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solongsun Ruki's not gay, he swears he's not. It's just that Kyo has a way of making every other person in the world seem like they're not real.
And Kyo is. But more than that, it's just that he's a sucker for anybody at all who seems like they might need him more than he needs them. It's his Achilles' heel. And the broken things, they flood to him like moths to a flame.
And so it's a Sunday night and Ruki is waiting with his painted fingernails beating out a nervous rhythm on his steering wheel, because what was that dumb-shit half-hearted promise he made to his parents? That he wouldn't let being a rock star, living in the public eye, change him?
He ought to tell them that it's not his famous life they should be worried about; it's his private one. He is, after all, sitting in an otherwise deserted motel parking lot at a quarter to midnight, waiting for – urging – the minutes to tick by and a light to come on; he is, after all, signing himself over, sort of like booking a one-way ticket: once you've crossed this line, you can't ever go back.
And Kyo is everything to him at once. Mentor. Friend. In the spaces in between those things he is some fucked up mix of brother and father, and to fill in the gaps he has become fantasy, too. It's an almost narcissistic attraction: Kyo says, sometimes, that Ruki reminds him of himself, and although there is an obvious codicil to those comparisons – like that Ruki would be Kyo about a hundred bad decisions ago; like that Ruki would be Kyo if he hadn't got so lost inside his own mind – all the terms and conditions in the world can't stop Ruki seeing the same thing: that Kyo might well be his final destination, and that the ability to like him, to love him in spite of that, might just be rare.
He checks his watch: 11:53.
And he has seven minutes to think about how he got to this point, and he remembers Kyo saying: 'No—
—No,' Kyo says hollowly, 'Sorry, no.'
Ruki is sort of faking a smile.
'I see you looking at me,' he says, quite calmly considering the frenzied rabbit skip of his heart; the way he can hear the high, nervous way his breath breaks under his voice, 'I think you want it too. I think you want me.'
Kyo hesitates.
'What I want has nothing to do with it.'
'Why, then? Why not?'
'It wouldn't be right.'
Ruki folds his arms stubbornly. He is standing in the way Kyo has seen him stand a hundred times before, in a hundred different situations: fear, loneliness, anger; all of them call up the same reaction in Ruki – the same reaction he recognises in himself. Stubbornness. When at first this beautiful younger creature inexplicably latched on to him, he wanted to explain that: he wanted to explain how getting this far wasn't down to wisdom or even talent; it was so, so much less than that. It was a simple case of being obstinate; of refusing anything else. Of never giving up, ever. Even if it kills you. Even when you should.
And it's the kind of thing that could break his will, because maybe if Ruki is already that much like him, then there is not much left to save.
'I'm not a kid,' the younger man says savagely. 'I'm not some ingénue that you can get all bent out of shape about, thinking you got me into this mess. Ever since we met, you – you've wanted this.'
'Think about what you're asking.'
'I'm asking you to fuck me.'
It's rare that Kyo shows his true age, but he does now; he sits down on the edge of his bed and puts his head in his hands.
'I can't. I can't.'
Ruki sits down next to him; takes his hand in his and settles it high on his leg.
'You can.' But Kyo snatches it away like he's been burned.
'You don't understand. You rely on me too much. I – I need to be able to trust myself around you; I need—'
'“I need, I need”!' Ruki quotes exasperatedly, 'What about what you want? What about the things you say when you're onstage, about truth and passion and the rules being bullshit? What, were you just faking it? How come suddenly there's such a difference between what you sing and how you act?'
Kyo, with his head lowered and his voice throaty, is almost unrecognisable.
'You know if you keep pushing me I'll give in,' he says, curiously flat.
'Good. I want you to give in.'
Kyo laughs lowly and shakes his head.
'You don't understand,' he says infuriatingly. 'You're asking me to – to start something that you're going to have to keep hidden from the rest of your life. You're asking me to give you a secret that you have to keep from every single person you love; that you're going to have to scratch out of lyrics and try to – to hide it from yourself, even. Wanting it.'
'Don't you think it's already started?' Ruki says quietly, and because Kyo doesn't say anything to that he rests his head gently on the older man's shoulder. His lips just lightly brush the skin of his Kyo's neck, and he feels it more than hears it – the way Kyo's breath catches in his throat when he does that; the way he clenches his hands into fists to stop them from doing something unbidden – from shaking, from reaching out, from touching this youngest and most fragile of his friends. All the things he swore he wouldn't ever do, not with this one; not with Ruki.
