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“Takumi,” Leon said through his teeth, “you're killing me.”
“I'm starting to think that's what you want,” Takumi muttered. He made a point of looking about their surroundings – at the half-used ball of twine nestled in the sheets, at the vial of scented oil on the bedside table--
“I told you already,” Leon scowled, “that's not how it works.”
And then there was Leon himself. Paralyzed by indecision though he was, Takumi could still admit that Leon was a sight to behold. The twine that Takumi had smuggled all the way from a seedy shop in Hoshido laid in perfect mirrored patterns over Leon's fair skin, crossing his chest and encircling his arms, and simply knowing that it all ended with Leon's wrists bound behind his back gave Takumi a strange thrill that he didn't quite understand. He couldn't help but let his gaze dance longingly over the cordoned strips of Leon's bare flesh, set off to a near-glow in the dim candlelight.
But it wasn't Leon's body that gave Takumi pause. It wasn't the gentle curve of his collarbone, nor his pale, flat stomach, or the light dusting of golden hair that disappeared into his unlaced breeches, like a sordid whisper telling of what was to come--
“If you can't handle this--”
“It's not that,” he protested all too quickly, trying and failing to tear his eyes away. “It's just...”
He stopped, still staring at Leon's restraints, and struggled to put it into words.
“It's what?”
“It's just weird, okay?”
Leon sighed, his dark eyes rolling back to the ceiling. “I told you, we don't have to--”
“How do people even like this? How do you know you like this?”
Leon tilted his head where it rested upon his near-extravagant pile of pillows, his light hair fanned starkly across the rich, ornate fabric of his bedding. He looked, Takumi thought, absolutely stunning, and it was so unfair.
“Do you really want to know?”
As he did so often, Takumi snapped without thinking. “Of course not!”
“Then why,” Leon drawled, voice slow with exasperation, “would you ask?” He nudged Takumi in the leg with a bent knee, as though he were a horse that could be spurred into action.
“Because. I...” Takumi sighed, with the sinking feeling that he'd already lost out both to Leon and to his own curiosity. “I don't know. You make it sound so ominous.”
Much to Takumi's unexpected relief, Leon gave a short laugh, his face breaking into a small, off-kilter smile. “It's nothing as grand as you're imagining,” Leon replied, and Takumi watched in silent wonder as Leon hesitated and looked off to the side, like he was wrestling with what to say next. “If anything, it's a bit embarrassing.”
Takumi moved a hand from where he'd been wringing it in his lap to rest upon one of Leon's outstretched legs, in an automatic reassurance. He could feel himself relaxing too, tension seeping from the set of his shoulders. Gods, but it was amazing how easily Leon could do that to him.
“Now I really want to know.”
“Hmm,” Leon turned back to him, warm candlelight cresting over his delicate lips, his pale eyelashes – and just like that, he was himself again. Takumi could almost see the gears turning in his head. “I have an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“You finish undressing me,” Leon told him, with a perfectly straight face that didn't fool Takumi in the least, “and I'll tell you about it.”
Takumi considered it for a moment.
“Okay. But that doesn't mean I'm doing anything else to you.”
“I can live with that, for now.”
Takumi ignored the “for now” and reached for Leon's waistband.
“The truth is,” Leon started, “I don't know. At least not entirely. That is to say--”
Leon broke off there, lifting his hips off the bed so that Takumi could yank his breeches away, one leg at a time.
“What do you mean?” Takumi prompted him, his own impatience loosening his tongue. “So you're saying you've never done this before?”
Leon didn't reply right away. Takumi tossed the pants carelessly on the floor, where they fell alongside Leon's shirt and stockings in a soft rumple, the only sound in the room.
“I haven't. At least... not with anyone else.”
Takumi watched with his breath half-caught in his throat, his stare glued to where Leon nervously wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, their eyes not quite meeting.
“Oh.” And then, after thinking on it a moment, “But you said before that you've been with--”
“I have,” Leon interrupted, shifting a little where he lay. Takumi imagined that it couldn't have been all of that comfortable, reclining with his arms trapped behind him. “And I've read books about it, plenty of them, and--” He stopped, cleared his throat – and it was impossible to miss the flush on his light skin, high and bright on his fine cheekbones. “--experimented. On my own.”
