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Before the last of their friends are fully out the door, Akira’s hands curl around Ryuji’s wrists.
Boss is still behind the counter, pointedly not looking at them as he washes up the last of the mugs. There’s still a lingering scent of coffee in the air, though honestly it could just be baked into the walls at this point. It’s dark outside— it was late afternoon when they walked through the door, and later still now that everyone’s reassured themselves that he’s whole and hale and here.
Whole and hale and here, but the skin sits tight on his wrists and cheekbones, loose and dark under his eyes. He’s been yawning on and off for the past two hours, rubbing his eyes for thirty minutes, resting his head on his palm for five. His shoulders are loose, every line of his body exhausted, but his hands curl around Ryuji’s wrists and his tired eyes are intent on Ryuji’s face.
There’s a demand there, too forceful to be a question. Even if it was, Ryuji’s answer would be yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
“You look tired, man,” he says out loud, and hooks his arm under Akira’s shoulders. “Just cause you bullshitted your way outta jail doesn’t mean you’re some sorta super-dude, you’ve gotta sleep like the rest of us.”
Akira looks at him indignantly. There’s an inelegant snort from behind the bar, but when Ryuji glances over Sojiro’s studiously looking away. “I’m not tired,” Akira tries, but Ryuji shakes his head before the second word comes out of his mouth and tugs him up and out of the booth.
“Yeah, whatever. I don’t wanna go home yet anyway, so I might as well hang around. Besides, we’ve got like a full season of X-Folders to catch up on.” It’s empty chatter, meaningless in a way that highlights how meaningful it actually is— that they’re here, finally, having this conversation, Akira warm and tired, his hair coarse and dry against Ryuji’s cheek as Akira leans into him just a moment longer.
They’re halfway up the stairs when Boss calls “I’m locking up!” from the front door. “Don’t stay up too late!”
“You’re not my real dad,” Akira mumbles, but he’s grinning as he says it, and Sojiro adds “And I don’t want any of your smart mouth back-talk either! I’ve gotten used to the quiet around here!”
“Too bad, old man,” Akira raises his voice just enough to echo, “my cafe now. Squatter’s rights.”
They can just barely hear Boss chuckling under the jingle of the door, and that’s because Ryuji’s got both hands clapped over his mouth to muffle his own.
There’s a moment of silence before Akira says “I hope you don’t actually plan to watch X-Folders” with grave dignity. He sways with Ryuji’s punch to the shoulder, but his eyes sparkle at Ryuji’s laughter as they kick off their shoes and shrug off their coats, collapsing in unison onto the bed.
Everything up here is fresh and recently dusted. The sheets have been changed, the houseplant perky and well-watered through his absence. Ryuji watches Akira’s eyes drift from place to place, lingering on the glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to the rafters and the shelves full of knick-knacks he’s collected over the past year.
“Feel nice to be back?” Ryuji asks, just as Akira yawns jaw-crackingly wide and sinks back into the mattress a little harder. “Shit, man, if you’re that tired I can let you sleep—”
“I’m fine,” Akira says immediately. He tries to sit up, but Ryuji plants a hand in the middle of his chest and easily over-balances him, sending him flopping back down. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.”
“No, let me up.” He struggles back upward, far enough to hook his arms around Ryuji’s neck and maneuver his way into his lap. “I haven’t gotten to see you in two months and you’re already trying to put me to bed like a toddler.” It’s less a question than it is a petulant complaint; privately, Ryuji thinks he doesn’t sound much different from one.
It’s probably not the most diplomatic thing to say, but like hell if that’s gonna stop him from saying it. “Who’s a fussy baby?” he coos with the biggest shit-eating grin he can manage, bundling Akira further into his arms and rocking him back and forth, back and forth, almost overbalancing on both ends just to hear Akira yelp. “Is it you? Are you a fussy baby?”
“Fuck off!” Akira snaps, but there’s laughter underpinning his words so Ryuji doesn’t’ take it to heart. He just swings them back far enough that they both go crashing into the mattress again, hard enough to make it thud dully into the wall beneath the window. For some reason that makes Akira giggle out loud, something high and unrestrained, almost hysteric. He pulls himself upright, keeping his seat on Ryuji’s lap to look down at him.
