Archive of Our Own

Sousuke is restless.

He paces his apartment, searching. He wanders aimlessly from room to room. He picks things up and puts them back down. Turns on the TV and turns it off again. Opens cupboard doors and closes them again. Pulls on a t-shirt and takes it off again.

It’s no use, any of it, and he knows it. Everything feels wrong, like it always does after Rin goes.

He sighs, pushing a hand through his hair, and tries to figure out what to do with himself.

The first few days after Rin goes are always the worst. Later, after a week or two have passed, it will be easier again. He’ll get his equilibrium back, fall into his routine. Go to school, go to work, rehab his shoulder. Eat, study, exercise, sleep. Repeat. It’s how he keeps himself busy, helps him not to think too much. When Rin comes home, it always knocks Sousuke out of rhythm, forces him to look at all the things he tries so hard not to think about. Like how empty his apartment is, how unfulfilling his school is. How dull and sterile his life is.

During Rin’s visits, for those few short days, there is life and warmth and laughter. Sarcasm and fist bumps, sharp smiles and too-quick tears, and all the other things that make up his best friend. There is dinner out and exploring the streets of Tokyo and, yes, even hanging out with the Iwatobi guys (who Sousuke doesn’t hate nearly as much these days, though he still as he says he does just to keep up appearances). There is a late night movie once they get back to Sousuke’s apartment – usually Rin’s pick, something sappy and stupid – sitting on the couch together with Rin curled up next to Sousuke, his head on Sousuke’s good shoulder, his body warm against Sousuke’s side. There is rock-paper-scissors, throwdowns that sometimes turn into scuffles, playful wrestling matches that give Sousuke an excuse to put his hands on Rin’s body.

There is Rin stretched out on Sousuke’s bed – because of course Rin refuses to sleep on the couch when half of Sousuke’s bed is available – his body long and lean, all hard muscle, but somehow still soft. Still Rin, no matter how his training sculpts him. Sometimes Sousuke watches him sleep, sees Rin’s mouth hanging open and one of his arms thrown up over his head, and he smiles at how little Rin has changed, how he’s still the same as he’s been since they were six years old. Other times, Sousuke watches Rin sleep, takes in the look of him laid out on Sousuke’s sheets, his red hair dark against the pillow, his lips parted and full, and there are no thoughts of childhood. At these times, those sunny boyhood memories are swallowed whole by the present moment, the blood-rushing, fist-curling, jaw-clenching present moment in which Rin is everything Sousuke wants and can’t have.

Sousuke knows the truth of himself, much as he tries to pretend he doesn’t. He knows how lonely he is. How empty. He is full of holes and hollows, places that have been scoured bare by fear and doubt and longing. Rin is alive and hot and real, and when he is there, he floods Sousuke, filling all the empty places, bringing a temporary reprieve. It teases Sousuke with a sense of wholeness he knows won’t last. It makes him, for a few days, as alive and hot and real as Rin is. But when Rin goes, it is like the tide receding, leaving Sousuke’s insides scraped and dry and wanting.

And so when Rin goes, Sousuke gets stupid. He drinks too much, goes to bars he wouldn’t set foot in otherwise, and finds someone to pour his wanting into. If he is being honest with himself, he finds someone with red hair or strong shoulders or a smile with a bit of bite in it. If he’s pretending he’s fine, he finds someone who is nothing like Rin, maybe someone blond and willowy or someone dark and hulking. Either way, it doesn’t make much of a difference. It always ends the same, with him stumbling home from the bar, stinking of sex and alcohol and cigarettes, and sleeping on the couch so he can hold on to the scent of Rin on his sheets just a little bit longer.

Now, though, as Sousuke drifts through his apartment, now it has been three days since Rin left. Now Rin’s scent is almost gone, and Sousuke doesn’t have it in him to go chasing solace in the back alley of a bar again. He doesn’t have it in him to pretend he’s not hopelessly in love with his best friend. Instead he goes to his bedroom and sinks to his knees beside his bed. He lays his head on his mattress and breathes deep. He puts his hand on the pillow Rin used, fingers stretched across the indentation Rin left behind.

Sousuke knows he is a coward. He is too afraid to tell Rin what he wants. He tells himself it is because he doesn’t want to risk their friendship, but here, now, with his face pressed to the sheets and his hand opening and closing on the memory of Rin’s body, the lie won’t take. He knows the reason he won’t tell Rin is because he can’t risk the dream of being together. He needs the possibility of them to exist, however remote it might be. Without the possibility of having Rin the way he wants him, there is nothing left, and Sousuke has already clawed his way back from losing everything once. He can’t do it again. He can’t do it if he loses the dream of Rin.

So he lets himself dream. He lets himself think of Rin there in the bed, of Rin’s face soft in sleep, his body relaxed, quiet. Sousuke lets himself remember what it felt like to lie together, Rin’s body only inches from his own, so close he could feel the heat of Rin’s skin, the gentle exhalation of his breath. It is a very particular kind of torture lying next to a sleeping Rin, able to look but not to touch, a torture that has never failed to make Sousuke hard as stone, and now, here with only the memory of it, it is no different. A few seconds of self-indulgence is all it takes for Sousuke’s blood to start rushing south. He can feel his cock filling as he breathes in Rin’s scent and pictures the flat planes of Rin’s stomach, the gentle dip of Rin’s waist, the tempting swell of Rin’s ass.

