are you hurting the one you love?

[stealhearted]

psst psst [clicks tongue for akechi, sets out curry as a treat]--

Comments

[stealhearted]

[ Akira stops, but pointedly does not let go of Akechi's hand. He squeezes it a little harder, actually. ]

I like sleeping with you. [ In the innocent, platonic way as much as all other possible variations of the word. Morgana would have had to get used to someone else being in the bed eventually, anyway. ]

If we ever get that second futon, Morgana can just claim the whole thing for himself.

[forfeited]

[His hand shakes, and in direct response to Akira's squeezing, he grips onto his hand until the rest of him follows suit, taking measured but shallow breaths. His shoulders bunch up around his ears and he scrunches his eyes closed, and finally swallows and exhales in a rush of air, letting the tension bleed out of him.]

Okay, [His voice is very tiny, but not whispered in the way it had been before when he'd just wholeass forgotten how to talk. Morgana, for his part, hops off the mattress and trots over, winding first around Akira's legs and then Akechi's, making a trilling meow of a sound that is just that-- a meow. He then trots back over to the mattress and hops back onto it, loafing neatly beside the pillow and watching them both, vibrating in place with purrs.]

[Akechi is pretty sure he's going to die from the sheer magnitude of how much all these crazy motherfuckers love him.]

[stealhearted]

Okay. Now that we're up here, I'm... going to go back downstairs and wash my face before bed. [ Because he might be a nasty crime boy with no skin care routine, but he still cleans up before bed, at the least, and it isn't like they made it to the bath house. Akira thought it prudent to not do that while Akechi was completely nonverbal, all things considered.

He leans down to pat Morgana on the back and give Akechi a kiss on the cheek -- it's fine, the cat already knows at this point -- and then he grabs his little carrying case of very minimal toiletries. ]

[forfeited]

[He considers following him to brush his teeth, because he should, but his whole body is tingling faintly with stress, so he just closes his eyes when Akira kisses his cheek, and shuffles blindly to the mattress where he drops face-first into the pillow.]

[Morgana obligingly kneads his hair.]

「 You should put on sleep clothes before you sleep, or you'll wake up stiff. 」

[Groaning, he sits up and glowers at Morgana, but gets up and changes, sitting on the edge of the mattress and absently stroking the cat, who has moved to purr wedged against his thigh while Akira washes up for the night.]

[stealhearted]

[ Akira comes back up, face clean and slightly damp, changed into his sleepwear and looking perfectly refreshed like he hadn't had a reasonably harrowing 24hours. Notably, his bathroom time is substantially less than it was a few days previous.

No one comment on it. ]

You need anything? [ The bathroom, an emergency order of carrots, whatever. ]

[forfeited]

[Akechi is too tired to comment on it, thankfully. He does notice, but it's filed away in the back of his mind for "things to process when I am not about to fucking pass out".]

[Some part of him is already fully aware of why Akira spent so much time in the bathroom, previously.]

[He lifts his head enough to squint at him, closing his eyes a moment and reaching the hand he's not using to pet Morgana with out, the gesture plaintive and childish.] Sleep.

[stealhearted]

Yeah. [ So Akira crawls into bed -- which is crowded, but he kind of likes that -- and lays down in what is known as his spot (against the wall, so Akechi has room to escape whenever it gets too stifling) and then promptly snuggles closer to Akechi to wrap an arm around him and burrow his face into his hair, which shouldn't be comfortable and yet... is. ]

Goodnight.

[forfeited]

[He curls pretty immediately into a partially fetal position on his side, letting Akira assume his position around him and trying to take up as little space as he can. Akira somehow takes up the whole bed and none of it, simultaneously, curled around Akechi in another show that they fit together like puzzle pieces, in a way that is equal parts suffocating and freeing.]

[He falls asleep near-immediately upon settling, Morgana moving to curl into a perfect sphere above their heads, still purring softly, and Akechi sleeps. Truly, wholly and completely, because despite the stress and everything else threatening to crush him, he's never felt safer.]

[stealhearted]

[ Akira always sleeps like the dead, nightmares aside -- but he doesn't have any of those. He doesn't even remember his dreams, really, just knows they were a pleasing sepia-tint of happiness like a newspaper reel being looked at several decades later. In the last dream he has before waking up, he's fighting to make the bed but the blanket keeps coming up to tickle his face, and someone is banging on the door but the house isn't ready for company--

and then he realizes the banging is actually his alarm clock and the blanket on his face is actually a combination of Akechi's hair and Morgana's tail, and so the first thing Akira does in the morning is simultaneously groan and sneeze.

It's... actually pretty impressive. ]

[forfeited]

[Learning Akira's sleeping and waking habits aside, someone pressed against you from seemingly all angles waking up to a tail and hair in their face and promptly sneezing on them is startling. As such, Akechi does the dignified thing:]

[He yelps and launches himself directly onto the floor.]

[stealhearted]

[ Akira startles more when Akechi yelps, and it's a good thing he's too relaxed to jump straight into Joker mode like his normal instincts would dictate. Boyfriend cozy, bed soft and warm, so on and so forth.

So instead Akira just gets a vague idea of what's happening, rubs at his face for a second, then peers down owlishly at Akechi, hanging off the side of the futon. ]

...sorry. Blame Morgana's tail. Did I get your hair gross?

[forfeited]

[He's perched on all fours, veritably poofed outwards like an alarmed cat, the actual cat of the group just sprawling and stretching out to be as long as he can be, yawning with a squeak.]