Takumi blinked. “How do you--”
“I'll show you, if you like,” Leon said quietly. “Another time.”
And then it was Takumi's turn to hesitate again, as if his own idle curiosity was somehow unseemly. “You would do that?”
“I wouldn't mind, if you wouldn't.” Leon touched their legs together once more, gentler this time, and another pause passed them by unbidden. “I trust you, you know.”
Oh, Takumi thought to himself.
He felt like an idiot for not realizing it before. Leon trusted him, with all of this – with his body, with his safety, with his deepest, most intimate desires – even though he had even less experience with any of it than Leon himself. Leon trusted him.
And it was frightening, in a way, when Takumi stopped to consider the breadth of just what that entailed. But there was something else too, something that pooled heavy and exciting in his chest. It made Takumi want to indulge his awakened curiosity, to explore the complex implications of Leon's faith in him. It made him want to show Leon, time and time again, that he was deserving of it.
He leaned forward, hovering over Leon's prone body, dipping down to meet Leon's mouth with parted lips. And his heart leapt a little when he felt Leon rise up into it, as well as he could manage.
“I'm sorry I called you weird before,” Takumi said in a sigh when they broke apart, murmuring against Leon's neck. “I'm so stupid sometimes.”
“It's all right.” Leon's voice all but vibrated in Takumi's head, so close to his ear. “I think it's a natural reaction.”
Even though Leon spoke in tactful reassurances, Takumi could hear the somber undercurrents in his words, the hurt along with the relief. He rested there against Leon's bare chest for a moment, thinking about it, with Leon's binding ropes pressing in long bumps through the thin material of his yukata.
“I have no idea what I'm doing,” Takumi said with a shaky laugh, all too aware that it was as good as an admission to move forward.
“You say that like I don't know already,” Leon told him, his voice low and careful, without the barest hint of mockery. “So what? We'll learn together.”
“But what if I hurt you?”
If Takumi was honest with himself, it was perhaps the only thing still holding him back. But the thought of accidentally harming Leon terrified him. He only hoped that Leon wouldn't make him say it.
“I trust you to stop, if I need you to.” Leon pressed his lips briefly to Takumi's cheek, like a tender punctuation. “Just like always.”
Takumi found himself nodding slowly, even as he could hardly bring himself to believe that they were truly going to do this. He propped himself up on one elbow, searching Leon's unusually earnest face, the sincerity in his dark shining eyes.
“But unless that happens,” Leon went on, “you can do whatever you like to me. Anything at all.”
Takumi thought about it for a second.
“Right now,” he admitted, “I just want to kiss you again.”
He moved fast, before Leon could say something smart, silencing him with his own mouth. He touched his free hand to Leon's face, kissing him with heated enthusiasm, and he couldn't help but feel it was a little strange, with Leon not touching him back – no cool palms sneaking their way under his clothes, no wiry fingers pressed to the back of his neck. Whatever you like echoed in Takumi's head, the gravity of it burning deeper into his awareness as Leon merely panted against his lips, leaving Takumi in charge of how to proceed.
Too bad he still had no idea what he was doing.
Maybe, he tried to reason, it didn't have to be that different than usual. (Maybe he was overthinking everything.) He knew from countless evenings past that Leon liked being handled roughly, down to even the smallest gestures between them. So Takumi started off there, nipping at Leon's lower lip, sucking and biting a path of faint red marks down his elegant jawline, his perfect pale neck. He lapped hungrily at the hollows of Leon's collarbone, laid sloppy kisses to his skin where it peeked out in segments through the twine, bore down heavily against his hips with his own. And when he parted Leon's thighs with an insistent knee, it was so very gratifying to feel him already hard, already aching, already wanting more.
That last thought gave Takumi an idea. Burying his face in Leon's neck, he pressed his nose to Leon's desecrated skin and said, absurdly conversational, “You should tell me what you want.”
It shouldn't have surprised him that Leon had the nerve to laugh.