God, he’s pathetic. Sousuke’s so pathetic and he knows it. He promised himself he wouldn’t do this any more, wouldn’t lose himself in slept-on sheets and things he can never have, wouldn’t pine like a thirteen year old girl with her first crush. Yet here he is, his erection jammed up against his unmade bed, his head full of Rin.

Disgusted with himself, Sousuke jerks away from the bed. He stomps his way down the hall and into the kitchen. He gets a beer from the fridge, swallows half of it in a go. He grinds the heel of his palm against his cock, willing his erection away.

But his dick doesn’t seem to be getting the message and his traitorous brain keeps sending him images of Rin that he’s collected over the years, a secret hoard only he knows about. Rin in his boxer briefs standing in their dorm room at Samezuka, all long legs and rounded ass. Rin last New Year’s, drunk, leaning against Sousuke, his mouth carelessly pressed against Sousuke’s shoulder as he laughs about something Nanase and Tachibana are doing. Rin, just days ago, coming out of Sousuke’s bathroom after a shower wearing nothing but a towel. A towel which he lets drop as he makes his way to the bedroom because Rin has always been an exhibitionist and a show-off and he thinks it’s funny. He doesn’t see the way Sousuke cranes his neck for a better look, doesn’t see the way Sousuke’s eyes follow him, the way they cling to the curve of Rin’s ass as he saunters down the hall…

With a sigh of self-loathing, Sousuke gives up. Setting down his beer, he slumps back against the wall, hands undoing his jeans, fingers finding his cock. He doesn’t want it to feel good but, of course, it does. Of course it does. Thinking about Rin always makes his whole body molten, why should tonight be any different? His cock doesn’t care how pathetic he’s being. It just wants relief. So does his heart. All of him just wants relief from this feeling, this painful, useless longing, and so he takes his cock in hand and pulls.

He is not gentle. He grips his dick hard in his dry hand, pulls fast and rough. It hurts, but feels good more than it hurts. His head rocks back, clunking against the wall, and that feels good more than it hurts, too. A groan escapes him. He doesn’t know if it’s from pleasure or pain but it satisfies something in him so he goes with it.

Images are coming faster now, ones that have nothing to do with his carefully stockpiled memories, ones that are pure fantasy, dreams of a future he’s too chickenshit to try for. Images of Rin pinned beneath him, Sousuke’s fingers in his ass, opening him up as Rin whines and bares his teeth, wordlessly asking for more. Sousuke’s cock in Rin’s mouth, sliding between pink lips, deep, deep, all the way to the back of Rin’s throat, Rin’s eyes looking up at him, flashing darkly. Rin in his lap, arms wrapped around Sousuke’s neck, tears in his eyes and calling out Sousuke’s name as Sousuke pushes in deep and pulls Rin closer, closer.

Sousuke’s hand moves faster on his cock. His hips rock up into his fist, his body shuddering. He sucks in a breath and turns sideways, bracing a shoulder and hip against the wall as his body seeks the angle it wants, the points of tension and release that wind him higher. It’s his bad shoulder, though, and it begins to protest, quickly enough and loudly enough that it’s stealing the edge he’s chasing. So he turns again, slumping forward so that his face and chest are pressed up against the cool surface of the wall.

He imagines pushing Rin against the wall like this, imagines rutting up against the cleft of Rin’s ass while Rin’s cheek presses into the wall. Sousuke mouth falls open, breath panting out, and his lips catch against the wall as he turns his head on a moan. He imagines Rin there, Rin’s lips and cock both leaving wet trails against the wall as he writhes and begs for Sousuke to fuck him, please god just fuck him already. And Sousuke will, Sousuke does, spreading Rin’s ass with both hands and lining up and –

Sousuke comes hard, curling forward and swallowing down the shout that wants to tear from his throat. Looking down, he sees himself shoot against the wall, pulses of white come that drip down to the floor. He floats there for a moment, riding out the last crest of sensation. Then it ends, and he is left leaning against the kitchen wall, jeans around his thighs, sweat cooling on his skin. With a derisive snort, Sousuke swipes the head of his dick with his palm, wipes the mess against the wall with the rest to be dealt with later. For now he needs alcohol. And a cigarette.

He pulls up his jeans, tucks himself in, and reaches for his abandoned beer. He finishes it quickly, grabs another from the fridge, and takes it to the couch. He retrieves his cigarettes and the remote for the television. Flicking it on, he finds something to watch, something mindless and violent and exactly opposite from what Rin would pick. Sousuke lights up a cigarette, drags deep, feeling the smoke rasping against his throat and lungs, holding it a second before letting it out in a slow, lazy exhale. He takes another deep drag, and another, smoking the cigarette down to the filter before starting on his beer.

The first few days after Rin goes are always the worst. He knows this. He just has to be patient, has to let time pass. He watches TV and drinks his beer and tries not to think.