And Ruki knows that he's won. Because he thinks that Kyo knows better than anybody that rules were made to be broken.
At exactly midnight a light flickers on the ground floor, on and off in the blink of an eye, and Ruki's fingers sort of twitch against the steering wheel. He should be getting out of the car but first he stares at that room for a long moment, his vision blurring with a film of tears from where he's not blinking, but he can't help it. Somewhere inside him there is a spirit that is not sentimental but reckless, and that spirit wants to feel every second of this – for better or for worse. That spirit wants to memorise the spacing of the lights in the rooms so he never, ever forgets them.
He gets out of the car, approaches the door and knocks on it, quickly, three times. It was Kyo's idea to meet here, and though he made some convincing argument about it being more discreet, Ruki thinks he knows the real reason – he wants to meet here because it's neutral territory; because it means nothing to either of them. In his own hard-shelled way, he is trying to make this into a night that Ruki can simply dispose of when he's done with it.
He comes to the door and lets him in without saying anything. The room is impersonal and rather drab, but Ruki notices that Kyo has at least made it slightly more welcoming; he has stripped off the ugly motel bedspread to reveal the white sheets beneath, and there are speakers plugged in at the wall that are playing familiar music, very softly.
'You came,' he says at last, his only greeting, and Ruki finds his mouth is too dry to do anything but respond in kind: 'Yeah.'
Kyo closes his eyes for something longer than a blink, but he settles himself on the end of the bed as Ruki takes his shoes off. It is an odd contrast, seeing his strong and powerful body looking so hunched and vulnerable, and Ruki feels a prickle of guilt that is mixed, to his shame, with fascination: I did that.
Carefully, he sits down next to him, and when he speaks again he finds that his voice is quiet but it is better; it is calmer, stronger.
'You know I'm really sure about this, right?' he says. 'No matter where it goes, or what – comes of it – I want to do this. I want to see if I can have this kind of future with you.'
And Kyo sighs softly in response, but the eyes that he turns on his young friend are more tender than Ruki thinks he's ever seen them, and the hand that he lifts to brush the hair back from Ruki's eyes shakes slightly.
'Don't I get to lodge my complaints one last time?' he says, a lilting note in his voice where he's trying and failing to make his words sound like a joke, 'How I'm too old for you? Too unreliable? And that even if this – being with men – even if it's the path you take, you still deserve somebody better to guide you through it? Somebody whole?'
'Haven't I already told you that I don't care about that? Maybe I'm not whole either,' Ruki argues obstinately. 'Maybe we're supposed to complete each other.'
He slips his jacket off and lets it fall to the floor, and lays an experimental hand on the side of Kyo's face: it's different – more different than he can really say – feeling rough stubble beneath his fingers instead of a girl's smooth skin, but it's not a bad different. 'Only,' he adds hesitantly, a small smile tugging at his lips, 'I think you'll have to help me. I've never done this before.'
Kyo smiles then, and Ruki is relieved to see that it is natural, at last: that there is some fond amusement within it that makes him feel safe. The older man kisses him lightly on the forehead, and that is better still: it is the first barrier broken, something that has never happened between them before. It makes Ruki impatient; makes his fingers itch; he butts his head up gently, wanting Kyo's lips lower, and feels it in his body as the other man laughs.
'That's right. I forgot that you were still in your twenties.'
'Meaning what, exactly?' Ruki retorts, but it's a breathy retort; Kyo's cheek brushes against his, his lips less than an inch from Ruki's own, and it's making Ruki feel like his whole body is humming.
'Meaning that patience, like wisdom, is a virtue that comes with age,' Kyo says, and before Ruki can argue against that Kyo's lips are on his, kissing him about as gently as he can manage even though the mouth against his own is hot and young and so very, very eager; even though Ruki's hands are knotted into fists in the fabric of his shirt and his hair is brushing against Kyo's cheek. The older man pushes it back impatiently, behind Ruki's ear, and that small gesture somehow turns into a caress; somehow leads his fingers into tangling in the warm hair that falls over the back of his neck. It is sweet; how can it not be? He's wanted it for so long. It's powerful, too: Ruki is like a wave that breaks over him, washing away the careful defences he has put in place, and it's with a firmer hand that he grasps the younger man around the waist and tugs him into his lap, never breaking the contact between their lips. He can feel him shivering, and the hands that touch him are fearful, but that's all right. He understands, somehow, that they tremble with the fear of being pushed away, and he has to pull Ruki's body tighter to his to block out the memories that those nervous hands provoke; to remind himself that they are not his hands so many years ago, when they first touched the body of another man – an older man, just like he is to Ruki.
