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Shion hadn’t always sat at the foot of Nezumi’s bed in the evening.
After dinner and a bath, Nezumi wanted nothing but to lay in bed, half dressed and reading whatever book he had remembered he hadn’t remembered in a while, until he fell asleep. Sometimes it took ten minutes, some times two hours. But he always wanted it quiet and relaxing and decidedly not full of chatter.
But Shion had (initially) very different preferences for how he hoped each evening would go. For a while, this amounted to his asking a lot of questions Nezumi didn’t want to answer. Sometimes it would end with Nezumi threatening him, other times, Shion would quietly retreat and pick up a book of his own, scowling until Nezumi rolled over to go to sleep.
And though Nezumi had come to realize, over time, that Shion was just lonely all day, waiting for Nezumi to return to him, and wanted to talk, Nezumi couldn’t bring himself to apologize for the way it had come to these heavy evenings of silence and distance. Nor did he really want to change them, because he still did not want to spend his night answering a bunch of stupid inquiries.
So when one night, after a few minutes of pretending to want to sit on the couch, Shion got up, unceremoniously, and slid onto the foot of Nezumi’s bed to read there, Nezumi was not going to deny him. It only worked because Shion did it inconspicuously. Didn’t say a thing. Didn’t ask if he could sit there, or if he would be bothering him. Just walked right over and sat on the bed, legs bumping into Nezumi’s feet. And a good forty minutes later, when Nezumi closed his book and rolled over onto his side, Shion jumped off and hurriedly went to blow the lamps out and lay down in his own designated space on the couch.
-
So the next night, when Shion sat up from the couch, book in hand, to try his stunt a second time, Nezumi pulled his legs up, bending at the knees as if to give Shion room to join him on the bed. The gesture did not go unnoticed, as he heard Shion gasp very quietly when he realized that the space was being offered to him willingly.
Since then, Shion has always taken his space at Nezumi’s feet as soon as Nezumi lay down with his book. The night is a ritual now, and Nezumi is fine with that. As much as he’s come to distrust things that happen with this much regularity, all bets are off when Shion’s involved; he doesn’t know what instincts to trust anymore when that fool is around.
It’s not even weird when Shion touches him anymore. On some nights, Shion gets bored with the book he’s reading, or he’s finished it, or he just doesn’t like it, and he closes it up and turns his attention to Nezumi’s skin. On others, his hand wanders while he’s reading at the same time. Nezumi never reacts, but he can’t deny that he likes it. Human contact is a luxury he’d never had when he was alone, and he certainly wouldn’t indulge any of the many people eager to touch him, because it was dangerous. But it wasn’t like he could protect himself from Shion anyway– he’d realized a while ago that it was too late to even try.
Usually Shion would just run his fingers up and down Nezumi’s calf, idly and fondly. Sometimes he’d trace little patterns, writing characters that Nezumi couldn’t decipher by touch. When he was feeling unabashed, Nezumi would unfold his legs into Shion’s lap, as if giving permission to touch that was never his to give in the first place. And Shion would always take advantage of that, going from finger-touches to flat palms stroking Nezumi’s legs. Nezumi liked it all, and it went on for long enough that Shion’s next move was completely unexpected.
They always were.
“Shion?” Nezumi asked, looking down under the book he’d been holding over his head.
“Your heart,” Shion said, whole body between Nezumi’s legs, fingers on his chest. He began tracing a line down his torso as if this was a totally acceptable thing to do.
“That’s not my heart,” Nezumi said, choking down a squeak, because now Shion’s fingers were drawing patterns across his stomach. Nezumi’s muscles jerked at the touch when those fingers wandered too far to the side.
Shion’s eyes widened, and he stilled. Then, like a scientist prodding an experiment, he ghosted his fingers above Nezumi’s hipbone again. As expected, the muscles of Nezumi’s torso jerked tight all at once.
“Shion,” Nezumi deadpanned.
“You’re ticklish,” Shion said, voice innocent and excited at the discovery, and completely undeterred by the tone of warning in Nezumi’s voice. “The way your body reacts is really beautiful to watch.”
Nezumi groaned.
“Again with the shitty vocabulary?”
Shion glared, his joy instantly smashed. “You keep trying to tell yourself that it’s my vocabulary that’s incorrect.”
“It’s a fact.”
“You’re the idiot!” Shion shouted, fingers pressing into Nezumi’s sides.
Shion’s eyes had taken on a darkness that he only got when he was truly upset, and so Nezumi swallowed hard, and assessed the position he was in–
Here he was, half-naked and pinned under Shion. Exposed. Vulnerable. Shion’s fingers digging into his sides...
God, he could get gutted right here, right now, couldn’t he?
How had he fallen this far, exactly? This was no surprise attack. He’d let the lion crawl right up into his lap.
This was no way to survive.
“Shion...”
“Just go back to reading,” he huffed, setting his cheek in his hand and going back to tracing the muscles of Nezumi’s body.
Nezumi didn’t know what to do anymore. So he obeyed. Best not to anger the beast any more than he already was.
...or, at least, he acted like he was obeying, because Shion was getting awfully bold down there with his touches now, and those movements were just a bit too distracting for him to actually read what was on the page in front of him. Shion’s fingers traced the waistline of Nezumi’s pants, and it made him shiver. Shion ran his hands over Nezumi’s pectorals, and he felt his skin grow warm underneath his touch. Nezumi even tried hard not to notice that Shion was definitely rubbing his finger over his nipple, likely observing, very scientifically, the way it began to harden under his touch.
