Dormant

Kio is happy now.

Or, at least, his life is busy enough these days so as to allow him the simple pleasure of avoidance.

No, he reminds himself, his life is "rich and full." That's what his friends would call it.

He rolls his chupa - only his third of the day; he is cutting back - from one side of his mouth to the other and adjusts the weight of the groceries to his other arm. He's taken to painting flowers these days, lots of them. Bright, hopeful blooms. When he gets around to painting, anyway. It's almost obsessive and somedays his paintings seem to smell like antiseptic and rust. He ignores it. The flowers are pretty and graceful and soothing, and that's enough.

His friends tease him with warm smiles, ask him how he ever graduated from university if all he can paint is flowers. He takes the ribbing graciously, but with enough melancholy in his smile that his friends have learned to be gentle and to praise often.

Kio smiles against the cold, thinking about them, about the cases of beer in his fridge that they will consume tonight. He's been so busy ("rich and full," he mutters, his words condensing into something tangible on the winter cold) since the gallery opened that he hadn't properly celebrated yet. They would remedy that tonight.

Kio had always thought that he would be just a painter, holed up in a loft apartment, covered in pigment and scruffy facial hair, laying gouache down on canvas until dark rings formed around his eyes and he had created a masterpiece. He found after college, however, that he was a bit too outgoing to shut himself away completely and that he really did have a way with people. He could talk up a painting of a rusty tractor until an upscale lawyer was convinced that it was the perfect piece for the dining room where he entertained guests. And thus, the idea for a gallery had been sparked.

Now, the gallery in its third week of operation, Kio finally has time enough to enjoy a beer with his friends, to act like a young twenty-something again and enjoy his middling success.

He passes by the small garden on his corner where chrysanthemums bloom in the late summer and is a bit saddened to see only a mound in the snow. He pulls his coat tighter around his body and opens the door to his apartment building.

He does have that loft apartment he'd thought he'd have. It's just more often filled these days with investors and with other starving artists' paintings, rather than with his own. With a sigh and a hoist of his grocery sack, he mounts the stairs to his apartment and counts them in his mind.

He is on step twenty-three when he smells it.

That pungent, choking scent that he hasn't smelled in years. Four years, seven months, and fourteen days, to be precise, but he pretends he doesn't know that. The odor burns in his throat and his eyes tear up. Kio doesn't need to put down his bag of groceries to know that there is a tall, slender figure smoking just outside his apartment door.

"Sou-chan?"

It is a whisper and a question.

"Kio."

It is the answer he'd been dreading.

***

Kio pours tea with shaky hands. He avoids eye contact, refuses to look at the limp hand hanging at Soubi's side. He remembers an old wound there, one that he had helped to swath in clean bandages every night until the wounds became thick and pale with scar. He remembers Soubi taking in two young boys with wicked grins and cruel eyes, boys who later abandoned Soubi, just like everything else in his friend's life. Kio takes pride in never having abandoned Soubi. It was the other way around, he notes with a bit of a sour snort. But Soubi's hand had gotten better. Kio likes to take credit for it privately.

Then there was Goura.

Eveything changed after Goura and Kio wishes that he could remember something - anything - that had happened there. He just remembers waking up a little sore and bruised in the back of Soubi's car, listening to Soubi tell Ritsuka when to shift into fifth so that his newly re-mangled left hand could rest on his knee. Ritsuka had looked terrified and pale, but had done as he was told.

They didn't talk about Goura. At least, not the two times they'd talked after it had happened. The first time they talked was the night they returned. Ritsuka had gone to bed, exhausted and shaken, ashen and silent, after kissing Soubi quickly on the cheek and shooting an apologetic look in Kio's direction.

It had been awkward, hunched over a first aid kit in the living room, Soubi's hand in Kio's lap, bandages winding around to cover the new wound, identical to the one that had been there before. When he finished the last lap of gauze, he'd been expecting awkward silence and averted eyes. But Soubi had risen to his knees, rested his hands on Kio's shoulders and had pushed him backward.

