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[CHATLOG. Goro Akechi to Joker, 6:02PM, 1/31/XX]
Akechi Joker.
Akechi It’s time.
Akechi I’ll be waiting outside Shibuya Station.
Joker See you there.
Akechi Excellent.
***
It was funny: in this false world of Maruki’s, no one seemed to notice or remember Goro Akechi. He was not unused to being ignored—he’d become quite well accustomed to it in his childhood—but it never failed to rankle him, to needle at the soft spot underneath his nails. As he stood in the clinging cold, watching the masses go about their business, he tried to trade the irritation prickling his hackles for the thrill twisting in his belly.
Any minute now, Joker would arrive. They would enter Mementos. And they would finally, finally determine, once and for all, which of them was the better, stronger fighter. Akechi wouldn’t kill him: he no longer wanted to see Joker dead. He simply wanted to show him who was really in control. Wipe that goddamn smirk off his face, for once.
Of course it couldn’t hurt to draw a little blood. Akechi had never truly seen Joker bleed, after all. Somehow he emerged from every battle unscathed, give or take a few bruises. And it went without saying that the blood of a cognition didn’t count.
Akechi heard familiar footsteps, and turned, and grinned at the sight of Joker emerging from the station. The bright, warm light behind him cast him nearly in silhouette, but not enough to obscure the slight smile on his face.
“Well,” Akechi said. “You came.”
“You invited me,” Joker said. He rocked his hips to one side, stuck his hands in his pockets.
“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d chickened out.”
Joker raised his eyebrows.
“Shall we go?” Akechi said, gesturing grandly toward the entrance to the underground. “I think it’s best if we make use of Mementos again, don’t you? Unless you’d prefer to brawl right out here on the street.”
Joker tipped his chin slightly sideways in an expression that could only be described as “?”
“Why so confused? You must have known this was coming.”
Joker continued to look puzzled.
Akechi bristled. “Our duel! I promised you we’d fight again!”
“Oh,” Joker said. “Is that what this is?”
“Of course it is! What else would it be?”
“I don’t know. You didn’t say.”
“What other reason could I possibly have for calling you here?”
Joker blinked, and snorted very faintly, and smirked. “No reason, I guess.”
Okay, change of plan. Akechi was going to kill him. And then he was going to peel his face off and fry it in oil.
“Will you wipe that smug look off your face?” he snarled, drawing himself up to his full height. (It must be said that he was still slightly shorter than Joker.) “What did you think was going to happen?”
Joker took a breath, and something in his face changed. His eyes seemed to darken, his gaze to sharpen. He looked like…a raptor. A predator. Akechi hadn’t known him long, but he’d never seen him look at anything like that.
Akechi's heart fluttered. “What—”
Joker strode forward, directly toward him. Akechi stood firm right up until it became clear that Joker wasn’t going to stop, and then backpedaled, sputtering, “What are you doing? What are you do—”
Akechi hit a wall, sharp and cold; he grunted; Joker grasped the back of his neck and kissed him on the mouth.
For a second Akechi stood still and stunned. He could have pushed Joker away: Joker was a solid wall of muscle and sinew, but he was also liquid as a cat, and he would have yielded if Akechi made him. But Akechi didn’t.
Joker’s body was a brand against Akechi’s, blazingly hot even through multiple layers of fabric; Akechi’s clothes were too many and too thick, his fingertips and face suddenly aflame. Joker’s hand tightened against Akechi’s neck, curving it forward, tipping his head back and his mouth open so that their tongues met. With his other hand Joker tugged Akechi’s hip so that Akechi’s cock, already hard and sharp as a blade, pressed against the muscular curve of Joker’s thigh.
Akechi reached up, seized Joker’s scarf, tilted his head so that their teeth scraped together. Joker made a faint, pleased noise, and a wild, gnawing hunger bloomed in the pit of Akechi’s stomach, not unlike the hunger he felt when he stalked his victims. He wanted—he wanted—
And then Joker bit him, hard.
Akechi cried out despite himself at the sudden bruising pain in his lower lip. Before he could jerk away, Joker stepped back, leaned to one side, and stuck his hands in his pockets again.
Akechi slumped against the wall, touched his throbbing mouth with quaking fingers. There was no blood, but it was already swelling. He glanced up at Joker, and felt his cock twitch: Joker was still looking at him with that curious intensity, his eyes hard and dark as onyx. Joker licked his lips, and Akechi found himself watching the path of his tongue.