“And what if I don't?”
He recognized Leon's tone as playful, rather than defiant. (He'd heard more than enough of the latter to know.) Takumi guessed that he was supposed to play along.
“I thought,” he started, slipping a languid hand beneath the waistband of Leon's linen underclothes, “we were supposed to do what I like.”
He had to bite his tongue when Leon gasped, firm flesh hot and a little damp in his palm.
“I've always loved how fast you pick up on things,” Leon breathed.
Takumi could tell that Leon genuinely meant it, and simply realizing that made his heart beat a little faster. But he wasn't about to let Leon know.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, far steadier than he truly felt, “or I'll stop. I mean it.”
It was so nice in the meantime, watching Leon's half-focused eyes, the bob in his throat as he audibly swallowed. But as the moment passed and Leon didn't say anything, Takumi started to wonder if his playacting had missed the mark.
“I want you to strike me,” Leon said at last, his words soft and faltering.
Takumi stopped anyway.
“You really want that?” he asked after a pause, because knowing it implicitly was one thing, but hearing it out loud was quite another. And just like that, everything between them was alarmingly real again.
“Yes,” Leon told him, a little surer, pushing his hips up into Takumi's stilled hand. “You have no idea.”
Takumi held him still with one strong arm, holding back a sharp breath when Leon groaned, nearly whined in protest. Leon's eyelashes cast fluttering shadows against his cheeks, against the narrow bridge of his nose, and Takumi decided that he must've been doing something right.
“Tell me then,” he tried again.
“I--” Leon began only to stop, soundlessly opening and closing his mouth.
Much like earlier, Takumi couldn't miss the blush spreading like wildfire across Leon's skin, or maybe even more so. His face, his neck, even his shoulders and the high parts of his chest burned a soft pink, and Takumi took it in with quiet amusement. But at the same time, knowing that Leon was that embarrassed and yet trusted Takumi with his secrets anyway – gods. It made his head spin.
“I've thought about it,” Leon said, faintly finding his voice, “a lot.”
Speaking of making his head spin. “What do you think about?”
He began stroking Leon again, firmly and slowly with a closed fist, swiping the pad of his thumb in the opposite direction. Leon craned his head off his pile of pillows to watch in open-mouthed awe, and when their eyes met, Takumi licked a wet stripe along one of Leon's hipbones, just inches from his waistband, never once breaking eye contact.
And just as he wanted, Leon was the first to give out. “I think about you,” Leon told him in a gasp, his eyes shutting, his head gently thumping back against the pillows. “Doing it to me.”
Takumi paused just long enough to yank at Leon's underwear, at last fully exposing him to the chilly night air, the flickering candlelight. Leon, for his part, seemed all too eager to help kick them away.
“What do I do?” he asked, resuming his close grip, his steady rhythm.
“You--” Leon hesitated, blinking at the ceiling and slightly panting. “You slap me. Hard, across the face. And-- and then my body.”
“Where?”
“All over. My chest, and-- my legs. Especially my thighs, the insides of them. And--”
“And what?”
“My backside.”
Takumi made a small noise in consideration – he'd heard of that one before, at least.
“What else?”
“I think about you turning me over. Making me kneel face-down.”
It was so odd, Takumi thought, feeling himself caught up, against all of his preconceived convictions, in Leon's halting ramblings. But hearing Leon, watching Leon (his calm, composed, unflappable Leon) slowly come apart like this, stumbling over his words and shaking under Takumi's hands, over mere thoughts, fantasies that had never before left his head--
“What happens then?”
“Then you whip me.”
Takumi halfway wondered just where Leon had managed to hide a whip, in the secret crevices of his bedchambers.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Leon breathed. “It's so good.”
As much as it surprised him, Takumi found himself genuinely wanting to know. “How do I do it?”
“Hard. Really hard.”
He thought that the way Leon was gnawing on his lip probably qualified as really hard.
“How hard?”
Leon was silent for several lengthy seconds, and even when he spoke, it was mostly into his own shoulder.
“Sometimes hard enough to break my skin.”