[Akechi relaxes in fractions as he identifies familiar things. The shelf in front of him, the mattress, Akira, Akira's voice.]

[He sinks into an odd human loaf shape on the floor, idly reaching to the back of his head.] Not gross enough for me to care at whatever hour it currently is. [The sun is up, so that's... promising, at least.]

[stealhearted]

[ Akira yawns. Widely. ]

I forgot to turn the alarm off last night. [ Since they weren't going to school and just had a crepe date planned, it should have been set much later... but, you know. It wasn't. ]

...can you get back to sleep? [ Akira can, but he's a normal teenager in the parts where it counts, and Akechi seems like the sort of person who, when initially woken up, is up for a minimum of 18 hours, fed by coffee and spite. ]

[forfeited]

[He stretches out, first by reaching his arms straight forward until he can hook his fingers over the bottom shelf of the shelving unit against the wall, and then by arching his spine upward and back. ...enjoy the weird cat yoga your boyfriend is doing on your floor, Akira. He stays that way a minute, then unfolds each of his legs so he's laying flat on his stomach on the floor.]

...probably not, but I'll certainly get back up there with you rather than break something in the cafe trying to make my own coffee.

[And as such, he moves to the edge of the mattress and folds his arms over it, blinking at Akira and then at Morgana, before climbing back up and immediately burrowing against Akira's chest.] It is nearly summer, why the hell is it still so cold in this room.

[stealhearted]

I think you're just always cold. [ Akira is not cold. Akira is a small furnace who could probably heat entire galaxies if he tried hard enough, which means he autoamtically wraps his arms around Akechi, still sleepy, in quite a sturdy (and warm) cuddle. ]

It'll get really hot later. All the heat from the cafe rises up here.

[forfeited]

I certainly don't hear you complaining. [Because by virtue of Akechi always being cold, Akira gets more cuddles, but only in the wee hours of the morning or during freak cold snaps. Sometimes rainstorms. He will be obnoxiously adverse to contact at all once it actually gets hot.]

[stealhearted]

I have been cruelly deprived of positive physical contact for most of my life, let me continue to enjoy cuddling my boyfriend. [ About six seconds after he says it, Akira's eyes open as he realizes he said the quiet part out loud and just called Akechi his "boyfriend" instead of his "it's complicated" or anything else that might explain their relationship in a less overt term.

Oh no. ]

[forfeited]

[Akechi blinks.]

[And then he pulls away to sit up on his knees and stare down at him owlishly, a startlingly unreadable expression on his face considering how easy he typically is for Akira to figure out.] I-- what? What did you just call me?

[stealhearted]

I-- [ Akira thinks about apologizing, but it feels wrong when he's been thinking about Akechi as his boyfriend for several days... weeks... now. He just flushes a little red, instead, sitting up because they're clearly not getting back to sleep now. ]

I mean, if you want to be? I'd like you to be?

[forfeited]

[He doesn't quite lean away when Akira sits up, but his posture shrinks, and he looks... not quite terrified, but definitely unsettled. He looks like Akira is suddenly an extremely unpredictable wild animal in the room, and he has no real idea of how to survive being so close to him.]

[His throat goes very try and he makes a very stupid sound that isn't helpful in any way.] I. Hardly know how to be someone's friend, Kurusu, let alone...

[stealhearted]

That's okay. [ Akira offers Akechi a smile that's one of those quiet, small smiles that seem to be reserved for moments where Akira is feeling a little insecure. He reaches out, slowly -- slow enough that Akechi can move away, if he wants -- and takes Akechi's hand. ]

We'll figure it out together? I think that's just what it means. That we're... together.

[forfeited]

[He doesn't move away, but he does stare through Akira for a while. He's breathing very carefully, and he's absolutely gone back up into his head again, but it's too early for him to really fuss particularly hard-- he's not had coffee, he's still only firing on half his cylinders.]

[stealhearted]

You don't have to make a decision right away. [ Akira gives a little tug, gentle and careful. ] Lay back down?

[ Akechi's thinking too loudly again and Akira can't do anything about that -- it's his fault, kind of -- but he can still cuddle him, can still be there regardless of how Akechi wants to think about them. ]

Here. [ And then there's a furry, slightly complaint filled, body deposited into Akechi's lap. ]

[forfeited]

[He thinks he hears him, certainly feels him tug at him, makes some sort of vague attempt at saying something, but he's stuck on a bootloop. It's not until Akira deposits Morgana into his lap and the cat stretches and bumps his head solidly into his solar plexus that Akechi even starts to come back to earth, looking down at the cat and then back up at Akira again.]

...we don't... have a choice, but to be together. It hardly seems fair to you to use that as a designation for a "boyfriend".

[Morgana cackles, curling into a sphere on Akechi's thighs. Akechi's hand Akira isn't holding absently strokes his fur.]

[stealhearted]

I don't mean "in the same space". I mean -- you know. [ Akira reaches out, tucks some of Akechi's hair behind his ear. Smiles at him. Akira is willing to hold Akechi's hand through Akira loving him as many times as it takes for him to understand it, but everytime it makes Akira a little sad that Akechi's life was so disastrous that it's this hard for him to comprehend.

Not for the first time, Akira wishes they could have met sooner. ]

I mean... my feelings haven't changed any. I know the future's a lot to think about, but I still want it to be with you.