“That’s what I thought this was,” Joker said mildly.
“That’s,” Akechi said, pushing himself upright. “That’s—disgusting. You’re disgusting.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course! What made you think I was interested in that sort of—debauchery?”
Joker visibly stifled a laugh. “No idea. Sorry. Won’t happen again.”
“I called you here to fight,” Akechi spat. “To finish what we started.”
It was hard to think about fighting, though, because Joker had suddenly become extremely distracting. Joker’s scarf was askew where Akechi had clutched it, revealing the tendons of his neck and the jut of his collarbone. His eyes were still dark, intense; his pupils were dilated. And although Joker’s expression was calm, if not outright amused, Akechi could tell from the rise and fall of his shoulders that he was breathless, too.
He wanted Akechi, too.
“I’m not going to fight you,” Joker said.
“Y—what? But we agreed—”
Joker shrugged, and held up Akechi’s glove. Akechi goggled at it.
“That was then,” Joker said. “This is now.”
And he tossed the glove to him. Akechi caught it, clenched it in his fist.
“You can’t just refuse! We agreed. We made a deal—”
“Deal’s over.” Joker turned, lifted one hand in farewell. “See ya.”
Akechi opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “You can’t—you—get back here! Come back! Come back!”
Joker left.
Akechi stood there, panting. He felt cold, cheated. But not because Joker had refused him.
No. This was ridiculous. He loathed Joker. Maybe he didn’t want to kill him, most of the time, but he definitely didn’t want to fuck him. Or be fucked by him.
A vision flashed across Akechi’s mind: Joker, bare-chested, leaning over him, eyes hooded and lips wet, the muscles in his arms and shoulders stark against his skin as he braced his hands on either side of Akechi’s head—
“Damn it,” Akechi hissed, dragging his hands through his hair. “Damn it.”
***
It was nearly 9:30 when Akechi arrived at the slovenly little shop that passed for a café. Yongen-Jaya’s streets were empty, thank God. He doubted anyone would have noticed him anyway, Maruki’s influence being what it was, but he was too wound up to stomach any sort of milquetoast human interaction right now.
Of course he hadn’t followed Joker right away. Of course he hadn’t. He wouldn’t chase him; he wasn’t desperate. And if he knocked and no one answered, well, then he’d go home, and never speak or think of this again. He still couldn’t quite believe he was here at all.
Dim light shone through the warped glass panes on the door. Someone was awake, then. Akechi straightened his sleeves, cleared his throat, and knocked.
A moment later, Joker opened the door, and blinked. “Ah.”
“Akechi?” Morgana said, coiling around Joker’s ankles. “What’re you doing here?”
“We weren’t done with our discussion,” Akechi said, holding Joker’s gaze.
Joker raised his eyebrows.
Morgana looked from Akechi to Joker and back. “I’m… gonna let you guys talk,” he said, and slipped past them into the night.
Joker opened the door wide. Akechi stalked inside.
“Is anyone else here?” he snapped, scanning the café.
“Hang on,” Joker said. He bent down and fiddled briefly with something underneath the bar. “There. I switched off Futaba’s bug.”
“Her what?”
“She keeps an ear out for Morgana and me. C’mon. Let’s go upstairs.”
And he strode off without waiting for Akechi to reply. Gritting his teeth, Akechi followed him.
“I still can’t believe you live here,” Akechi said, ducking beneath a spiderweb at the top of the stairs. “Sakura’s practically adopted you. You’d think he’d give you a room at his place.”
“I like my privacy.” Joker perched on the edge of his bed, rested his elbows on his knees. “So? What’s up?”
Akechi hadn’t thought about this. He’d thought about after this point, about various scenarios typically involving him pinning Joker down and tearing off all his clothes, but he hadn’t considered how to get from Point A to Point B. Or C. Or Z.
“If we’re going to do this, we’re doing it on my terms,” Akechi said. “You understand?”
Joker sat up straight.
“We’re not going to be lovers, or give each other flowers, or talk about—”
“Akechi.” Joker’s mouth crooked upward into a smile. “I don’t want to marry you. I want to fuck you.”
Heat flooded from Akechi’s toes all the way up to the roots of his hair. He held Joker’s gaze for a moment, fighting to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.