There’s a look in his eyes that Ryuji’s really, really missed. It’s his bad-idea look, his “I’m in charge” expression, his extravagantly and unrepentantly extra planning face, the one he gets in Mementos or, more recently, when he’s about to do something filthy to Ryuji. Akira’s always been full of good ideas.
He’s also listing just slightly to the right, and as much as Ryuji wants to know the thoughts behind that look, he wants Akira settled and comfortable and happy more. “Hey,” he says again, lower this time, his palms flat on top of Akira’s thighs. “I wanna give you your welcome-back present.”
“Oh?” Akira tilts his head in a move that reminds him eerily of Morgana; he also yawns again, and grimaces immediately after. “Did you get me a Valentine’s day gift too?”
“Don’t be greedy.” Yes, but it’s the same thing as the welcome back gift, with some additional chocolate. Not that Akira needs to know that. His hands creep under Akira’s shirt to splay against bare skin, and he delights in the way Akira shudders at his touch. “If you lie down, I’ll blow you.”
Akira’s mouth immediately twitches, like he’s trying to hold back a full-fledged laugh. “Wow, Ryuji, that’s real romantic of you,” he drawls, as if sarcasm will hide his interest. (Oh, he’s interested; Ryuji felt him shifting on top of him the second he said it.) “Why don’t you get down there and I’ll sit up on the edge and we do it like that?”
“Hey, I don’t gotta be romantic till tomorrow!” He doesn’t mean to protest that much, and he tightens his grip on Akira when he tries to move off. “Nuh-uh. Lie down.”
“No.” There’s a bit of a scuffle; Akira starts slapping at Ryuji’s arms when Ryuji tries to manhandle him down.
But in the end Akira is just an exhausted teenager coming out of a two-month stint in jail, underfed and over-stressed and so, so happy to be home it makes him weak, and Ryuji is all but a force of nature, bound and determined to get him flat on his back, to ruck his shirt up and blow raspberries into the skin stretched taut over his hip bones until Akira squeals and smacks his shoulders, his knobby knees clamped tight onto Ryuji’s sides.
In the end he’s so easy to overpower that Ryuji knows he’s put no real fight into it, and so the raspberries turn to kisses trailing up the ladder of his ribs and down again, the tickling fingers turn to gentle strokes, mapping out familiar swathes of skin until Akira’s legs cross behind his back and he can feel him hardening against his chest.
Only then does Ryuji lean back, grinning like the cat in the cream, to look at Akira, savoring how red his face is and the way one fist is tangled in the fabric of his shirt, the unsteady way his breath hitches. “Are you gonna be good for me?” he asks.
It takes a moment, but Akira nods, and Ryuji rewards him with a kiss. “Lie down, then.”
It’s weird to see Akira take an order without any fuss— but he does, he lowers himself down to his elbows and lets Ryuji shimmy his pants down to his knees and then off entirely, lets Ryuji surge back up and press kisses into his face and neck until Akira’s laughing, wrapping his arms around Ryuji’s head to keep him in place long enough to return them. He’s grinning wide enough that it’s squishing his face up, bright enough that Ryuji has to lean back a moment and take it all in.
He’s here. He’s back, and he’s safe and in one piece and below Ryuji, nuzzling into his palm; he’s alive and unharmed, even if the bags under his eyes are dark enough that a flashlight would get lost in them. He’s here, and he’s the most important thing in Ryuji’s world, and suddenly he’s desperate to let Akira know that, desperate enough that his words get clogged in his mouth and foul up his tongue, leaving him silent, leaving him aching.
Akira slits his eyes back open the barest bit. Whatever he sees on Ryuji’s face must speak volumes, because he slides both hands into Ryuji’s hair and brings him back down to plant soft kisses all across his mouth.
“I missed you,” Ryuji rasps out, and it’s not enough, it can’t ever be enough to encompass those two endless months of working and waiting, hoping and praying that in the end it would all be enough and they’d bring Akira back to them.
In response Akira frames his face with his hands, his thumbs stroking along the lines of Ryuji’s jaw in a motion so achingly tender that it leaves his heart full to bursting. Then he squishes his palms together, leaving Ryuji’s face in the middle, until his lips are pursed ridiculously and he can barely see.
“Fish face,” Akira says solemnly, but his eyes glint with badly-suppressed laughter as he squishes a little harder.
Ryuji blinks. Akira squishes his mouth again a little more so his lips flap, then plants the biggest, loudest, most obnoxious sounding smooch onto them.
