Work Text:
Daiki is peeing into the toilet bowl rather loudly, the bathroom door wide open.
Tetsuya sighs, rolling over onto his back. They got in late last night, and he was hoping to catch some much needed rest but Daiki has early practice which means there will be no rest until he’s gone. He sighs again and counts from one to ten, and then backwards. When he opens his eyes, Daiki emerges from the bathroom, wiping a towel against the back of his neck.
“Oh, you’re awake.” He tosses his towel onto Tetsuya’s face, grinning when Tetsuya dodges it. “Morning, babe.”
“Morning,” Tetsuya sulks, turning his face so the kiss Daiki is about to give him lands on his cheek and not his mouth. “Must you be so loud when you’re getting ready?”
“What, you don’t like listening to me tinkle?” Daiki grins, twisting his chin with a hand so he can kiss him there anyway. Tetsuya makes a big show of giving in but can’t help but wrap his arms around Daiki’s shoulders when their mouths brush against each other. Daiki’s neck must be at an impossible angle but he says nothing, letting Tetsuya take whatever he wants, however much he wants it. When they part, Tetsuya rests his head on Daiki’s shoulder, pleased when Daiki’s hand comes up to cradle it. “Oi.” His fingers curl tighter. “Don’t fall asleep on me.”
“Mm. How could I not, when you’re so warm?” he mumbles, only vaguely aware of Daiki pushing him back onto his back. He makes a grabby hand at Daiki’s sleeve, but Daiki evades him, standing back up. Tetsuya stares at his figure, watching him roll socks on, and then shoes.
“The cook’s coming, if you wanna help yourself to breakfast before you head to work or something,” Daiki says, doing a little hop to make sure both his shoes are settled in nicely. He turns to Tetsuya and prods his cheek. “Don’t spend all day in bed.”
Tetsuya blows him a half-hearted raspberry and burrows his face into the pillows. He hears Daiki chuckle, before feeling his breath leave him in a sudden ‘oof!’ when Daiki drops his weight right on top of him. He tries to writhe around and find a good part of Daiki to poke, but his wrist is simply pinned down into the pillow before he can get to it.
“Don’t wear shoes in bed,” Tetsuya scolds, only for Daiki to continue laughing wheezily into his ear.
“Mm.” Daiki kisses his ear, ignoring him. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Finishing up the Giants piece,” Tetsuya tells him, locking his hands over Daiki’s and sandwiching them between his belly and the sheets.
“Tsk. Baseball.” Daiki makes a face, then, “Come write it here.”
“At your house?”
Daiki nods.
Tetsuya frowns. Getting actual work done when he’s around Daiki? Less than likely. But he agrees anyway.
+
Tetsuya admits — with no shortage of guilt — that he’s a little surprised at how good Daiki can be in a relationship. Although he loves Daiki immensely, he’s spent enough time listening to Momoi’s and Kise’s firsthand gossip about a revolving door of ex-girlfriends who never met the parents, the friends. Daiki is attractive, and he has an apathetic, hard-to-get air that’s appealing to a certain type of people; it makes sense that he’s popular, but his romantic fixations have always seemed so…temporary.
When Tetsuya hinted at it, Daiki had simply said, “You’re different.”
“Different how?” Tetsuya prodded, watching Daiki’s eyes grow dark and deep with unspoken vulnerability, one that (he suspected) others did not get to see.
“Different,” Daiki whispered like it was all he was capable of saying, and it was as close as confirmation Tetsuya could get that he was serious about this. About their relationship.
Still, there are times when Tetsuya is taken aback at Daiki’s thoughtfulness, his carefree joy from their spending time together. He’s not the type to remember anniversaries or bring flowers, but Tetsuya has never given much weight to either of those things to begrudge Daiki over it anyway. What he lacks in convention, he makes up for with his own sensibilities. He spoils Nigou rotten, being able to take more roughhousing from the big dog than Tetsuya can and tiring him out so he’s more amenable to the idea of bed time. Tetsuya often spends many days hunched over his laptop to the backdrop of Daiki and Nigou tearing after each other across Daiki’s backyard court, happy barks and husky laughter filling the air.
