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The apartment is too still and entirely too silent like this. The lamp in the corner of the living room glows pale orange. Everything smells faintly of potato chips, courtesy of Power’s mess from that morning. Aki slides the balcony door open a crack to let the fresh evening air in before heading into the kitchen.
“Soda?” he offers.
The Angel Devil is sprawled out on his couch, graceful like a lethargic cat, feet up on the coffee table and wings crushed into the soft cushions at his back.
His head lolls lazily to the side. Wide eyes narrow at Aki and pretty pink lips curl into a contemplative smile.
“You ever heard of a root beer float?”
“No.”
“You scoop some ice cream into a glass and take that A&W we got and pour it over top. Garnish with a cherry and give me a long spoon, too.”
“That’s disgusting.” Aki pulls the freezer door open with a grimace. “Any ice cream?”
“Vanilla.”
“Vanilla,” he echoes, and gets to work.
The surveillance assignment was a bust. Aki’s bone-weary and he’s got nothing to show for the hours on end he spent in that wreck of a neighborhood save for the bag of groceries he and Angel stopped for on their way back. False leads aren’t uncommon, but they irritate the hell out of him all the same. He doesn’t have time to waste. He can’t afford that luxury.
He leans over to taste Angel’s drink off the tip of his spoon and tries not to retch. Angel snatches it back with an airy laugh.
They finish up to the mindless drone of the television and unanimously agree not to order takeout. Aki’s not in the mood. Angel barely needs to eat. They get up and leave glittering rings of condensation on the tabletop in their wake.
Aki tosses a set of sweats onto the bed: soft bottoms and the hoodie he keeps around with two long holes cut into its back. Angel did it himself. Nothing but craft scissors and single-minded determination while Aki was out buying smokes one rainy afternoon.
He leaves Angel to change. Brushes his teeth, struggles into his pajamas. Stares at himself in the bathroom mirror and resists the urge to slam his hand into it. He closes his eyes and sees the sparkling spray of glass painted red. It eases the pressure off his chest a little.
When he comes back out, Angel is still in his suit at the edge of the bed.
Aki switches the bathroom light off and steps cautiously into the bedroom.
“What’s wrong?”
Angel’s head tilts. The column of his throat is pale and skinny and he’s wearing his gloves again.
“Do you want to have sex?”
“Jesus, Angel—”
“You said we could.”
“You don’t hold people accountable for the shit they say when they come that hard.”
“My bad,” says Angel. He doesn’t mean it. “Do you want to fuck me or not, Hayakawa?”
He does. Of course he fucking does. A synapse fires in his brain and suddenly he isn’t exhausted anymore. He’s wide awake and every last drop of blood in his body flows down so fast he sways on his feet.
Not a word slips out aloud, but Angel reads the answer off his face all the same, and rises to his feet. He takes Aki’s hands and walks him to the bed. Their arms swing side to side between them. He’s smiling. It’s such a nice smile. A smile to kill for. A nice smile to drown in. Aki’s drowning.
“I think,” Angel says softly, “only one of us needs to keep our clothes on. I don’t mind taking mine off, if that’s what you want. Or you can take ‘em off me. You seem like the type.”
Angel lets go of Aki’s hands and they drop listlessly to his sides, slapping against his thighs. Gravity’s increased tenfold. He can’t pick them back up.
“You need gloves, Aki.”
“Hm,” he grunts. He’s not thinking anymore. He can’t. It’s all gone from his head, everything is, every last scrap of awareness. “I left—”
“Kitchen counter,” Angel reminds him. He holds them out. “I brought them.”
Angel’s been thinking about this. All day. This whole time. He’s wanted it, too. He wants this, he wants Aki as much as Aki wants him, and it’s such a stupid fucking idea to risk his life to get his dick wet, but Aki will be damned if he backs out now.
He tugs the gloves on. Fucking ridiculous, putting clothes on when he burns so badly he should be ripping them off. All of this. Ridiculous. And the way Angel is looking up at him—
“Socks,” Angel says quietly.
He glances down at Aki’s feet. He’s wearing socks already. All good. He doesn’t have to humiliate himself any further, bend down and yank socks on in front of the guy he’s so desperate to sleep with his bones are itching and trembling and climbing out from under sinew and skin.
“‘kay,” Angel says. It’s even quieter. “Have at me.”