“We should have just left you there,” Ryuji says, breathless and smushed. Akira winks at him.
And then they dissolve into laughter, loud, obnoxious brays that chase any hint of tension left out of the air, long and hard enough that Ryuji has to wipe tears from his eyes and Akira wheezes at every inward breath. He hiccups twice, which sets them both off again, and only when Akira threatens to smother him with a pillow does Ryuji even attempt to get himself back under control.
It’s so nice. This moment, with Akira lying half across his arm and his wrist going numb, his shirt rucked uncomfortably tight around his middle, the last bits of pleasant laughter draining out of him like a sieve and leaving him utterly content— he doesn’t have any better words for it. It’s just...good. Nice.
“This is nice,” Akira says in a breathy, eerie echo of his thoughts not a moment later, rolling over to throw his arm (and half of his body; Ryuji grunts at the impact but winds his arms around Akira’s middle regardless) over Ryuji. He nuzzles into his neck and hooks a calf around one of Ryuji’s, clearly content to be pantsless for a while yet. “I missed you too.”
“You just missed usin’ me as a body pillow.”
“Yeah, the other inmates weren’t anywhere near as comfortable.”
“Akira, what the fuck, ” Ryuji mutters, but Akira’s giggling again, even as Ryuji shakes him mock-furiously until he lolls back against the pillow and yawns jaw-crackingly wide. “You ready to sleep now?”
Akira immediately zeroes in on his face, frowning. “Excuse you?”
“You heard me.”
“And you promised me a blowjob.” He kicks one bare leg up in pointed reminder, so Ryuji runs his hand up the inside and pins it back down to the bed, thumbing up the inseam of his boxers to where Akira’s gone mostly soft. He looks up pointedly, but Akira’s eyes have fallen half-shut even at that touch, and Ryuji feels him twitch, just a bit.
“Yeah, yeah. Will you sleep then?”
“Depends on if you follow through well enough.”
Ryuji laughs again. “Is that a challenge?”
“It’s a ‘hurry up and put your mouth where your money is’, Ryuji!” Akira wines, sounding like if he had any more energy he’d be drumming his heels on the bed like a toddler.
He doesn’t hurry up. He kisses Akira instead, licks the taste of coffee out of his mouth as he rubs his palm in gentle circles across Akira’s crotch, relishing the way Akira shivers and goes limp bit by bit, like the harder he gets the less energy the rest of his limbs have. His breath hitches twice, and the second time he moans, just a bit, as Ryuji’s thumb skims across the very tip of his erection. It’s a soft noise, but loud enough that it startles Akira back, just a bit.
He’s blushing. Ryuji feels the smirk curving his mouth and does nothing to stop it. “You like that?” he asks, and repeats the motion, dragging the cloth of Akira’s boxers along with his thumb.
“You’re being mean ,” Akira groans, breathy and soft. His brows dip inward as Ryuji slips his thumb in through the opening to touch skin for the first time in two months. Two whole months, when if he had his say about it he’d touch Akira all the goddamn time . “Stop teasing.”
Ryuji shakes his head. “Gotta make sure that nothing’s changed, y’know?” He can feel Akira stare down at the crown of his head in disbelief and doesn’t bother to hide his grin. “Two months away, a lot can change.” Like the jut of his ribs and his hip bones, the stark fragility of wrist and ankle. He and Ann, Sojiro and Futaba, they’d all been making decent headway on filling Akira out, but it looks like they’re all the way back to square one.
He has to muffle a laugh into Akira’s stomach when Akira makes an acerbic noise and slaps the futon with an open palm. “What, do you think it’s gonna have turned into a stick?”
“Could’ve.”
“Clearly it ha- aaahsn’t , Ryuji, do that again—”
“Don’t think you’re in any spot to be making demands, dude.” He wants to keep teasing, he really does— Akira’s never, ever been this easy to rile up before— but the next time he ghosts his fingers upwards Akira whimpers like the sound’s been ripped out of him, a short, sharp noise that leaves both of them silent for a moment.