Takumi went still, and didn't say anything for a long moment – he didn't quite know what to say to that. When he did at last, it was hardly above a whisper.
“Leon, I don't think I could make you bleed.”
The biggest surprise of all might've been glancing up to find Leon looking back, his dark eyes wild and his hair mussed, his teeth bared in a ragged half-smile. “It's okay,” Leon told him, in a hoarse rush. “Just this-- this has been amazing. You're amazing.”
Takumi ducked behind his bangs at that, even as he felt a little ridiculous for being abashed over something so small – he'd never been good at taking praise. In a vain attempt to deflect, he found himself rambling a bit too.
“All the other stuff though...” he mused, “Would you really-- I mean. Would it make you feel good? If I did that to you?”
He might've wanted to find out just how good it could be.
“Yes,” Leon said, and the blend of naked disbelief and desire etched on his face was incredible. “Gods, yes.”
Leon was in such a state that it felt almost cruel making him wait any longer – almost. Takumi slowly rearranged himself on the bed, thinking on what he was about to do as he disentangled himself from between Leon's legs and settled along his side. He stared Leon in the eyes and raised one hand, letting it hover for a moment in uncertainty.
“Takumi,” Leon looked up at him, his face openly pleading.
Takumi took a deep breath, and let his open palm fall against Leon's right cheek.
“Like that?” he asked, marveling at the hush in his own voice. It rattled him a little, the heightened sense of intimacy that they'd stumbled into together.
Leon shook his head. “Harder.”
He tried again – but he could still feel himself holding back. And evidently Leon could tell too.
“Harder.”
That time, Takumi's hand cracked against Leon's skin, hard enough to leave the skin of his palm stinging. Leon gasped at the same time the loud snap filled the space between them, his head lolling to the side from the force of it.
When Takumi lowered his hand, blood was already rising to Leon's stung cheek.
“Like that?” he repeated, bringing his fingertips gingerly to Leon's red skin. Somehow it still felt like a lot to wrap his mind around.
“Yeah.” Leon still sounded like he was all but drowning, like Takumi had drawn all the air from his lungs. “That was perfect.”
Takumi nodded absently in reply. He kept his hand where it was, tilting Leon's head up by the chin and holding him in place before he raised the opposite, bringing it down again, and again, and again.
The third time, Leon cried out. Takumi cursed under his breath, panic rising in his chest.
“I'm fine, I'm fine,” Leon gasped at him, almost immediately.
“You're all right?” Takumi felt like an idiot for asking anyway, but he couldn't tear his eyes or his fingers from the twin scarlet stains on either side of Leon's face.
Leon managed to nod, bright-eyed and breathless. “I'm wonderful.”
It was only then that Takumi thought to look – Leon was still hard. Painfully so, even, dripping just slightly against his stomach. (And in spite of all his trepidation, Takumi might've found himself not much further behind.)
“You really do like this,” he said, looking back to Leon's marked face with faint astonishment.
“You have no idea,” Leon murmured at him once more. But this time, Takumi thought that he was at least beginning to understand. “I never thought-- I never began to imagine, that it would be this good--”
Before he could think any better of it, Takumi stretched out lengthwise on the mattress, pressing his hips close to Leon's side and rubbing a little bit, and he watched Leon's eyes turn to him, wide with recognition. It felt so satisfying, knowing that the soft fabric of his yukata was the only thing separating the ache between his legs from Leon's bare skin.
“I think maybe I like it too,” he admitted, his voice thick and gravelly with newfound wonder, with wanting. “At least... I think I like watching you. Seeing you like this.”
“Takumi,” Leon inhaled sharply. He looked like he was all but ready to burst from raw anticipation. Takumi wondered if he was even capable of saying much else.
“Do you want more?” he asked regardless, hardly able to believe any of it. But he was pretty sure Leon felt the same way.