But he is not that man. This is his new promise; he has already broken all of the others. He is not that man and he will not do to Ruki what that man did to him: he won't crawl inside his head and twist the things he finds there; he won't let him down and make him hurt. History doesn't have to repeat itself. Not this time.
These are not his hands; they are better, they are Ruki's, and they are tugging hesitantly at the hem of his shirt.
'You're getting hard,' Ruki says wonderingly when their kiss at long last breaks, knocking their foreheads together gently, 'I can feel it.'
'Does it bother you?' Kyo asks, and has to bite back a hiss as Ruki shifts experimentally in his lap.
'No.' He swallows. 'I'm kind of – I kind of am, too.' Like he's being ignored, he tugs at Kyo's shirt again, 'Can you take this off?'
In answer, Kyo raises his arms, and Ruki strips it off him. His fingers trace this new skin, break this new limit from the bottom up, sliding lightly over the hard muscles in his abdomen and up to his collarbones. They have company: a skull, a tiger. The space between his shoulders and nipples is littered with hundreds of tiny, almost invisible scars, just a little whiter than his skin, and acting on impulse Ruki presses his lips to them, like they'll heal beneath him. A strong hand cups the back of his neck and slides up into his hair, and Ruki acts before it can guide him, brushing one of those stiff nipples with his lips before taking it between them. In his haste he grazes it with his teeth, maybe too hard, but the noise Kyo makes doesn't sound like it's hurting him, and the hand in his hair makes a tight fist. He can feel the older man's cock more clearly now, pressing insistently against his ass, and it's a strange feeling but a good one; he can't help but rock his hips a little, move against it, and is rewarded by Kyo's sharp intake of breath; by his other hand suddenly slipping up inside his shirt, thumb rubbing against a nipple that, Ruki realises, is hard enough to be making a point in his t-shirt. It's so hard it almost aches, feels wanting, and the feeling he gets when Kyo touches it is a good one: sort of like he's dissolving somewhere, deep down inside; sort of like that little tan peak on his chest has roots that start right down between his legs. He doesn't like to show his chest, not ever, but that feeling makes him scurry to rip his own shirt off, flinging it carelessly to the floor behind him. Kyo's arms close around his bare back, bringing them together, and it's better. It's much better. It doesn't even seem to matter that Kyo is so much more toned and muscular than he is, much less skinny and stupid and young; the older man looks at him like he's golden.
Kyo has never said I love you, but the way he touches him in that moment makes Ruki wonder why words would ever be needed.
'I like it,' he whispers, his fingers hooking beneath Kyo's belt to steady himself, 'I like your hands on me. I like feeling your cock—'
'Is it digging into you?'
'I like it,' Ruki repeats, grinding his hips down hard to prove his point; a helpless groan slips from between Kyo's lips but he takes Ruki by the waist, his grip firm and urging him silently to do it again. He's not looking at him in the eyes, but Ruki can feel the uneven rhythm of his breathing and understands how scared the older man is, because as it is Kyo could build himself a castle with the cold wreckage from all his bad decisions and ruined relationships, and sometimes Ruki thinks that's what he's trying to do: put himself away somewhere so nobody can find him or get to him; so nothing touches him.
Ruki's fingers slip uncertainly over the front of his own jeans and undo the button there. He inches down the zip and feels his cheeks get a little hot as his dick nudges its way out, relieving some of the terrible pressure on it; he's hard as a rock and stretching out the front of his underwear so that the slit in his boxer briefs gapes like a mouth against the side of his cock. He can see that like his cheeks, it's flushed red and hot.
Sometimes when he's masturbating he thinks of Kyo, he can't really help it, but despite that it's still surprising to see just how hard the other man has made him. He wants to kiss him again. It's frustrating the way Kyo keeps his hands planted on his hips, neither pulling him closer nor pushing him away, when he wants so desperately to be felt.