Aki is frozen for all of a minute. For all of a minute, Angel waits patiently for him. And then Aki’s arms are around Angel’s waist and he’s hauling him up, hands on his ass, and tossing him backwards onto the sheets.
Angel bounces and gasps, and quickly gets himself half-upright to shed his jacket with enthusiasm so jarring it’s like he’s being pulled around on strings. He starts on his tie next, but Aki intercepts and finishes the job for him. He peels Angel’s gloves off and he feels useless. Feels helpless. They’re hopeless. In exchange, his have to stay on. Angel’s fingers are so small and pale and bone-thin and Aki can’t wrap them up between his own.
A tense silence stretches on as they work, punctuated only with the muted sounds of the city below and their own ragged breathing. It’s charged with such awful desperation that the casual flick of a lighter could send the apartment flying apart in smithereens.
Angel falls flat on his back once he’s undressed completely, pretty and plaint beneath Aki with a dazed look in his eyes. Aki wants to collapse into him and stay that way forever; have him and hold him and keep him. But he’s too wound up to stop and he doubts he’ll ever get another chance to start.
He splays his fingers wide and places his palm flat just below Angel’s navel. Drags it up, slow and torturous, until he reaches his throat. Angel shivers. They’re both fucking insane.
“Maybe, yeah,” Angel agrees. Aki blinks. He’s not sure how much exactly he’s said aloud. “Scooch back. I’ll turn over.”
“Why?”
“So you’re not tempted to kiss me. Don’t make faces at me, human. Don’t pretend you don’t want to.”
“You stay put,” Aki insists—and inexplicably, Angel does as he’s told without putting up a fight.
There’s a bottle of lube under the spare pillow of Aki’s bed and Angel’s always got a condom or two on him for reasons unfathomable, yet it doesn’t feel like enough at all. They’re crossing a line that can’t be uncrossed. A pact is being made. The binding rites of a ritual are being recited in hollow, echoing voices. It has Aki trembling to the very marrow of his bones.
Or maybe he’s just so hard it’s stripping him of his fucking sanity.
“Aki—”
He’s settled between Angel’s parted legs, his gloves rough and slicked up so heavily they’re dripping. He’s making a mess of the bed. It’s the worst idea he’s ever had, the worst the two of them have ever thought up. He can’t drag his sweats down more than an inch, he thinks hysterically. He needs to keep his boxers on and pull his dick out through the slit, wrap himself up so tight he’ll end up feeling nothing at all. Fucking suicidal. A sliver of skin where it shouldn’t be and he’s dead. He’s gone. He’s so far gone.
“Hm?”
“Put your fingers in my ass already.”
He does. The rest of his dismal thoughts make way for pleasant, empty white noise. There’s just the buzz and there’s just Angel grinding down against his hand, greedy and desperate. There’s no fucking way it’s any good like this, but Angel whimpers again and again and Aki adds another finger. He curls them hard and Angel bucks up with a strangled noise that catches roughly in his throat.
“Shit—please. Aki, please.”
“This is so fucked up, Angel,” he breathes.
“Yeah, sure. Yeah, it is. I think you should—”
He trails off with a gasp, breathless and overwhelmed. He’s gorgeous. His mouth hangs open and he’s red in the face like he’s just fought an army single-handed and won. He’s never done this before. It’s not the same as jerking off—Aki remembers learning that particular lesson. And no one, human or otherwise, has ever been stupid enough to attempt teaching it to Angel. Until Aki, the fool, came around. He’s such a goddamn fool.
“Aki, fuck me,” Angel pleads. It seeps into Aki’s blood like poison. He’s so pretty when he begs like that, hoarse and needy and utterly shameless. “Just fuck me, it’s fine, I swear I’ll—”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Angel’s eyes are big and dark when he gapes up at him in startled confusion. Something like that. That sort of thing. There’s Aki’s reputation to consider. More than anything, he despises devils. On his life, he’s vowed to slaughter every last one that crosses his path until he’s drawing his final breath and can’t take another step forward.
Instead, he reaches for the condom, and all the while the devil in his bed watches him. He’s panting and he’s flushed pink all the way down to his chest. He’s pink all over. The small curve of his biceps. The soft insides of his thighs. Aki wants to bite him there. He wants to leave little parts of himself everywhere. But he can’t, and he thinks back on the mirror in the bathroom and how much he wants to punch it to shards.