And then he felt Shion bring his lips to the skin just between his belly-button and his belt, and it was too much– he couldn’t stop the gasp escaping from his lips.
Shion seemed pleased with this, but Nezumi couldn’t take it any more.
“Shion!”
“Your breath is getting shallow,” Shion observed, as if it were an appropriate response. "Your pulse rate is up, too."
“Wh- it’s because you’re touching me like that, Shion!” Nezumi growled.
Shion blinked up at him.
“You don’t like it?”
What?
“Why would...Shion?” Nezumi had gotten pretty good at figuring Shion out at this point, but this time he was at a total loss for what the hell was going on.
Shion frowned. “I thought you were getting aroused.”
Nezumi lurched. He could only stare, for a good twenty seconds, before the shock wore off enough for him to respond.
“Are you serious?” Nezumi asked.
“When do I make jokes?”
“Do you understand what that word even means?”
Shion leered. “Of course I do.”
Nezumi nodded, completely helpless. Ran a palm over his face and inhaled.
“It seems like you didn’t like it, even though all your reactions pointed to you feeling otherwise,” he admitted, disappointed.
“Shion, I have no idea what’s going on,” Nezumi said, shaking his head.
“Clearly,” Shion replied, shaking his head back and lifting himself up off of Nezumi’s body.
Nezumi stopped him by grabbing his wrist.
“Shion. Listen to me. Don’t fuck around. Tell me one more time. Were you seriously, honestly, just trying to turn me on?”
Shion didn’t miss a beat.
“Yes, Nezumi,” Shion bit out. “Sorry I wasn’t doing a good job of it; I’ll leave you alone.”
Oh. Now Nezumi got it. He’d injured his pride.
“Shion?”
“What?” he replied, voice snapping more than he’d wanted it to.
“Don’t do things like that.”
Shion paused.
“Try to make you feel good? What’s so wrong about that?”
“You don’t want to do that. It’s bad enough we’re already attached the way we are. If we get attached that way, we’re not going to make it.”
“Nezumi,” Shion said, eyes hard.
“Shion.”
“When I was suffering from the bee, and you were cutting it out of me, you told me I didn’t know anything about books, or fighting, or sex.”
Nezumi didn’t like where this was going.
“And you’ve taught me about books. And, though it was rather the hard way, you’ve taught me about fighting. Those things have brought us together too, right?”
“Shion, sex is different.”
“Why?”
Why? Nezumi thought. This was getting way too out of hand.
“Shion, that’s enough. This is ridiculous, you’re ridiculous, and–” Nezumi kicked at Shion’s hand as it attempted to make contact with Nezumi’s leg– “and it's ridiculous to think that...”
Shion was taking off his shirt.
Shion was taking off his shirt?
“Shion, I’m going to kill you,” Nezumi said, shaking his head and laughing uncomfortably. “I’m going to have to kill you before you destroy me. And you.”
“It’s just sex,” Shion said, undoing his pants. “There’s nothing to destroy.”
In an instant, Shion’s face was pressed against the cold floor. It happened fast. Nezumi had both of Shion’s arms pinned behind his back, and the weight of his whole body held him down with his face in the dirt.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Shion?” He hissed into his ear.
“You’d said before, “ Shion gasped, “that you thought the red snakes were sexy.”
“So you were just going to seduce me? No matter how many times I told you no?”
“Nezumi, that’s not what...”
“Shion, you’re a monster. You think you can do whatever you want to me because I won’t kill you?” He leaned down onto Shion, his cheek and neck ached now as the hard floor crushed into his face. “You think you can say whatever you want? Answer me.”
Shion said nothing.
“Answer me, damnit!” Nezumi yelled, pressing down on Shion’s body even harder. "My consent doesn't matter to you?"
“It hurts...” Shion groaned.
“Doesn’t it?” Nezumi said. He wasn’t teasing. There was nothing sinister in his voice. Just anger. Fierceness. Fear.
Shion had power over Nezumi. Too much power. It was frightening, horrifying. It was breaking Nezumi up. Of course Nezumi wanted to have sex with Shion. More than he wanted a lot of things, and for longer than he’d wanted a lot of things. But Shion terrified him. The thought of being naked and completely vulnerable under Shion’s body was unthinkable.
“I said no, Shion. I don’t want to have sex with you right now. Don’t try to force yourself on me.”
...because you’d succeed, he didn’t say.
“Nezumi...” Shion gasped, “please.”
Satisfied that his point had been made, Nezumi finally leaned up and let Shion rise to his hands and knees. He coughed as his neck straightened out.
“Shion, now is not the time for things like sex," Nezumi said as he stood up and dusted himself off.
Shion perked up. “Does that mean there will be a time?” he asked.
Nezumi plopped himself back on his bed and looked down at Shion.
“After No.6 has been destroyed, Shion. Try again then.”
Shion made a sad face. The face he made every time Nezumi got excited about the destruction of No.6. But this seemed to be an otherwise acceptable answer to Shion. So he reclothed himself, picked up “The Importance of Being Earnest,” and took his place at Nezumi’s feet.
...and as long as that’s where he stayed, Nezumi thought, they would both be safe.