'Touch me,' he says. He wants his voice to sound commanding but it comes out as little more than a whimper, and Kyo smiles; he can't be commanded, anyway.
'Where?' he teases, and impatiently Ruki grinds his cock up against Kyo's hard belly, clutching to him painfully around the back of the neck to keep his balance; he's on his knees on this sinking, sliding motel mattress and it feels like he's cast away, he's on a sea within a sea.
'All right,' Kyo says quietly. 'Why don't you lie down?'
'Want me underneath you?' Ruki says a little breathlessly, and Kyo arches an eyebrow.
'Yeah,' he says simply.
Instantly Ruki feels sort of stupid and embarrassed, but he does what Kyo asks of him. He settles back on two pillows that are overstuffed with that cheap spongy stuff, and struggles to catch his breath as the older man kneels astride him, his knees on either side of Ruki's thighs and his hands tugging down the waist of Ruki's jeans, slipping them steadily over his ass. His underwear goes the same way, and Ruki turns his head to the side so his hot cheek is soothed by the cool pillow; he never thought it would be so weird to have another man looking at his cock like that; to have another man touching it. He wonders if it feels different to Kyo's own, and his cheeks get so red he feels like they're going to sizzle right through the sheets; in his mind he can imagine the other man's dick and it's exciting – the way it would look, taste, whether it would be bigger than his own or about the same. He's not shivering any more, but his body feels instead like it's buzzing, like it's humming; it's like he's been hit with about a thousand volts. It's stunned him into silence: the soft, hot kiss Kyo lays just a millimetre away from the base of his cock makes his mouth fall open, but the only sounds are him breathing harshly and squirming slightly on the bed. His heart is doing something strange; it's humming, too, like a mouse's, too fast. He props himself up on his elbows, fingers curling uselessly in the bedsheets; he wants to watch, to know it's really happening.
With a quick and uncertain glance up at him, Kyo kisses the tip of his cock. That's new. Another new thing. Not just between them, but ever. Nobody's ever done that to him before, and nobody's ever let out a small sound of wanting, of losing control, and slowly and softly licked the head of his dick until it glistens wet and his thighs are twitching; and nobody's ever done that quick catch of his eye to make sure it's all okay before slowly, sinfully slowly taking the whole of his hot, heavy cock into their mouth.
Somewhere along the line Ruki has broken his silence and he's letting out a constant stream of little whimpers. His hand gropes desperately and fists itself in Kyo's hair, pulling a little because he can't really control it and he knows, in the back of his head, that Kyo won't mind. The older man's mouth makes soft sucking noises, and blindly he reaches out to take Ruki's free hand in his; their fingers tangle firmly together in the mess of sheets. Ruki thinks he's maybe saying Kyo's name; he's not sure. He feels like he needs to watch, but his eyes slip closed of their own accord; his dick is against the back of Kyo's throat and he knows he shouldn't, knows it, but he can't help himself and his hips push helplessly upward, desperate for more; he knows, in that moment, he's losing his religion. He's twisted on the bed so much that his jeans are around his knees, and the hand in Kyo's hair has white knuckles, and his lips are spilling a stream of curses that he doesn't think he's ever said aloud before. He's even pissed off at him, a little, because he knows Kyo has wanted this and if the older man had just been less restrained, less scared of hurting him, they could have been doing it for months. But Kyo has always, always been so concerned with protecting him; with not letting him turn out the same way he did. It drives Ruki crazy, actually. But nobody's really cared about him that way before. And the thought of that, Kyo loving him, is somehow—
'I'm gonna cum,' he mutters abruptly, his hand tugging hard on Kyo's hair, 'Kyo, I'm gonna—'
But he's too late, and his hips buck recklessly upward as he empties himself into the older man's mouth; he feels Kyo swallow around him and gives a single, choked cry. He notices that his chest is heaving; that the sweat there glistens when it catches the light; he feels an insane, heady rush that pushes him up to the ceiling and further. He thinks there's never been anything better.
'Kyo,' he whispers, the hand in his hair finally relaxing and stroking the abused locks tenderly. He gets no answer: Kyo is going after the drops of Ruki's cum that he didn't catch, clearing the younger skin with bold sweeps of his tongue. They are still holding hands, but as his head clears Ruki realises that Kyo's other hand is stuffed inside his own pants; that he's stroking himself off roughly, and that he's been doing it all this time. It seems impossible, but the thought of that makes his cock twitch again, and Kyo glances up at him in genuine surprise when he feels it against his cheek.