At length he said, “Fine,” and shrugged off his coat. “Do you have a coat rack anywhere?”
“Just put it on the sofa.”
“This is a very expensive coat.”
“Crow,” Joker said, low and husky.
Akechi put his coat and gloves on the sofa, and tucked his shoes underneath it too. He was aware of Joker’s eyes on him the entire time, and of the sound of Joker’s steady breathing.
Finally, he walked over to stand between Joker’s legs. He twisted his fingers into Joker’s hair, digging his nails into his scalp, feeling a little jolt of pleasure when Joker gasped. Then Akechi bent—only a fraction, that was all it took—and hungrily closed his mouth over Joker’s.
It was like kissing a live wire. Every inch of Akechi’s skin crackled with electricity, and again he felt the curious yearning in his gut. Joker’s hands found his hips, slid beneath his shirt, skated across his stomach and around to the small of his back, and everywhere they touched they left a trail of tingling heat as if the sun itself had branded him.
Joker pulled Akechi further forward, jaw working ferociously, and lay back easily when Akechi clambered onto the bed with him. Akechi couldn’t seem to touch Joker enough; he pulled his hair, gripped his throat, dragged his nails down his chest, hiked up Joker’s shirt and spread his palm against the flat plane of his abdomen. Akechi wanted to climb inside Joker’s skin, to feel the squeeze of his muscles and the rush of his blood. Mostly he wanted Joker to make a sound, to moan or cry out, because he was infuriatingly quiet even now, even though Akechi could tell by his ragged breath and increasingly frenzied movements that he was affected by what was happening to him. By what Akechi was doing to him.
It was much, much better than murder.
They stopped kissing and fumbling long enough to negotiate their clothes: Joker pulled off Akechi’s shirt and Akechi removed Joker’s jacket, and then Akechi bit his way along Joker’s collarbone, from the half-moon where it met his throat all the way to his shoulder. Joker hissed out a sharp breath, arching against Akechi’s mouth, his fingers working across Akechi’s shoulderblades and spine.
Akechi shifted so he could straddle Joker’s thigh, stifling a moan as his cock chafed against the inside of his pants. He sat up, waited a moment while Joker removed his foggy glasses, and then tugged Joker’s shirt smoothly up and off. For a moment, Akechi saw the reverse of his earlier vision: Joker sprawled beneath him, pale chest rapidly rising and falling, lips swollen and slightly parted.
Akechi leaned forward, and as he did so he shifted his weight and found his knee pressing against the stark outline of Joker’s cock. Joker made a very soft, strangled sound, and his head fell back, and Akechi closed his mouth over the tender flesh of his throat and sucked until there was an upraised welt beneath his tongue, helped along by his grazing teeth. All the while Joker shuddered beneath him, bucking his hips against Akechi’s thigh, digging his nails into Akechi’s back.
Still, still, he wasn’t making any real noise. Akechi moved further downward, biting and sucking and biting, leaving angry red marks everywhere he could on Joker’s throat, chest, stomach. Joker’s breath came fast and harsh, his hands roving through Akechi’s hair, across his shoulders, fingers curling against his neck.
Akechi’s cock was throbbing painfully by the time he reached his intended destination. He undid the button on Joker’s jeans and unzipped them with fingers filled with molasses. He hooked his thumb into the elastic of Joker’s boxers.
“Akechi,” Joker breathed, and Akechi glanced up at him and smirked.
He’d seen Joker naked before, of course, at the bathhouse, and he was quite familiar with penises in general since he had one of his own. Still, the sight of Joker’s, curving upward toward his navel, made Akechi’s heart thunder in his chest. Akechi flattened his tongue against the spot just above Joker’s hairline and licked his way up to Joker’s belly button; he sank his teeth into the ripple of muscle between Joker’s hip and stomach; and finally, finally, he closed his fingers around Joker’s shaft and squeezed.
Joker made a choked sound, hu-hah, and jerked his hips. His cock was scalding against Akechi’s skin, pulsing in time with the flutter in his throat. Akechi squeezed again, hard, so that Joker finally cried out, head falling back against the bed as he thrust his hips upward under Akechi’s palm. Akechi flexed his fingers, jerked his hand once, twice, three times, hungrily watching Joker’s face, the gleam of his teeth as he opened his mouth to gasp, the line between his eyebrows as he squeezed his eyes shut.