Other times, they go on long drives to the beach, or simply stay in, playing video games or napping. Tetsuya is careful not to indulge him in too many naps, though, knowing he’d only be enabling the trickier symptoms of his depression, the gray areas that Daiki is reluctant to talk about.
Once, they’d been spending an evening together when Daiki had suddenly decided to shower Tetsuya with his onslaught of affection.
"Daiki, I'm working,” he’d protested.
"Carry on, don't let me stop you," Daiki murmured, pressing firm kisses along the line of Kuroko's wrist and up his arm. He eventually reached the little hollow where Kuroko's neck met his shoulder and he began sucking kisses there, hands warm over his shoulders.
"Daiki." Kuroko felt the wet slide of tongue along a sensitive spot below his ear. "Stop."
"Ugh, okay." Daiki released him, and Tetsuya had had to struggle not to cave, not to seek the pleasurable contact that Daiki was so willing to give. "M'just gonna sit there and play on my Xbox, then." He tilted his head to the couch and then headed there.
Tetsuya blinked. Daiki, not throwing a fit? He watched as Daiki dropped down on the couch and booted up his video game, perfectly content with simply sitting in the same room as Tetsuya. Well. That…worked. He did have work to do, after all. Something in his chest felt pleasant as he returned to his laptop, promising himself he'd reward Daiki later for this show of good behavior.
Still, about fifteen minutes into typing up his article, Tetsuya couldn't help but glance in Daiki's direction again. He seemed to have picked a shooting game, muttering the occasional soft curse as he jammed his thumbs onto little buttons. His hair was still dark and wet from his shower, pressing down fringes into his forehead in a way that made him look utterly tender and unguarded. He looked young. He looked happy. It only took Tetsuya a second to close his laptop and make his way to Daiki, the warmth of his desire turning him heady and breathless.
Daiki raised a brow, amused, when Tetsuya stepped between his legs. "I'm trying to play a game, you know," he said, curling one hand around Tetsuya's knee and giving it a tug. Tetsuya wordlessly dropped onto his lap and hugged his shoulders, sinking into his mouth for a long, demanding kiss. Daiki readily responded, his arms wrapping around Tetsuya's middle so they could be hugging and kissing.
When they pulled apart, Tetsuya cradled Daiki's face in his hands. "I'm sorry. I couldn't resist."
Daiki barked a laugh and leaned up so their mouths could meet again. Tetsuya let them linger for a moment, then trailed his mouth down to the hollow between Daiki's collarbones. Daiki was breathing hard, but when Tetsuya lifted his shirt to suck wet kisses onto his stomach, he just shivered. Tetsuya frowned; he glanced up, only for Daiki to quickly close his eyes and press back into the sofa vehemently.
"Tetsu—"
Tetsuya dragged one hand down to the front of his shorts and—
"Daiki, why aren't you hard?"
Something about his question broke the moment. Daiki pushed his hand away and got up with a sigh, frustrated. "It's nothing. Leave it."
Tetsuya felt small at the sudden rejection, old insecurities cropping up again at the memory of the old Daiki—the one who pushed him away, the one who became apathetic to his own misery. Without meaning to, an icy combination of anger and panic spread through his chest and he clutched the couch's soft fabric between his tightly-wrung fingers. He couldn’t do this again. He refused to do this again, they were better than this.
"— su? Tetsu, hey!" Daiki was back in front of him, and something in Tetsuya's expression must have scared him, because he looked wild-eyed and concerned. "What the hell?"
"Please talk to me," Tetsuya glared, only minutely aware of Daiki's fingers slipping through his and loosening his hold on the couch. "Don't shut me out. I hate it when you do that." Regrettably, his voice broke towards the end of his sentence, but that seemed to have an effect on Daiki, who softened.
"Hey." Daiki kissed his forehead. "It's not — this is not like that, okay? I'm sorry. I'm sorry I scared you."
"Don't be sorry, just tell me what's wrong," Tetsuya replied, undeterred. "Has the sex been too much?"
They had never been together like that when they were dating in middle school, naturally — they hadn't even called it 'dating', because Daiki left a lot of things unspoken and Tetsuya knew how to read them anyway — so they'd taken to pushing each other into bed frequently now that they were back together. Sex, though, involved a lot more than just a few chaste or mischievous kisses exchanged with your best friend, so Tetsuya wondered if they'd been taking things too fast.