Kio had looked up at his friend straddling his hips and he wondered why Soubi was finally touching him, looking at him with those intense blue eyes on the one night when Kio wanted to be touched the least. Soubi hadn't lost his gaze and had slid his good hand roughly, clinically down Kio's sides, over his ribs and abdomen, watching for winces of pain on Kio's face.

"I'm fine, Sou-chan," he'd whimpered.

But Soubi had just frowned and rolled him over, pulling off his coat and staring at the blood seeping through his shirt, where the glass shards had become lodged in his back.

"Kio..."

And Kio had known that the small gasp was as close to an apology as he'd be getting. It was enough.

Kio doesn't like to remember what happened next, what happened when Soubi pulled off his bloody shirt and began pressing small kisses to the wounds, down his spine. He doesn't like to remember how easily he let Soubi undress him and kiss him and how he gave himself to his friend, who was only offering the affection as absolution for his sins, who was only using their coupling as an excuse to check for more wounds on Kio's body with which to increase his own guilt. He doesn't like to remember these things.

So he smiles at Soubi and asks what brings him back into the area.

When Soubi replies with that fortress of a smile curling around one word - "you" - Kio blinks and swallows most of his tea in one noisy gulp.

He knows he should reply, should smile or cry or something. Instead, he stares at the tangled scar on Soubi's hand.

(Where did this come from, he remembers asking the night they returned from Goura.

Soubi had smiled in that sad sort of way. I was a bad fighter, he'd sighed, I have to learn somehow.

Kio had nodded, pretended he knew what that meant.)

"You were amazingly easy to find," Soubi says, still smiling, his tea untouched.

Kio frowns, resists the urge to ask what took him so long then. Four years is a long time but Kio doesn't want to be angry.

"What are you doing these days, Kio?"

Kio's face flushes. Why is Soubi being so talkative?

"Painting some. I have a gallery now."

Soubi smiles and his eyes look genuinely happy. "Can I see?"

"It's on the other end of town and it's cold." Kio feels cold, too.

Soubi smirks. "Not the the gallery," he says, "your paintings. Do you have any here?"

Kio blushes. "Only a few."

"Show me."

Kio doesn't want to show him. But he's never really been able to say no to Soubi, so he stands and motions for his friend to follow him.

His studio is musty, full of the scent of old paint and dusty sheets thrown over easels and stacks of canvases. Most of the pieces are from artists aching to have their work in his new gallery and it feels good, this sudden desirability. Kio is always sure to return it kindly, offering a business card and a smile, saying he'll call once they get the new room opened up and have more space. He even wears a suit sometimes and he thinks he looks mighty professional in it.

He's having a hard time saying no to these eager, earnest painters. He always has.

Kio notices that Soubi seems to like what he sees. He hasn't actually seen a painting yet, just their ghost-like silhouettes covered in sheets, but he smiles.

"Are all of these yours?"

Kio shakes his head. "Only in that corner," he points, "the rest are going in the gallery."

Soubi nods and wanders over to Kio's corner. He pulls sheets from canvas, watches dust swell in the spotlight beams then, watches it dissipate. A few paintings stand naked and vulnerable and Soubi smiles.

"Flowers now," he says with a smirk.

Kio nods. "I've gotten good at them, don't you think, Sou-chan?" The pet name feels foreign and heavy on his tongue.

"Mm," he replies, "very good."

Kio enjoys the silence for a moment, comfortable as it had always been, and he takes a spot on the floor. His pants are going to get dirty, but he doesn't care. Once his friends come over and they're all drunk, it won't matter.

Soubi sits down next to him, too close, close enough to smell, to hear his breathing. He turns to Kio, his head cocked to the side, and he smiles in that slow, knowing way he has always had.

"Stick out your tongue," he says and his eyes twinkle.

Kio blushes, does as he was told.