He grinds his teeth together to keep from plunging down and stealing a kiss, and lines himself up with as much coordination as he’s capable of gathering. Angel’s legs shudder and clamp tight around his hips. His fingers scramble for purchase on Aki’s back: scratching, digging, carving valleys and leaving raised hilltops in their wake. Aki swears he feels the warmth of them on his bare skin. He wants Angel to tear the shirt to shreds and draw blood, bring his hand to his mouth and lick every last drop of it off like it’s sweeter than candy.
“You won’t hurt me, Aki.”
Of course not. He’ll only hurt himself.
Aki closes his eyes and dips his head, and when he finally pushes in he meets more resistance than he expects. Angel goes tense and inhales sharp and hard, and breathes Aki’s name like a litany. He’s the one muttering prayers. There’s an angel in his bed and he’s praying to Aki like it's him who’s almighty.
No one has ever touched Angel like this. No one’s ever done anything like it to him before. Aki’s the only one who’s ever been allowed close enough. He’s the original sin. The first to bite. The one to kickstart his own damn biblical downfall.
“You won’t hurt me,” Angel repeats. “Please, just—”
That pretty voice curls like dollops of honey around him and Aki goes dizzy with want. He sees stars, sees the heavens, sees a light so bright it has to be the end. He loses composure and shoves the rest of the way in. He keeps his fingers wrapped around the base of his cock; he’s so fucking careful but it’s hard to be when the sound Angel makes when he bottoms out almost hurtles Aki over the fucking edge all on its own.
He wants to take Angel apart. He wants to ruin him, he does. Mark him, have him, possess him. He’s given up control. He starts to move, shaking with desperation, but Angel stops him with an urgent little sound.
“Wait—” Angel’s eyes are glazed over. Pupils blown wide. “Jus’ a minute. Fuck. Fuck, you’re big.”
Aki stills. “Are you—”
“I’m fine,” Angel gasps. “That feels so good, what the fuck.”
Aki waits. Sucks in a deep breath. His head weighs entirely too much and he lets it dip down, the ends of his hair tickling the sharp jut of Angel’s collarbone.
He itches to tuck his face into Angel’s shoulder and leave the bloody imprint of his teeth on that perfect, unmarred canvas, but instead he tilts his face to the side to watch the steady puffs of breath rise from parted pink lips. Angel’s profile is regal and delicate in the white-gold glow of his halo. Perfect teeth, his sharp, little nose, eyelashes long and pale red like his hair.
Angel turns to him. In that infinitesimal chasm between them he feels Angel’s breath hot against his face. He feels everything: Angel’s wings twitching, his chest heaving underneath him. He’s warm, but not quite as warm as humans are. Aki never thought he’d ever be close enough for the difference to be palpable unless he was driving his katana through the head of something ugly. He never thought he’d be this reckless. He’d never thought he’d be in—
“Move,” says Angel. “It’s fine now. God, I can feel you in my guts. Move.”
It’s a whisper but it rings out like an order, and Aki does. He follows orders. He’s good at it. He moves, he fucks up hard into Angel, and the fingers at his back dig in like pincers. Angel squeezes around him with a wounded noise that makes Aki’s head spin. It’s instinct, it’s his body stretching to accommodate the intrusion, deciding if it likes it or not, and Aki wants to drink those gasps from his mouth and the salt from his skin and he can’t, and he can’t, he can’t—
Golden eyes screw shut and Angel’s brow knits taut with pleasure. It likes. It wants.
Aki holds himself up with an elbow on one side of Angel’s head, the fingers of his other hand capturing Angel’s and wandering up the length of the bed to curl together against the rumpled sheets. Reckless. If his sleeve rides up—
Fuck it if his sleeve rides up. Doesn’t fucking matter.
“You okay?” he asks, and Angel’s hum seems affirmative enough. He’s barely coherent. Words lodge in his throat, refusing to come out, and Aki rolls his hips and punches desperate, little sounds from those perfect lips instead. They’re chapped. They’re lovely. He wants to kiss them. He wants more than anything in the world, in that instant, to kiss him.
Fate’s cruel that way, twisted and tragic and ironic.