“Yes.” Leon might as well have begged him, for all the desperation in that one simple word. “Please--”
He moved to Leon's chest. It was impossible to avoid the rope, rough and scratchy against his palm, and he could only imagine how it felt pulled so tight around Leon's arms and wrists. It dampened the otherwise sharp sounds of skin against skin as he slapped, three, four, five times. Leon's little gasps at each one broke into an outright moan when Takumi paused to lean over and touch the tip of his tongue to Leon's nipple, curious to see if being struck made his skin more sensitive, more pleased than he probably should've been to find that he was right.
“How did you--” Leon demanded weakly, in between quick, shallow breaths.
Takumi just shrugged, grinned at him, and did it all over again. Leon was louder the second time around, and somehow that made it even better.
He took the same approach when he parted Leon's knees, alternating between striking hard with his hand and touching Leon's inner thighs delicately with his lips, with his tongue, deliberately avoiding the places that Leon likely wanted to be touched the most. And when Takumi finally took Leon back into his hand, Leon nearly jumped, arching off the sheets and into Takumi's fist, a piercing cry tearing from his throat.
“Leon,” Takumi nearly whispered. He watched Leon squirm against his bonds, his shoulders rolling uselessly, his flat stomach rippling. He kept watching as he threw his hair over his shoulders and leaned to let his mouth join his hand in a slow straight path, from rounded tip to thick base, skin and salt and Leon heavy between his lips. Leon's moans turned harsh and guttural, cracking in the middle like a broken animal – and it was only then, with Leon all but falling apart on him, that Takumi asked, “What else do you want?”
“I want--” Leon started, only to break off into another moan when Takumi took him fully into his mouth for the first time, sucking on the way down, licking on the way back up. “I want you to keep hitting me. I don't want you to stop, I want--”
“I have an even better idea,” Takumi murmured against Leon's slick, swollen flesh. He took his time, teasing Leon a little more with his tongue before he said at last, “Turn over for me?”
It was amazing how fast Leon scrambled to comply. It had to feel funny, Takumi thought as he watched, not being able to use his arms. He wondered if it felt more comfortable for Leon though, not having his hands trapped behind his back after so long lying face-up--
“Wait, no,” he said, when he saw Leon settle into place with his belly flush against the bedding. He reached for Leon's hips and pulled him up, saying, “I want you to kneel, with your head down.”
Leon bent to his whims immediately, and that alone made Takumi's head feel a little light. And better still was the way Leon so willingly put himself on display for Takumi, his pretty porcelain face squashed sideways into the bedding, his reddened thighs and pale backside arcing up from his angled torso. Takumi, unable to help himself, stared for several moments too long, feeling for himself among his robes, vaguely aware he was gawking and yet far beyond caring.
“What are you going to do to me?” Leon asked with a muffled voice, breaking Takumi out of his brief reverie.
Takumi bit at the inside of his cheek, steeling himself to move, and reached for the vial of oil.
“I'm going,” he began, as he uncorked the slim bottle and let some of it dribble onto his fingertips, absently aware that Leon was straining to watch, “to make you feel really good.”
Without another word of warning, he brought down the flat of his clean hand hard against Leon's skin, drawing out another ragged moan. Sitting up as he was, it was easier to take in Leon's reactions – his clenching fingers, his curling toes, the way his muscles tightened under his skin in expectation – as Takumi's loud slaps joined the sounds that fell openly from Leon's lips, ringing in frantic peals off the stone walls of Leon's bedchamber.
Takumi couldn't bring himself to make Leon wait any longer – he wasn't sure how much longer he could manage to hold out himself. He thrust his slick fingers inside of Leon almost violently, sighing a shuddering breath at Leon's noisy, abrupt groan, and fell into a fast rhythm, spanking Leon harshly with one hand, sliding in and out of him with the other, relentless in his barely-coordinated pace. And desperate for something, any sort of relief himself, he pressed up to one of Leon's thighs, grinding heavily up against him, gasping out a little himself as he sought blindly for delicious, elusive friction.
“Please,” Leon begged him in earnest now, crying out from slap after slap, sounding like he was all but sobbing, “Takumi, please--”
“What do you want, Leon,” he breathed out one last time, despite knowing exactly what it was they were both dying for.
“You, you, I want you--”
He stopped, pulled slightly away from Leon, fumbling around in the sheets for the oil.