Akechi leaned up, working his hand in a rough, rapid rhythm, and bit Joker’s ear, his earlobe, his lower lip; he kissed him fiercely, swallowing what started as panting and eventually became faint grunts and even, when Akechi cupped Joker’s balls in his free hand, a helpless moan. Akechi himself was rapturous, shivering all over with delight, reveling in how easy this was, how quickly he had brought Joker under his control simply by touching him, simply by putting his teeth in him and squeezing him—right—there.
Akechi felt the climax coming in the tension in Joker’s body, in the way Joker clutched at his shoulders and the back of his head, in the way his hips flexed and bucked. Akechi let go, lifted his head to watch Joker’s face contort and his jaw tighten—
“Ah,” Joker breathed, his grip tightening to painful as he came, as Akechi felt hot, sticky cum spatter across his own abdomen. “Ah…ah.”
Akechi was suffused with a kind of visceral triumph: ten times what he’d imagined when he’d contemplated destroying his father, twenty times what he’d imagined when he’d contemplated destroying the man beneath him. Watching Joker slowly relax, sink into the mattress, Akechi’s face split open in a feral grin.
“Happy now?” he asked silkily.
Joker opened his eyes, stared up at the ceiling, panted.
Akechi chuckled and bowed his head to lick Joker’s stomach clean, thrilling in the quake and tremble of Joker’s skin under his tongue. He paid special attention to Joker’s belly button, listening to his breath quicken.
When Joker started to shift, Akechi sat up.
“Well,” Akechi said, “that was—”
Even afterward, Akechi wasn’t sure how Joker did it. One moment, Akechi was on top of him, the unparalleled conqueror; the next, Akechi was flat on his back, with Joker’s blazing eyes locked onto his as he reached into Akechi’s pants.
“Your turn,” Joker said, in a way that made Akechi’s mouth run dry.
Joker’s mouth wasn’t dry, though. He left cool, damp patches on Akechi’s skin as he licked and sucked his way across Akechi’s stomach; he lapped up every drop of cum he found, lingering longer and longer the further downward he went. Akechi couldn’t move, and yet couldn’t be still; he was on fire and icy cold; his fists opened and closed helplessly against the sheets and his shoulders bunched and twisted against the mattress. This was torture, and worse, Akechi knew he sounded like it. Through the roaring in his ears, he could hear himself yelping and crying as though Joker were flaying him, as though Joker were biting him as Akechi had done, even though Joker’s teeth had never yet come into play. But Akechi couldn’t stop, no matter how pathetic he sounded; his body wasn’t his own; his voice wasn’t his own.
It was terrible. Akechi never wanted it to end.
When Joker took Akechi into his mouth, wrapping his fingers around the base of his shaft, Akechi’s heart tried to burst through his sternum. He jerked his hips; Joker coughed, squeezed him sharply, and then began to bob his head up and down. Sometimes he teased the tip of Akechi’s cock with his tongue; sometimes he pressed his tongue flat against him; sometimes he let his teeth just barely brush across his skin.
Akechi could hardly breathe. He twisted, bucked, pushed himself up on his elbows, grabbed a fistful of Joker’s hair and held on, as if hurting him would help, as if he could discharge some of the lightning flowing through himself by touching the man generating it. A dull, pounding throb began to build in his balls, in his cock; his cries gave way to keening sounds, and then to ragged pants; and then, without warning, Joker lifted his head up and away, and the shock of cold air on the wetness where his mouth had been sent Akechi over the edge.
Once he was spent, Akechi slumped down, pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, waited for his body to stop shaking. Even his teeth were chattering. Vaguely, he was aware of Joker moving away from him, and then of something soft—tissue?—rubbing his stomach and pelvis. Joker was cleaning him up.
Eventually, the mattress creaked as Joker got back into the bed. Akechi lowered his hands.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” he rasped.
Joker considered this. “Porn.”
Akechi burst out laughing. Joker smiled.
“God,” Akechi said, rubbing his face. “You still manage to surprise me.”
Joker leaned back against the wall. “So. What now?”
“I don’t suppose there’s a shower in this place.”
“No. You’d have to go to the bathhouse across the way.”
“You’re suggesting I put my clean clothes on my dirty body, take a bath, and then put those now-dirty clothes back on?”
“You could borrow something of mine.”
“Ugh. No thank you.”