He listens to Angel coming apart under him and imagines ripping his gloves off with his teeth and touching every inch of his skin, every dip and crevice and callus, finding out exactly how sensitive he is, how responsive to Aki’s fingers, his lips, his tongue. He’s never wanted anything so badly in his life.
And through that haze, he thinks: he lasted no more than ten seconds his first time around, and he won’t last much longer now. He’s a rolling wave, ready to crash and destroy everything in its path. It’s been pent up too long. He hasn’t done this in far too long. He hasn’t wanted to. And now it’s all coming undone. Angel’s whimpers are catching in the back of his throat every time Aki rocks hard into him, and he’s coming undone.
Aki brings his hand down between Angel’s legs and tries to move in time, in sync, but struggles and gasps and the pleasure low in his belly flares like a wildfire.
“Aki.”
He hums. He knows. He understands. He’s so wound up it hurts, feels so hot at the base of his stomach he burns with it, he’s so close he can only whine in delirious agreement.
“Aki—”
Angel shudders and curls in on himself with a sudden shout. He comes all over the glove and his own stomach and he squeezes Aki’s cock so hard he can’t help but screw his eyes shut tight and follow suit.
━━━
“There’s an upside to this,” Angel tells him languidly once Aki’s cleaned up and redressed and coming back from the bathroom with a small cloth in hand. Damp. Not too hot, not too cold. His Angel is fussy. He’s a spoiled brat and Aki spoils him further by indulging his every little whim.
“And what’s that?” he asks.
“One mess to clean up. You’re not all sticky.”
“Lucky me.”
Angel’s gaze roves the ceiling as Aki wipes away the mess between his thighs and wishes he wasn’t wearing gloves for this. Wishes he could feel the heat of Angel’s rosy, sweat-soaked skin, that he could clean him up with his tongue until he’s shaking and crying and begging Aki to stop. Wishes wishes wishes.
“Thought I was supposed to be in your lap for this,” Angel muses.
“For what?”
“That’s what you said. You’d fuck me in your lap.”
“I was rambling. Don’t nitpick the details,” Aki tells him off. Then he blinks and pauses and falls completely still, caught in a torrent of self-consciousness like a stranger in his own body. “Was it good? You feel okay?”
Angel’s little smile is unreadable. “It was perfect. You can fuck me in your lap next time, then.”
“Again with the next time,” Aki scoffs. He might cry otherwise. Next time, next time. He’s running out of time and he can’t touch the one person he wants to touch. He can’t hold his hand or kiss that goddamn smug smile off his mouth. “Here, put these on. I’m not doing everything for you.”
“You don’t want a next time?” Angel laughs. “‘course you do. You’re in love with me.”
Aki gapes.
“And I’m in love with you. Not that that fucking helps our case, or whatever.”
He rises on shaky arms to get the sweatshirt up and over his head, thrusts his wings through the holes in the back and gives them a vicious shake, smacking Aki with one clean across the face.
“Ow—fuck.” Aki swats it mindlessly away. “Shit hurts. You could’ve taken my teeth out.”
Angel thwacks him again, harder, on the shoulder this time.
“Hey, asshole—”
Aki startles and trails off. The wing touched his cheek. The first time. It touched his skin. And Angel hasn’t said a word. Nothing. There’s no ticking clock.
“Hey, does that not—”
“Hm?” Angel hums. He pulls on the pajama bottoms, bouncing clumsily on the mattress to get them up over his ass. “My wings? No. I don’t know. I guess not.”
“You could have mentioned that last time.”
“Last time?” he echoes. He’s rolling up the too-long pant legs. He’s smiling. Aki would walk through fire for that smile. “Your dick was in my mouth. How was I supposed to—”
“I could’ve—”
“Done what?”
“Can I—“
“You want to grope me?” Angel looks up at him. “Want to cop a feel, pervert?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Angel says nothing more. He unfurls his wings and with that same stupid, crooked smile, he nudges one in Aki’s direction. Tentatively, Aki reaches out and pets it dumbly like it’s someone’s fluffy dog. It’s warm. There’s flesh there, there’s tissue, there’s veins pumping blood beneath the surface. He runs his fingers down the swoop of feathers and then back up against the groove, and Angel shivers.
“Sensitive,” Aki muses.
“Little bit.”
“How much time would a kiss take from me, do you think?”
“No,” says Angel, snatching his wing back. “Don’t be stupid.”