Ryuji’s not the sort of guy to leave a moment unbroken. “Shit, that was hot,” he mumbles, and ducks his head down just as Akira says “For the love of god if you do ooohhhh shit— no no don’t you dare stop that was a good oh shit—”
He’s barely touched him, barely gotten his mouth down around him and Akira’s already breathing high and fast, trembling under Ryuji’s touch like he’s about to fly apart at the seams. His hands knead weakly at Ryuji’s shoulders, cup the back of his neck, tangle in his hair, fling away to grab fistfuls of the sheet beneath them. He’s so fidgety Ryuji shifts up, laying his forearms across Akira’s thighs to pin them down and open; at that Akira makes another high, shivery noise and thrusts into his mouth, just a bit. “You like that?” Ryuji says, not bothering to pull his mouth fully off his cock, letting his lips and tongue keep brushing him as he speaks.
When there’s silence instead of a snappy comeback, Ryuji looks up.
Akira’s got a fistful of blanket curled up near his mouth. His eyes are almost fully lidded— he watches Ryuji through the barest slit, and from what Ryuji can see he’s red all the way down to his neck. Somehow his glasses have skewed halfway off his face. He’s panting. He looks halfway undone.
He’s gorgeous, and it hits Ryuji again just how wildly, ferociously happy he is to have Akira here and safe and going to pieces under him. “Y’ain’t got no stamina left,” he says, filled with glee as Akira’s blissed-out expression goes offended in the space of a breath.
“ Y’ain’t?” he says, horrified.
“Y’ain’t,” Ryuji confirms.
“I’m sorry, I just realized I have to go be somewhere else without anyone who willingly says “y’ain’t” around me.”
Ryuji just waits for Akira to sit up in a fit of pique; as soon as he does Ryuji lowers himself back down to Akira’s cock, and laughs around it when Akira’s back hits the bed as he goes limp again.
It’s not like he’s doing anything fancy— he’s got the flat of his tongue pressed up against the head just the way Akira likes, swirling it in slow circles— but even just that has Akira shaking. His hand digs into the back of Ryuji’s head in a way that would hurt if there was any force to it, and he hasn’t stopped making those high, shivery whines; if anything, they’ve only gotten louder, broken into short, choppy segments with every breath he takes. Ryuji has to pin his thighs back down to the futon two times, then three, as Akira tries to shift up, press further into his mouth, get a hand around his cock, anything. But Ryuji’s stubborn; he keeps his head where it is, tucked into the crease between Akira’s hip and his stomach, swirling his tongue in long, lazy rings as his fingers pet very gently up and down Akira’s cock.
It takes him a moment to realize when the whines change to something else— he almost doesn’t notice until Akira’s fist starts tugging at the short hairs on the back of his neck. He’s panting, whispering “Please, please please please ” in a long, steady stream
“No one’s stoppin’ you,” Ryuji murmurs, but he takes pity and curls a hand around him, jerking him to the same slow, steady pace as his tongue until Akira’s whined pleas crest in a loud, wordless cry and he spills into Ryuji’s mouth.
He swallows, of course, keeps going until Akira’s shaking, until he pushes Ryuji away with trembling hands and a knee to the sternum. Even then Ryuji doesn’t go far, just nuzzles his face into the soft skin of Akira’s stomach and listens to him try to catch his breath. He waits until Akira’s hand fists into his hair again and tugs gently to slither upwards and tuck him back into his arms, Akira’s breath still coming in little fits and spurts, warm in the crook of his neck.
They just relax like that, Ryuji’s hand stroking tiny circles and long lines up and down Akira’s back, nuzzling into his hair, planting tiny kisses on his temple, all the stupid mushy stuff that he’s had pent up inside him for months and months with no outlet. He hates how much time they’ve been robbed of; now that Akira’s back, Ryuji has so little time before he’ll be gone again. They all know; he’s sure Akira knows, too, or will realize in the next few days. Just thinking about it makes him tighten his grip, feather another kiss over Akira’s forehead.
That doesn’t matter. What’s important is that he’s here , his arms limp around Ryuji’s torso, his breathing already rhythmic and even. Ryuji pulls back just the barest bit to check— yeah, out like a light.
There’s nothing to clean up, but he detangles himself just long enough to get Akira’s boxers settled comfortably and to strip his own jeans off. He leaves them in a heap on the floor next to Akira’s, a sight that gives him a sharp burst of irrational happiness, and pulls the comforter up over them both.
The winter night is chilly, but underneath the blankets they’ve got all the warmth they need. And maybe, if Akira wakes up early enough, Ryuji’ll give him his Valentine’s day gift before they have to leave.