“Are you going to stay here?”
Akechi studied the rafters.
He felt…relaxed and calm and cozy in a way he couldn’t ever remember being. Like every fluid in his body had been replaced by warm, melted chocolate. It didn’t have anything to do with being near Joker; he’d felt something like this after his own…well, after masturbating. On a much smaller scale, obviously. He didn’t want to snuggle or anything. But he also didn’t want to move.
“That depends,” he said finally. “Is there going to be a second round?”
Joker leaned his head first to one side and then the other, stretching out his neck. “Do you want there to be?”
Did he?
Akechi sat up, gripped Joker’s jaw, and kissed him.
***
“But what about you?” Maruki said.
Akechi was a psychopath, not a sociopath, and he’d spent enough time studying Joker to know what the sudden tension in his shoulders, the shadow across his eyes, meant. He was concerned. He was concerned about Akechi, despite everything, or perhaps in spite of everything. Rage coiled like a snake in Akechi’s stomach. He crossed his arms, leaned back against the bar, and watched Joker as Maruki continued to prattle.
God, but Maruki never knew when to shut up. Couldn’t he see that Joker wasn’t listening? That he’d gone to that place inside himself where he made decisions? Akechi could. It was obvious. Joker stared at the tabletop, brows furrowed. Akechi couldn’t see his hands, but he knew they’d be fisted in his lap.
Why did everyone else seem to think Joker was strong? Did they not see the ways he opened himself up to attack? This was the clearest choice in the world, and Joker was going to agonize about making it, going to tie himself into knots looking for a way out. And why? To “save” Akechi? To give him “the chance he’d never had?” It was disgusting. Worse than that, it was stupid. Akechi’s teeth hurt from clenching his jaw.
Akechi only realized that Maruki had finally stopped talking when Joker said, “You forgot something,” and tossed the calling card onto the table. Maruki smiled at Akechi on his way out.
“I’d like to speak with him,” Akechi told Morgana.
He didn’t hear Morgana's response. It didn’t matter. Joker got up to let the cat outside, and then came back to stand beside Akechi, hands fisted at his sides.
“Well?” Akechi said.
Joker glanced at him, frowned, looked away.
“You can’t seriously be considering this.”
A muscle fluttered in Joker’s jaw.
Akechi wanted to club him. Why was he getting so worked up? He’d never been this upset about anything. Never. Even when his friends had given in to their delusions, even when they’d fought Sumire…Joker had made a dozen tougher decisions than this one, and yet—
“If we stop Maruki,” Joker said, “you’ll—”
“So what?”
Joker took a breath, and Akechi saw him starting to say the word I, and that was it. He grabbed Joker’s collar, dragged him forward, twisted his fingers into his hair.
“We discussed this,” he growled, tightening his grasp until Joker met his gaze. “We’re not friends. We’re not lovers. We don’t owe each other anything.”
“It’s not about owing you something.”
“That’s all anything is about, Joker. Life is a series of exchanges. And I will not accept your pity, or your mercy, or Maruki’s bullshit. If you give in, I’ll kill you.”
Joker’s eyes flickered, and Akechi saw the light of resolve bloom within them.
Akechi shoved him away. “Now. Tell me what you’re going to do.”
Joker rolled his shoulders, put his hands in his pockets. “I’m going to stop him.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Akechi.” Joker lifted his chin. “I won’t forgive you if you die.”
Akechi raised an eyebrow, snorted. “It’s not up to you.”
“You’re right.” Joker rocked his hips to one side. “But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I can change the world just by trying. Lavenza says we’re the same. So you must be able to change it, too.”
There was a little silence, and in it, Akechi realized he didn’t want to go. Not yet.
He adjusted his cuffs, tugged on his gloves. “Is Morgana ever coming back, do you think?”
Joker shrugged. “We probably have a little while, at least. But I’m not exactly in the mood for—”
Akechi chuckled. “Ah, Joker. That’s not up to you, either.”
Joker blinked. Akechi curled his fingers into the collar of Joker's jacket, savoring the searing heat of his skin.
“You’d deny a dying man his final pleasure?” Akechi murmured.
Joker’s expression changed. When Akechi pulled him, he came, so close that Akechi could feel his breath on his face.
“You’re not dying,” Joker said quietly.
“Hm,” Akechi said, smirking. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”
Joker grinned.