“You’re making me fucking stupid,” Aki tells him. “I wouldn’t mind it, you know. Seems like a nice way to go.”
“If you’re going to be suicidal, I’m not sleeping here.”
“Stay,” Aki insists.
“No, fuck this, I’m leaving.”
“I won’t—I won’t do anything. ‘m sorry, Angel.”
Angel’s expression stays guarded for a long time. He’s quiet. Frightened. He’s frightened. He’s lost someone, and Aki almost asks—
“I swear, if I wake up next to your corpse, Hayakawa, I’m bringing you back just to fucking kill you myself.”
━━━
The bright blue numbers on the alarm clock read one in the morning. Aki is wrapped around Angel and Angel is wrapped tight in his borrowed sweatshirt, the hood up to shield the nape of his neck from wandering hands, a blanket over his wings and back to keep stray feathers from getting caught in Aki’s mouth like unruly hair.
Aki stares blankly as the blue one-one-three blurs and shifts to one-one-seven, and with it vanishes the last scrap of composure he’s been holding onto this entire time.
He lets go of Angel’s middle. Fuck it. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. He props himself up on an elbow and rolls Angel gently over onto his back.
He’s not sleeping either. Aki thought as much. He could feel it, the unsteadiness of his breath. He feels it like static in the air.
“What are you doing?” Angel grumbles. He cracks an eye open and stares Aki down. “Hands to yourself, human.”
Aki knows. He’s perfectly aware of the rules. He doesn’t need any more reminders about how much this fucking blows. He’s been lying awake for hours on end thinking what if. What if we could. What if we fucking could. He feels lightheaded. He feels high and he feels like he wants to tear whoever put Angel in his life to bloody shreds.
“One kiss, Angel,” he says. One split-second kiss and he’ll sleep like a baby, he thinks. Like the dead, his brain laughs. Morbid fucker.
“Please don’t ask this of me, Aki,” Angel whispers. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
“I have more than enough time for a kiss. I can spare a second. Let me be selfish. One second, I promise. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t—”
He’s begging. His voice sounds wrong, thin and delirious. Angel is struggling with himself, eyes sharp and lost and hurt, and Aki is being pathetic in spite of it, begging because he’s weak and he’s let loose enough to show it for once. He’s too tired not to. He doesn’t want to pretend. He’s got nothing to lose.
Angel is different. He has everything to lose. He says nothing, but the gold in his eyes goes soft and molten in the end, and Aki understands it as clearly as if he’d screamed it aloud. The tears spill over Angel’s temples and Aki leans in.
Their lips touch and time freezes and screeches to a violent halt. Angel's lips are dry and impossibly soft and they part willingly beneath his, but it lasts all of an instant before Angel tries to rear back like it burns him, and it does burn, but Aki doesn’t stop. He stays that way for one two three four more seconds, stealing time, he's stealing his own time, before Angel slams both hands hard against his chest to shove him away to the end of the bed.
“I said—don’t be fucking suicidal,” Angel hisses.
He’s breathing hard. He’s angry and frightened and he’s the most beautiful thing Aki’s ever seen. His eyes are glazed over, euphoria laced with grief. He wants more than anything and abhors more than anything that he can’t have it. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He doesn’t want to hurt Aki and Aki’s taken advantage of his weakness all the same, and still it takes Angel waging a war with himself just to resist giving in and going back for more. Aki knows. He feels it too. He feels it slashing him open and clawing at his heart.
But he can’t bring himself to regret a second of it. Not a single one. He moves slowly, reaches out and swipes a limp strand of pretty, red hair out of Angel's face. He doesn’t touch his ear when he tucks it back. He’s careful. He’s reckless with his own life, not Angel’s conscience. He wouldn’t do that.
“Sorry,” he says. He means it, he does. He got carried away. It was too much and it wasn’t nearly enough. He crumples and takes Angel with him, leans his head on Angel’s chest to listen to the furious pitter-patter of his heart. “I’m sorry, Angel. How long?”
“Three weeks,” Angel whispers. A moment ticks by and his gloved fingers find their way into the sweep of Aki’s hair. Aki doesn’t remember the last time he hurt so much. There's a cavern in his chest, a gaping wound, and he's bleeding out. “I hope it was fucking worth it.”
It was. He would give up his last year if he could. All his time. He would give up forever in a heartbeat.
“You know damn well it was.”