“I want you to fuck me--”
He couldn't uncork the vial anywhere near fast enough, could barely stop himself from not even bothering and just spitting into his hand.
“I want it hard, please, please--”
Takumi all but tore at his yukata, letting it fall around his bent knees, and spilled too much oil into one of his palms. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he finally touched himself, after spending so long making himself wait, looking at and listening to and touching Leon. And it was so so so good, so hot and smooth and absolutely perfect when he finally, finally aligned himself to Leon, when he grasped at Leon's bony hips and heated skin and coarse ropes and just shoved, pushed, filled Leon up all at once.
“Takumi,” Leon hissed hotly through his teeth, in simultaneous pain and pleasure when Takumi slapped him again, clawing futilely at air, at nothing with his bound hands. It was incredible, the alluring spectacle laid out so exquisitely in front of him, and Takumi couldn't tear his gaze away as he delved, so fast and so deep, inch by agonizing inch, into every bit of Leon. He took swift, darting glances from Leon's shaking shoulders, to his bound wrists, to his thin lips parting against the sheets, to the matching twin sweeps of his hips beneath Takumi's own fingers. And to Takumi's sheer amazement he didn't even need to hold on, didn't need to because Leon was riding him, impaling himself onto Takumi with all the leverage he could muster, moving wildly and recklessly and yet somehow in time as one as though both of their lives depended on it (and maybe, for all Takumi knew or cared right then, they did).
He had no idea anymore how he'd made himself hold out, for Leon's lithe body or his spurring moans or his tight thrilling heat, but Takumi was so glad he did, so glad he was there right then in that very moment as he sunk his blunt nails into Leon's hips and pulled, pushed, and moaned right alongside Leon in building satisfaction, in heightening pleasure that he knew damn well neither of them would be able to hold for very long. But all he cared about was that he had it for the time being, that they had it together, and it didn't even matter because his hands were on Leon, slapping at the backs of his thighs, at the soft flesh of his bottom, because Leon was under him and around him, because he could give them both, over and over and over again, what they each wanted so badly--
Takumi clamored around Leon's legs with a hand still slippery from an excess of oil, to grab him, to hold him, to stroke him firm and fast in a determined frenzy. He was so close and he was so certain Leon was too, and he wanted Leon to finish first, wanted to feel Leon tighten up around him, wanted to watch Leon come completely undone at long, long last. And it was going to happen soon, so soon, as Leon felt like pulsing, sweltering fire in his palm, as Leon writhed and gasped and bit at the bedding, as he all but bounced off of Takumi's hips in erratic jolts, both of them too far gone to keep up anything remotely resembling a rhythm. It felt both far too long and not nearly long enough when it finally happened, when Leon slammed back into Takumi so hard that it hurt, when he froze up and cried out in a keening, dragging wail, when he spilled in a sticky rush over Takumi's messy hand. And Takumi barely managed to hold Leon up, barely managed to hold himself up as he drove roughly, mercilessly into Leon's trembling body, single-minded and graceless in his longing, in his hunger, in his sheer blinding need as he gave out, pressed his face in between Leon's shoulderblades, and at last let himself go.
When it was done, Takumi didn't feel anything but delirious aftershocks thrumming through his nerves. He stared blankly for a minute or two at absolutely nothing, struggling a little to catch his breath, gradually growing halfway aware of Leon doing the same underneath him. But within a few more moments it wasn't comfortable at all, and even as spent as he was, he knew it had to be even worse for Leon, trapped beneath him with his arms still bound.
“Hold on,” he slurred, reaching again for Leon's bedside table. He picked up the small pocket knife that Leon had left sitting out, unfolded it and set about undoing the ropes, while Leon lay very still under Takumi's tired hands.
“You're getting my knife dirty,” Leon teased, and Takumi snorted.
“I could just leave you like this,” he said without meaning it, watching Leon flex his fingers and wrists as the cords began to fall away, staring with concern at the red marks they left behind – and he felt a pang of sympathy, for Leon's sore skin, for not considering it earlier. “Here, sit up.”
