow.
"Emu." Parado says, at normal volume. "Cut it out."
Emu full body spasms out of the bed. He careens off the side, taking out a lamp and a mug on the way down in a spectacular show of limbs.
"Wh-- Who's--?!" Emu sputters. He attempts to scramble back on to his feet, but he slips on the blanket and tumbles back hard on to his ass. Parado just watches him pityingly, raising his eyebrows when Emu's frantic eyes finally meet his.
"Parado?" Emu says incredulously. He's sprawled out the floor now, naked except for a pair of boxers. Parado guesses it has been getting warm recently. He looks ridiculous, half naked and dumbfounded. Then Emu's brow furrows into something more indignant and he draws a corner of the blanket over his chest as his other hand gropes around his end table. Oh, for his driver. Parado rolls his eyes.
"M. Come on. I'm not going to fight you now ." He tells him. If he wanted to kill Emu in sleep he could've done it a thousand times over. But that’s not the point. There’s no fun if they're not both fighting at the best of their abilities. He's been waiting for a lifetime. When Parado finally defeats him he wants it to be big, climatic. It has to mean something.
Emu gives him a skeptical once over and draws the blanket further around himself. The light shifts and Parado can see the shine of tear tracks on his cheeks. "Then why are you here." Emu says, but it doesn't sound much like a question.
Parado sighs.
"Emu, haven't I told you before? Our hearts." Parado taps on his own chest. "They're connected." He crosses his arms. "Whenever you cry about Lazer, you're so loud about it, it’s really annoying."
Emu stares at him, so long Parado wonders if he heard him properly, but before Parado denigns to repeat himself—he laughs, a dry, humorless scoff of a sound. “What? Is that it? I’m bumming you out?” He asks incredulously. His eyes sear into Parado, even from here, in the dark.
“Well, yeah.” Duh.
“Fuck you.” Emu tells him, and as he starts to climb back into bed. Isn’t that funny, he can’t remember the last time he heard Emu curse. Probably from being around kids so much. “This is my house, and I’ll be as sad as I want in it. Get out.” His face and his voice are angry, and that’s better but--no, there’s no heart behind it. It’s a hollow, obligatory anger, and it not what Parado wants.
Parado tsks. Emu never makes anything easy. Whatever, they can do it the hard way. Well, once Parado figures out what that is. He sulkily turns his attention away from Emu, to more carefully look over the room as he muses. He wanders with a pointed idleness towards Emu’s desk. There’s a framed limited edition poster on the wall that Parado remembers standing in line hours for. He picks up a Mighty plush, squeezing it in his hand.
“Hey. What are you doing, stop touching my stuff.” He hears Emu say from behind him, but Parado ignores him. There’s a Taddle Fantasy XII figurine too, just a small one, and a pink and black gaming mouse on top of a worn mousepad with a cute cat mascot character on it.
“Stop it. Get out .”
Textbooks, medical journals, blah blah blah, boring. A particular stack of papers does catch his eye though, bowed over what Parado soon finds to be Emu’s belt. He snorts. Emu’s so lucky he’s not here to actually fight. Fat lot this would’ve done when he was on the floor. He picks it up, and feels the shape of it in his hand. It’s surprisingly light, for all the power it grants its user.
Then, somehow, Emu’s right behind him.
He jerks his hand out of the way right as Emu tries to grab his wrist, moving the gashat out of his reach. Emu makes an angry, strangled sound and takes another lunge for it, but Parado is taller and faster. His limbs are longer too, and he uses that to his advantage, keeping the belt well out of Emu’s reach. It’s almost comical, the way Emu just can’t reach, like when a little kid wants something off a shelf. Emu glares daggers at him. Parado just smiles.
“Don’t touch that.” Emu hisses as Parado dances out of the way of another swipe.
“What? Why? I to~ld you I’m not here for that.” He says, teasingly lowering his arm so that the gashat is just barely within Emu’s range, before jerking it away again. Emu falls for it, of course he does, stumbling over his own feet in his desperation Parado sneers.
“I don’t care — ” Parado doesn’t hear what he says as another wave of ache hits him out of nowhere, like a smack of cold water across his face. Oh, right , this is the one Lazer gave him. Parado thinks, and whatever amusement he was having evaporates upon contact with the thought. Of course, it always comes back to Lazer, or bringing back smiles, or whatever else Emu had decided was his hill to die on. Something in his gut twists, ugly and petulant.