Daiki, however, just snorted. "If anything, it's been too little." When Tetsuya's brows raised, Daiki held his gaze, but he looked irritated. "It's my meds," he explained gruffly. "I can't get hard sometimes because I'm still figuring out the right dosage."
That was another thing that was new. Watching Daiki suffer had never been easy, but they were older now, and the more Tetsuya learned about it, the more he wished he had been a different, more supportive kind of friend all along. He didn’t blame himself for it — not the way he used to — but he did wish people spoke about these things more openly. There were things Daiki did and said that finally had context, but he was no less himself than he’d been his whole life. The boy he’d been, the teenager he became, the man he was right now — they were all dimensions of the same person, snake skins he was shedding off from reaching one milestone to another.
Tetsuya's eyes softened in understanding. "Is that all?"
"Don't give me that; it sucks. Not being able to have a boner sucks."
Tetsuya shook his head, relief shining through his voice. "If not having sex for a while is the biggest of our worries right now, then I'd say we are very lucky."
"I like sex!" Daiki protested indignantly. "I like sex with you. We should be having it all the time now that we're back together." Tetsuya could tell from his tone that he was mostly joking so he let it drop, but there was still a small pinprick of doubt he sensed in there.
Surely enough, when their eyes met again, Daiki had looked uncertain.
About a week later, apropos of nothing, he said, “Fighting Kagami — guys stronger than Kagami, even — in the NBA, it was the best time I ever had.” His words were so random and out-of-the-blue that Tetsuya guessed he’d been wanting to confess it for a while now. He set aside everything and nodded for Daiki to continue.
“But it was also the loneliest. And that — kind of freaked me out, you know?” Daiki glanced at him. “I shoved it back hard. I’d gotten everything I fucking wanted; I had no reason to be depressed the way I was. It felt like a disservice to everything — to you, and everything you’d done for me. I felt like an ungrateful bastard for being so…empty.”
I was scared of feeling so lost again, he didn’t say, but he didn’t have to.
“Is that why you came back to Japan?” Tetsuya whispered, in equal parts consternation and affection. He’d been doing so well; his early return to the B League had been a shock to everyone, even Tetsuya, who had been following his career closely for both personal and professional reasons.
Daiki nodded. “Had a nervous freaking breakdown on the plane. Only told Satsuki about it, and she went ahead and got me in touch with a shrink.”
Tetsuya felt both fierce affection for Momoi and a wave of sadness for himself for not having seen the obvious signs. “I wish you’d told me about it.”
Daiki looked uneasy, didn’t hold Tetsuya’s eyes when he said, “Don’t like letting you down.”
Tetsuya sighed, crawling back up to Daiki’s lap again except this time, there was nothing sexual about the way he embraced Daiki, his hands gentle on his shoulders. “Is that what you think? That because I helped you find your way once, I expect you to prostrate yourself to me your entire life?” The question was rhetorical, but it had the intended effect of getting Daiki to tighten his hold on him.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Tetsuya said firmly, “And I don’t need you to use your body to tell me the things you hold in your heart.” He slid one palm to Daiki’s chest. “I hear it. Loud and clear.”
“Shit, Tetsu,” Daiki said weakly, and Tetsuya shook his head.
They didn’t have sex that day, but cuddled, watching Godzilla on Daiki’s laptop in bed.
"Tetsu. Is it really okay?" Daiki asked, a long moment later, nudging his cheek against Tetsuya’s.
"What?" Tetsuya glanced at him, but he was adamantly staring at the screen.
"That I'm like this,” he mumbled, gesturing sadly down at his dick, and the misery in his tone was enough to melt away any humor Tetsuya could have found in the situation. Now all he felt was a strong, surging need to just be here for Daiki — to love him through this.
"Yes," he said, returning Daiki’s nudge with a rub of his own. "I need for you to be okay, Daiki. Once we figure that out, we can have as much sex as we want."
"Oh yeah?" Daiki asked slowly, holding Tetsuya's hand to his face as he leaned in. "And how much sex is that?"