'You are young,' he says, but his voice is breathless from what he's doing.
'Not that young,' Ruki says, and notices that he sounds out of breath, too, 'Give me a minute.'
He hesitates, and then kisses Kyo roughly. He slides down further beneath him, one hand grasping at the older man's shoulder whilst the other heedlessly pushes itself into his pants, brushing against his cock just as he tastes his own cum on Kyo's lips. He's not sure which one it is that makes him gasp, but the scent of Kyo's skin goes to his head like strong liquor. He sucks on the older man's lower lip softly, nudging his hand lower still, and with a small sound of surprise from both of them he wraps it around Kyo's cock, thumb sweeping over the tip nervously.
'Tell me what to do,' he says against Kyo's lips, and feels rather than hears the sound the other man makes; not really a laugh, not really a sigh.
'Just do what you like to do to yourself.'
Despite what's just happened, Ruki finds it inside himself to blush at that; the thought of masturbating now seems very teenage and desperate, especially the way he's been doing it just recently. When he's been thinking about Kyo he's not just been touching his cock; he's been fingering himself, too, working himself enthusiastically from both ends, but he'd rather die than admit that. It's not the kind of thing, he thinks dazedly, that one man says to another: still, whilst his face has been heating up and his mind has been running through that, the movements of his hand have been slowly gaining pace; he notices when Kyo sort of slips, breaking the contact between their lips to gasp against his cheek.
'See,' the older man says, 'See, you're a natural.'
But he sounds nervous, and Ruki realises that more than Kyo simply putting his lips on him and sucking him, this is the breaking point for the older man. This – Ruki touching him – is further than he ever intended to go.
'This is what I want,' Ruki says quietly, fingers tracing the length of Kyo's cock, 'I don't care what you say about being too – too old, or too unreliable. I want you. I want to be like this forever, just you and me, and you can keep on saying no to me but I'll keep on asking, every day. I'll keep on coming back.'
His thumb rubs over the underside of the older man's dick and he wonders if it's that or if it's his words that make Kyo shiver; that make the breath come out of him so unevenly, like he's been hit. Kyo's forehead is pressed tightly to his and his back is arched, his legs spread wide; with one hand he supports himself on the bed whilst the other is firm against the side of Ruki's face, cupping his jaw neatly in one shaking hand, and when his thumb brushes over his lower lip it threatens to silence him but doesn't. He's close, Ruki can tell from all the times he's touched himself, from all the times he's pictured this, because Kyo can't hold back. Not with that hand on his dick; not with that beautiful face; not with that body beneath him. It's too much. The rhythm of his hips is turning sloppy and erratic and he's little more than rutting himself into Ruki's palm, letting the younger man's name spill from his lips as much as it wants to: Ruki, Ruki, Ruki. His voice isn't quite his own, but that doesn't matter. None of it does. Ruki's wrist aches from being at such an odd angle and from being pressed so tightly against the front of Kyo's pants, and it is still somehow incredible to know that he has another man's dick in his hand and that he's trying so desperately to get him off, and Kyo's dick does feel different from his, he realises: it's thicker; it's so much more insistent against his fingers than his own ever is. When he cums, though, it's the same; it's just as hot and thick and wet as his own. The only difference is that when he pulls his sticky, shaking hand from Kyo's pants, he has a new urge to taste it, which he does now as the older man watches and groans. Kyo rolls off him, sprawling over the bed beside him, and for a few long moments there is only silence as they catch their breath. Ruki's fingers knock against the back of Kyo's hand, though, and the older man links them together. Side by side, they stare at the ceiling, and Ruki is aware of feeling younger – of feeling lighter – than he has in years. Tentatively happy, he turns his head to rest on Kyo's chest; he rubs lightly over a nipple and smirks at the exhausted noise the other man makes.
'What if,' Kyo says finally, 'I ruin it? What if I hurt you like I've always hurt everyone?'
And Ruki kisses him gently on the chest; on the lips. It's playful, a little battle for dominance, which Kyo wins quickly by biting on his lower lip and pulling the gasp from his throat.
'Then I'll find a way for you to make it up to me,' Ruki says. He smiles, a smile so wicked that Kyo cannot help but return it. 'I've got some good ideas.'