Parado opens his mouth to mock Emu, but somewhere in his inner monologue, he’d completely forgotten about the bed. His knees hit it unexpectedly, and it’s enough to distract him, and enough to give Emu an opening.
Emu barrels into him, a forearm ramming into his throat with the force to knock Parado’s breath away—if he needed to breathe. The two of them tumble to the bed, and before Parado knows it there’s pressure on his collar pinning him to the pillows, and Emu’s ripping the gashat out of his hands. Parado blinks, not feeling threatened, but certainly surprised. Emu cradles the gashat by his side with his free arm, as the other keeps Parado in place. There’s a knee too, digging into his hips to keep him there.
“You are such an asshole.” Emu tells him, and he’s blocking out the light like this, so Parado can’t see his eyes. But Parado can feel his breath on his face. They’re close. Parado usually doesn’t mind. He likes to get into Emu’s space. He likes to loom over him, get close enough to count the eyelashes as Emu’s eyes nervously flutter or to see the way his pupils dilate when Parado issues a challenge. He’s been closer even, those times that he’d stolen Emu away. Fusing with Emu is always fun, nostalgic even. He could do it now, if he wanted, it’d be easy.
But this is different.
Their hearts are so, so close, separated by a layer of cloth and a few measly centimeters of air. Maybe it’s that, maybe it’s the proximity, because that deep dark feeling in Emu’s heart suddenly feels so much closer . It looms over him, heavier above both their shoulders. Dark and oppressive, like the inky black of the night sky is bearing down on the hollowness of his chest, and his brittle ribs creak at the effort of holding up. Because his heart—Emu’s, his, theirs—feels empty , but it’s an absence that throbs, that hurts.
He can see it in his mind’s eye, on the tips of his toes at the edge of that chasm—no—an ocean— bottomless and suffocating. Parado feels so acutely, that if he’s not careful, he might slip, and disappear down, down, down—
He teleports away.
It’s just to the side of the room, into the swivel chair, but it helps. He spins in it slowly, trying to ignore the way the back of his neck is clammy with sweat. He can still feel the pressure of Emu’s arm on his throat.
“You’re so pathetic, M.” He says, with all the nonchalance he can muster. “He’s been gone for ages—and you only knew him for what? A few weeks?”
Emu doesn’t respond—ugh—he’s just looking at the gashat now. He’s ignoring him to make sad eyes at a belt. Parado wants to kill him.
“If you really cared about him, why didn’t you do anything when he died?” Parado tries instead, and what’s supposed to be a sneer comes out more a whine. Still, it makes Emu twitch, and that’s a start. “You even got mad at me when I killed Gemn for you, even though I know you wanted him to die.” He can’t see Emu’s eyes, but he knows he’s looking at him now.
Parado leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “Honestly, I did you a favor, M. You could show a little more gratitude.”
Even from across the room, the heat of Emu’s glare feels like fresh sun on his face. “Don’t pretend like you did it for anyone but yourself.”
Parado makes a big show of rolling his eyes. “So you didn’t want him to pay for what he did to Lazer?” He asks.
Emu clenches his teeth so hard Parado can hear the grind of his teeth. “It doesn’t matter what I want .” He says. “No one has the right to take someone’s life, especially not me, especially not you .”
Parado bristles. “Eh? You had no issue killing Bugsters, or do they not count?” He sneers.
“Bugsters don’t—they come back. It’s not the same.”
They don’t always. Parado wants to say, the words heavy on the tip of his tongue. Not Burgermon, not Lovelica. But the idea of saying that out loud just makes his throat tight, makes something foreign and wild scrabble at his chest. “Why’d you help Poppy then.” He says instead. “Isn’t she just code. She would’ve come back too, wouldn’t she?”
Emu gets up from the bed at that, his entire body is one rigid, line as he stalks over to where Parado is. It makes Parado shift a little, wary that his dark cloud might follow him.
“You do not get to act like you care about her,” He hisses at him, as he fists a hand into Parado’s collar, eyes ablaze. And this is what Parado wanted, the fury, the fire. His skin prickles with anticipation. He only gets it for a second, thought, before Emu takes a deep breath, tamping down his anger with a shake of his head. His hand uncurls from Parado’s jacket. “You—we—no—shut up—we’re not going to use her like some stupid barginning chip right now. She’s not what this is about.”
“Oh? Then what is this about.”