"It wouldn't be very polite to say," Tetsuya replied blankly and Daiki laughed, all bright-eyed and happy again.
"Thank you for trusting me," Tetsuya said quietly, pressing a kiss to Daiki's cheek. "You have no idea how happy I am to be here with you, seeing you work hard to be the best version of yourself."
Daiki swallowed. "Yeah. I'm happy too."
+
"So," Nanase says, peering at him over the rim of her glasses. "What can I do for you today, Daiki?"
"It's my meds," he grumbles, showing her the little white box he withdraws from his pocket. "The side-effects are killing me."
She arches a brow. "I can put you through to Dr. Kanisawa at the end of our session, if you want to discuss it in further detail."
Daiki groans but doesn't protest. Nanase is a counselor after all, not a doctor. Anything medical would have to go through Dr. Kanisawa.
"I hate this," Daiki complains, tossing his head back on the couch with a sigh. "My life is so hard, but my dick isn't." He glances up and she just looks amused. "Tetsu and I are back together, by the way."
"Oh? And how has that been working out for you?"
"Amazing," Daiki grins, and then remembers himself, muttering, "I mean, it's Tetsu. He's like. All I've ever wanted." Other than playing basketball until he's 90 and meeting Mai-chan, obviously, but still. The fact that Daiki cares only about three things and Tetsu is one of them is still a pretty big deal.
"But you haven't been having sex?" Nanase frowns.
"I haven't been able to! It's freaking annoying! I'm surprised I was able to hide it from him for this long, but last weekend things got a little — well." Daiki shrugs. "Point is, I couldn't get it up and it sucks."
"Why did you want to hide it from him?"
Daiki blinks. "Huh?"
"Tetsu-san, I mean. Why didn't you want to tell him about your issues? Honest communication during sex builds a better relationship. I'm sure he would have appreciated the transparency," Nanase says and the chill in her voice makes him feel defensive.
"I did tell him later," he protests. "It's just. Sex is the only time I can talk about all this feeling-y bullshit, okay? Without that, I can't tell Tetsu how much I — you know. I don't want him to think I don't care!"
"Should sex really be the only way you express these feelings for him?"
Under her critical gaze, his face feels hot. "He knows my feelings, okay? He said he does. Tetsu’s not the kinda guy to suffer in silence. If he had a problem with how I do things, he’d tell me.”
"Yet you worry that you haven't been able to get your feelings for him across sufficiently,” Nanase badgers him. “You feel robbed of your tools to do so, if we can call it that."
"Don't call my dick a tool," he complains half-heartedly, to which she simply smirks because she's a harpy and she enjoys his suffering. Still. These are times where he wishes Tetsu was still playing basketball, because that's at least one other place where he doesn't have to embarrass himself to express himself.
“Daiki?” Daiki looks up to see Nanase staring at him, with that bug-pinned-to-the-corkboard look in her eyes that makes his skin crawl with annoyance. “Talk to me.” They stare each other down, one set of stubborn eyes challenging another, older set of stubborn eyes.
“You know my old school’s motto?” Daiki says finally. “100 battles, 100 victories. That’s where I learned I don’t like to lose.” Being cut open, prone, vulnerable to pain. It fucking sucked. Even the most prolific of players struggled with loss — the most fundamental proof of human vulnerability.
“Until you stopped losing,” Nanase reminds him. “Remember that?”
Daiki scoffs, hiding his clenched fist under the table, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Teiko taught you that victory is inevitable if you completely block yourself from loss,” Nanase guesses—an educated guess she’s formulated from the battle-shonen stories Daiki has told her from his youth. “As a basketball strategy, perhaps that aided you in your 100 victories. But it also bled into how you handle your relationships. You’re afraid of letting your guard down for true intimacy.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Daiki snaps, irritated at being torn open like a bag of chips in a hungry Murasakibara’s hands. Nanase is aware of his complicated, love-hate relationship with the place that molded him into the player he is and weaponizes it every chance she gets.
“But then you learned what it was like to lose, what it was like to have to work for success again,” Nanase points out patiently, “Didn’t it feel gratifying? Doesn’t it still?”