Leon did, and together they unwound the remaining twine from Leon's torso, only to unceremoniously dump it off the side of the bed, to be dealt with in the morning. Leon stretched, arching his spine and extending his limbs like a cat, and just as he settled back down to the bed, he touched the side of Takumi's arm.
“What d-- mmph--”
Takumi barely had a second to react as Leon pulled him down too, grasping him by the back of the neck and taking his breath away all over again, kissing him like he'd been waiting all night.
“Thank you,” Leon murmured softly, in the barest of spaces between them. Takumi couldn't think to do much else but bury his face in Leon's chest.
“I didn't really do anything. You walked me through it all.”
“I wasn't expecting you to do half of what you did,” Leon said, looking past him a little as he reached for Takumi's hair, tugging gently at its bindings – Takumi had long since grown accustomed to Leon's fascination with it. And then, after running his cold fingers through it a few times, Leon told him, “Let's get under the blankets. It's freezing in here.”
Leon went about all but burrowing in the sheets, but Takumi first turned to his own side of the bed, where a jar of concoction rested on the table alongside. He drew out one of Leon's arms (with Leon protesting mildly about the chill) and slowly, carefully started massaging little fingerfuls of the pungent salve into Leon's raw wrists.
Leon watched him silently for a few moments.
“Were you worried about me, Takumi?”
Takumi scoffed again, unsure if Leon was simply teasing more. But when he answered, he was honest.
“Yeah. A little.”
Leon hummed in an unreadable response. Takumi couldn't decide what he might be thinking as he watched the salve disappear into Leon's skin, taking the redness and the hurt along with it.
They stayed like that, Takumi moving on to Leon's other side, Leon wordlessly watching his concentration from beneath the covers. Takumi kept finding more ropeburned spots to cover, snaking their way in red lines up Leon's arms, until Leon stopped him, with a cold hand to Takumi's even colder knee.
“You're freezing now too,” Leon said with a half-yawn, hints of exhaustion plainly creeping into his voice. “Enough of that. Come under here with me.”
Takumi was fairly certain that Leon was hiding more red lines yet under the blankets. But Leon seemed like he was through being prodded at, and it was true that Takumi was getting colder by the minute. He sighed, capped the jar, and folded himself between the warmth of the bedding and the overly soft mattress.
Leon turned to him, his eyes tired and his hair still a mess, smelling of sweat and sex and medicine and himself. The candle that neither of them had bothered to put out illuminated his bare shoulder where it emerged slightly from under the blankets, in a golden curving line from shoulder to neck to jawline to ear. He still looked stunning. (It was still unfair.)
Takumi's gaze fell to the spot where Leon's neck met his shoulder – to the thin, bright welt that rested there. Catching him staring, Leon touched his arm, his chilly fingers even more pronounced when surrounded by warmth.
“What is it?”
Unable to help himself, Takumi leaned over to gently press his lips to it. And he heard Leon speak, quietly and close to his ear.
“We don't have to do this again.”
Takumi pulled back, just enough to meet Leon's dark, troubled eyes.
“If it bothers you.”
Takumi merely shook his head, and brought what he hoped to be a comforting hand to the side of Leon's face.
“It's not that,” he said, just as he had earlier. He settled back to his side of the pillows and silently debated the best way to put it, wishing (hardly for the first time) that he had Leon's talent with words. “Worrying about you doesn't mean I didn't enjoy myself. I liked what we did.” And then, with a bit more hesitation, “I like that you showed me that side of you.”
He felt Leon nudge him from under the blanket, with the side of his leg.
“I told you,” Leon said, just as quietly as before. “I trust you.”
A new silence settled over them. Takumi found Leon's closest hand and laced their fingers together, smiling to himself when Leon squeezed back.
“Tomorrow then,” Leon spoke up one last time, in a sleepy mumble. There was a certain devious edge to his tone, as though he felt compelled to even out his previous uncharacteristic candor. “Tomorrow night, you're the one that's getting bent over.”
Takumi felt laughter rise in his chest, even as he closed his eyes. He squeezed Leon's hand again. “We'll see about that.”