“I don’t know! You don’t make any sense! I can’t tell what you—what do you even want, Parado?” Emu stares into his eyes now, searching them for something, Parado doesn’t know what. His skin prickles again, but this time it’s difficult, uncomfortable. “To kill me? For me to kill you?” Hah, Emu killing him? What a joke, like he could . “For me to join you? You say you have this noble crusade to lead the Bugsters, but I don’t believe you.” The prickle turns into an itch, his face starting to feel warm. “You—You don’t even know what you want!”
Parado stands up suddenly, then, and to his credit Emu doesn’t flinch, just lifts his chin to maintain eye contact. Parado feels hot all over, anger and frustration and other emotions he doesn’t care to name sear on his skin so much that Emu can probably feel it radiating off of him.
“You don’t understand.” Parado repeats, just to have something to say. Of course he knows what he wants. He wants to play the ultimate game, he wants to make things fair, he wants to beat Emu, so that there’s just him left, and so everyone can know that he was the one meant to exist in this world. He wants to say this to Emu, but his face is hot and his tongue feels twisted, and the words aren’t coming out right.
“It was my life, too, you know.” Is what he says instead, but it doesn’t even feel like he’s really saying them. The words just tumble out from his lips before he can think them through. “ I stood for hours at the midnight release to get that poster.” He points to where it is on the wall, and then takes a step forward so now Emu’s forced to move, taking his own step back. “ I won those trophies.” He jerks his head to the shelf of e-sports awards. Parado takes another step, and another, and Emu looks a little less sure of himself, stumbling a little as Parado corrales him backward.
“They took it from me, my life, my face.” Emu’s back hits the wall and his shoulders lock up, but his eyes haven’t budged from Parado’s. He puts his palms on either side of Emu, caging him in. They’re close again, close like before, but Parado doesn’t worry about Emu taking over, because now it’s his heart, his fire, threatening to swallow them both.
“Humans—” He hisses the word into what little space there is between them. “—use Bugsters like pawns, but now I’m the game master, I’m the protagonist. I can do whatever I want.”
Emu has nothing to say to that, he just stares up at Parado with wide, unreadable eyes. He’s breathing hard, but so is Parado, and the ragged sound of their breaths seem so loud in the stillness of his room. He feels weird after saying those things, like maybe he showed too much of his hand. He’s mad and overheated and sensitive all over, and he doesn’t know what to do now that he has Emu here. Emu’s breath fans across his mouth and Parado’s eyes flick down when Emu lick his lips nervously, the little flash of movement is distracting. His eyes skate downward a little, impulsively and--
Oh.
Oh.
Emu’s hard. It’s impossible to hide when he’s wearing only his underwear. He looks back up to Emu, who stares at him like a deer caught in the headlights. His anger dispitates at the same rate an embarrassed flush crawls over Emu’s face.
“Wow, been a while, M?” He says, lips curling into a satisfied smirk. Emu shoves against his chest, pushing him away as he stalks back to his bed. “You don’t have to be shy. That used to be my dick, too.” He calls after his cheerily.
“Go away.” Emu tells him he wraps the blanket around himself. He’s sitting on the bed now, back turned away. Parado just bats his eyes and smiles.
“What, so you can fantasize about me? I guess that’d solve our sleep problem.” He muses, meandering over back into Emu’s line of sight to watch the way Emu’s jaw tenses and his hands clench.
“If you really want me to sleep, then leave, you’re not helping.” Emu shoots back, with a poisonous look up at him.
“Do you want me to help?” Parado asks, the words tumbling out of his mouth without a thought.
They both freeze.
Emu has that same incomprehensible expression again, eyes wide but intense as he looks up at Parado, not like he's looking for something but like he's found it, and is waiting for Parado to give himself up. It makes something pull insistently at his chest, drawing him in. Not dancing, but infectious like it. He hasn't decided if he likes this feeling or not. But Parado's nothing if not curious. So he sits down on the bed next to Emu, slowly, their eyes still locked. Their knees bump.
Parado leans in, close enough to count Emu’s eyelashes, even here in the dark. "Are you afraid of me, Emu?"
A snort. "You wish." Emu says snidely.
Parado smirks, and places a hand on his neck, fingers trailing over his jaw, a thumb on his pulse point. Emu swallows, and Parado can feel it along with the thrum of his heart beat. "Then why am I making your heart race." He murmurs.
"I think you're projecting." Emu tells him, but now he’s leaning in closer. His eyes are locked onto Parado’s as he does, pupils blown wide. An unspoken question hangs between them, no—a challenge. Parado grins, all sharp teeth.
They meet in the middle.