He thinks about his life and career now — about victory, and loss, and the gratifying feeling of standing on par with equals and winning. “Yeah,” he grins like a child, forgetting himself.
“A relationship is a lot like that,” Nanase cuts in gently. “It takes work. There are no simple solutions, and sometimes you have to lose to figure out how you can win again. But when you do put in the work, the rewards are very enjoyable — even if they’re not the rewards you thought you wanted.” She pauses. “Though, I would prefer if you approached it more like teamwork and less like battle.” She gives him a wry smile.
“And Tetsu’s my partner, huh?” Daiki jokes. “I like the sound of that.”
+
Daiki's mood improves over the week and Tetsuya attributes it to two things: the first is the mysterious Nanase-san, who he has never met but holds in high regard because she seems so capable of holding Daiki accountable in ways he’s never seen anyone be able to do — not even himself.
"My own mother didn't give me this much grief growing up," he grumbles, to which Tetsuya is thoroughly amused. Nanase-san has given Daiki the task of reading through a pamphlet about love languages, and though he seems less than pleased about having homework, he does it rather diligently, reading the ‘gay’ parts out loud.
“You’re bi,” Tetsuya reminds him, to which he simply flips him off and continues to snort at the pictures.
The second, however, is Satsuki, recently returned from her honeymoon and pleasantly surprised at news about their relationship.
"Ki-chan would be miserable, though," she says and tilts her head towards Daiki. "You haven't told him yet, have you?"
"I wanted to, but Nanase thinks I use my rivalry with him as a front to stay in touch because I'm incapable of maintaining relationships like a normal human being, so I'm not talking to him," Daiki scoffs, and then 'hmmphs,' staring absently into the fridge. "Where does she get such ridiculous ideas from anyway?"
Behind his back, Satsuki and Tetsuya share a Look.
Dinner is pleasant enough. Though Satsuki has been a friend of his for so long, Tetsuya didn't think he'd miss her as acutely as he did when she was away. When he tells her this, she giggles, eyes alight with joy as she takes his hand and squeezes.
"Are you happy though, Tetsu-kun?" she asks, her voice somewhat faltering when she glances at Daiki leashing Nigou for his evening walk (“Acts of service!” he announces suddenly from the doorway, and Tetsuya and Satsuki cheer him on mildly like they would a toddler).
Tetsuya blinks his attention back. "What do you mean, Momoi-san?"
Momoi wrestles with herself rather visibly, her fists fidgeting in her lap for a while before they go still. "I shouldn't be saying this, but Dai-chan isn't…easy to deal with sometimes."
Tetsuya feels a prickle of defensiveness on Daiki’s behalf despite himself, but it melts away when he remembers that it was Satsuki who had been around for the worst of it.
“He’s working really hard, Momoi-san,” Tetsuya insists gently. “Let’s just support him in whatever way we can.”
Momoi smiles. Still, it doesn’t stop her from cornering Daiki later when he comes back in, taking advantage of the privacy in his foyer. She narrows her brows at him.
“What?” Daiki asks warily.
“You better be treating Tetsu-kun right, or there will be hell to pay,” she threatens, both hands on her hips.
“How come no one ever threatens him to treat me right,” Daiki wonders out loud.
“Because he’s an angel and you’re a brat,” she summarizes simply, though she seems content enough that Daiki guesses Tetsu must have said something to pacify her. “You’re happy, aren’t you?”
“You sound like my mom,” he replies, then promptly ducks when she aims a knee to his stomach. When he looks up, Tetsu is watching them with a small smile on his face, and he feels himself smiling back.
“Yeah,” he decides. “I’m happy.”
Later, after Satsuki goes home, Daiki looks everywhere twice before finally finding Tetsu in the damn kitchen, frowning at his laptop.
“You look like Midorima with these glasses on,” Daiki says just to get a rise out of him, flicking the back of his steel-rimmed glasses with a finger to make them bounce once, in a quick up-down.
“Would you like to sleep on the couch tonight?” Tetsu asks politely in response, not looking away from the screen. Daiki just laughs and tucks his chin over Tetsu’s shoulder, watching as Tetsu agonizes over whether to use a comma or not. “I read your stuff you know,” he says, squinting at the headline — some baseball player’s profile — then sighs. “Well, your basketball stuff anyway.”