It’s different than he thought. He’d imagined that it’d be more like when they fought, more adrenaline and teeth, but Emu kisses him gently—no— carefully , Emu kisses him carefully, like he’s still on guard. Cautious, open-mouth kisses, while he watches Parado under his lashes.
He’s honestly never kissed anyone like this before. Truthfully, he hasn’t kissed that many people. There were a few boys in high school when they were still M, most of them terrible, and then Graphite, who liked it hard and hot and straight-to-the-point. He wonders how many men Emu has kissed before this, in that phantom stretch of time, when Parado stumbled out onto the world on shaky, new legs and had to learn to walk again.
Emu’s hand presses to his chest, pushing him away. Parado doesn’t take his eyes off Emu, just tilts his head, waiting to see what he’ll say.
“Stop staring at me while we kiss, it’s weird.”
Parado laughs. “Your eyes were open too!” He points out. He slides a leg over Emu and pushes his shoulder back against the bed so that he’s looming over him, knees on either side of his hips. Emu’s still watching him carefully with those big brown eyes, hair splayed against the sheets. Parado grins, showing off all of his teeth, and notices when Emu’s eyes flicker down to his smile. He leans in, close enough his lips brush the corner of Emu’s mouth as he talks. “Afraid I’ll bite?” He murmurs, sweet as molasses.
Emu answers by biting Parado’s bottom lip, and Parado’s so delighted he feels borderline delirious with it. He kisses Emu and he kisses him, messy and indulgent. He tugs on Emu’s bottom lip with his teeth just to hear him gasp. Emu’s hands drag up over his arms to knot in his hair and pull . He rolls his hips down into Emu’s and drinks up the soft, desperate sounds he makes at the friction.
He lets Emu wrench his head back to mouth at his jugular, and the edge of teeth makes anticipation spark up his spine. It’s like the adrenaline of a fight, with that edge of teeth, the promises of bruises sucked onto his skin.
“Your clothes.” Emu says derisively, before biting down hard. Parado makes a sound he doesn’t think he’s ever heard from his mouth. He really doesn’t need anymore convincing that that, and lets his clothes dissolve off of him, until he’s bare. Emu squirms at the ticklish feeling of pixels fizzing against his skin. Emu’s skate over his back, drinking in the sensation of smooth, warm skin. And see, that’s the thing, that’s not like fighting at all: the way Emu pulls him closer and tilts his body up. It’s satisfying in a deep, visceral way.
Parado shifts to work a hand between them, and feels the soft give of Emu’s stomach before dipping into his underwear. He wraps his long fingers around Emu and Emu makes a truly pathetic little sound. He presses a kiss under Emu’s ear. His hair smells nice, underneath the sweat and sex, something almost floral.
Emu’s hand fumbles to reach for his own dick, hard against his stomach and that drag against his hard cock makes his hips stutter. He moans, loud, against Emu’s skin.
“Shut up.” Emu breathes, halfheartedly. Parado moans again, louder this time, just to spite him. He swears he sees Emu roll his eyes before he gets pulled back into another kiss, and Emu’s mouth is so hot against his and his hand feels so nice . They breathe, hard and desperate against each other’s mouths, kissing as they remember to, as their hands move. All Parado can think about is skin and heat and the darkness of Emu’s eyes as his eyelashes flutter and the shine on his full lips and how he just wants to get closer, closer, closer.
Parado comes with a choked sound, all over Emu’s stomach and chest as Emu spills into his hand with a cry. He rolls off of him, flopping onto the mattress next, curls in his eyes and askew over the pillow. When he looks over, Emu is already fast asleep, and doesn’t even stir when Parado pokes his arm. It’s quiet in the room again, except for the sound of them breathing, but even that seems almost muted. Emu’s face is turned away from him, the moonlight catching on his eyelashes and the wet marks on his neck and turning them blue. It almost feels like they’re underwater. He just watches him breathe for a while, steady and calm. He wonders if Emu did this sort of thing with Kiriya before died, if that’s why he feels so strongly about him.
Would Emu miss him like that, if he--
Parado teleports away before he can finish the thought, away from Emu and his apartment and all of the what ifs and maybes that come with it. He’s back on the bed in the warehouse again, clothed and cleaned up and it’s almost like it never happened, like it was a dream. It’d be really easy to pretend it never happened, Emu would never out himself like that. And then Parado will defeat him and he’ll never have to think about Emu or his soft lips or his angry eyes or that deep dark void ever again.
His mouth tastes like saltwater. He rolls out of bed and boots up his PSP instead. He doesn’t really want to sleep anymore.