“My editor says I have a knack for observing the nuances of a game that most writers miss,” Tetsuya says, and sounds so proud of himself it’s adorable. “Though I find it hard to believe you would read, period, much less anything of mine.”
“I read,” Daiki protests. “I read your piece about Kagami, all ‘Kagami will go down in history as one of the greats, Kagami should have my babies.’ You trying to make me jealous, Tetsu?”
Tetsu rolls his eyes, unwilling to take the bait and stroke Daiki’s ego. “Kagami will go down as one of the greats, as will you if you work on your fouls. Now let me go so we can go to bed.”
Daiki squeezes his shoulders, then lets him go. “Yes, tsuma-san,” he says obediently, earning him an adorable glare.
Fuck, he looks cute, Daiki thinks, and absolutely nothing like Midorima at all. Daiki dips down to touch him behind his knee, then hauls him into the air, holding him steady so he can steal a kiss. Tetsu’s eyes fall closed, and he twines his arms around Daiki as they press closer and closer together. When their lips finally part, Daiki pecks him on his nose, then his forehead, then moves to set him down but Tetsu stays still in his arms, unwilling.
“Want me to carry you, huh,” he laughs, relenting as they make their way up the stairs. “You do shit like this and then get offended when I call you my wife.”
“If anyone’s the wife, it’s you,” Tetsu bites back, and he’s just so cute that Daiki has to throw him into the bed and dive in right after him.
“Hey,” he breathes when he’s got Tetsu pinned down, his bangs falling messily into his eyes, over the rim of his glasses, cheeks flushed. He kisses him roughly, then again, before lifting up to look Tetsu right into those eyes that have always seen him and seen through him. “Partners. Right?”
It’s not a conversation Tetsu had been a part of, but he nods like he understands. “Always.”
Daiki kisses him again. Then, he swallows past the irritating block in his throat and whispers, “I love you,” just for Tetsu to hear, only ever for Tetsu to hear.
Tetsu smiles. When he slides off his glasses and pulls Daiki into the circle of his arms that night, everything goes right, every part of Daiki is thrumming with heat and desire, ready to give and take, throw it down like they always do, except this time he has sweetness at the tip of his tongue to guide him, the sweetness of getting intimate with Tetsu before they have sex, not just after. For once in his life, he feels like the foreplay could have lasted forever but Tetsu — demanding and horny Tetsu — just locks his ankles around Daiki’s back and pulls him in, over and over, always in charge, always chasing after Daiki into the overwhelming rush.
When they finish, Daiki is satisfied to see Tetsu gleaming with sweat, crawling behind Daiki and spooning him like a damn koala, too tired to argue about changing the sheets. He thinks about giving Tetsu a fist bump for the good sex, but that almost feels like an invitation to get bullied so he just lies there quietly and lets Tetsu cling to him.
That’s about it, Daiki thinks — Tetsu has always been the wham-bam-goodnight-ma’am type — but his hands curl around Daiki’s and he kisses Daiki’s ear. “You’re never more handsome than when you’re like this, you know.” he murmurs.
“What, post-nut?” Daiki replies, holding onto Tetsu’s hands.
“No,” Tetsu shakes his head, tickling Daiki’s cheek with his hair. “When you try.”
“Oh,” Daiki replies.
Well, if that’s the case then he thinks he’s going to be trying for a pretty damn long time.
~the end.
+
bonus:
When Tetsuya eventually stumbles out of bed and wades his way to the front lawn, he spots Daiki fiddling with a shiny new motorcycle, bent over and focused. Tetsuya steps onto the grass and silently heads over until he's right behind Daiki, then nudges Daiki's butt with his hips in greeting.
Daiki straightens in surprise and glances behind his shoulder with a grin. "Hey."
Tetsuya tilts his chin in curiosity. "Another motorcycle?"
"This one's for you," Daiki explains proudly, gesturing a hand towards the electric blue bike. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know how to ride one,” Tetsuya says blankly. “Why…” He gestures at the bike, puzzled.
“Gift-giving,” Daiki says emphatically, and Tetsuya just sighs.