Soubi looks like he might laugh and Kio could count with the earrings in one ear the number of times he's heard it, but at the last moment Soubi reigns it in and settles for an expression of warmth.

"When did you get your tongue pierced," he asks, fingering the barbell.

Kio says something while Soubi still has a grip on his tongue, his consonants turning to verbal mush and this is when Soubi finally laughs. He lets go of Kio's tongue and Kio blushes and Soubi rests his good palm on his friend's cheek.

"It's been too long, Kio," he says and Kio thinks he might mean it.

***

Three hours, two cases of beer, and some cancelled plans later, Kio finds himself cross-legged on his studio floor, dusty and drunk and laughing about the way Soubi has only had two beers out of the batch, how he can't hold his liquor anymore. Soubi says something about Ritsuka never quite getting used to the taste of beer, so they don't keep it around much. It all sounds rather domestic and makes Kio laugh harder until something frothy comes out his nose.

Soubi lifts an eyebrow at him and Kio bites his lip to compose himself. He shouldn't be this happy. Not right now. But Sou-chan is back and he's missed him so much.

"H-how is Ritsuka," Kio manages to ask without laughing in an embarrassing way.

"Good," he says after a pause, "and safe."

Kio creases his brow, wonders what that means, and sips his beer. He swirls his fingers in a small mixing bowl and pulls them out, coated in crimson. Soubi watches him with a patient smile as Kio's unsteady fingers make contact with the canvas. Something akin to a tulip takes shape in the streaks of pigment, but Kio isn't really sure even as he drags his fingers along the rough surface.

"Your technique has improved," Soubi says softly, tucking Kio's hair behind his ear. Kio wonders if he's admiring the new piercings he's added in between the old ones.

"It's because I'm drunk," he says with a solemn nod and Soubi smiles again. Kio feels warm.

"I mean it. You've really gotten good. And a gallery, too."

Kio blushes under the praise. He doesn't want it. Not from Soubi. He'd tried so hard to forget him, to reinvent himself after Soubi left, and to become more. When Soubi had been around, he'd been content in his role as "friend," to be supportive and nurturing and kind. He'd thought that he could paint forever if he could do it in the same room as Soubi.

He opens another can with a hiss and froth spills over his fingers. He winces because he knows it's coming and Soubi grabs his hand. They're moving underwater as Kio's hand is drawn upward, pressed to Soubi's lips. He shivers as his friend's tongue slides over the wrist, up to his knuckles, between each finger.

"Sou-chan," he whispers as Soubi pulls Kio's thumb into his mouth, "Ritsuka..."

Soubi pauses, turns his eyes up. He slides Kio's thumb from his mouth, running his teeth over it, kissing the tip when it's pulled free. "It's not like that," he says, "not with Ritsuka."

Kio whimpers, feels Soubi's tongue start on his next finger. "But what would he think?"

Soubi's tongue slides between his index and middle fingers. "Ritsuka told me to come here," he says, low and deep, "he won't mind."

Kio freezes, cold and shivering, and pulls his hand away. But Soubi grabs his wrist with his functional hand, tugs Kio to face him.

"Please, Kio."

Kio holds his eyes for a moment, angry and hurt, but Soubi's mouth finds the pulse in his wrist, nips at it, and Kio feels himself relent.

"Ritsuka said I should make things up to you," Soubi says, his lips moving warm and soft down Kio's arm.

***

Kio had been trying for four years to feel alive, to feel unfolding and vibrant. And with his success, he'd thought he'd felt that way sometimes. But only when Soubi's hand makes contact with his bare chest did he feel awakened. He remembers Soubi after Seimei's disappearance: withdrawn, despondent, pale. Kio thinks now that he knows what it felt like.

Kio had felt like he was wilting for four uncertain, unbearable years. He had wondered where Soubi had gone.

Goura was still a bright, painful memory when Soubi had shown up at the school with a suitcase a week later. As he loaded up his paintings, Kio had begged for answers, his self-imposed restriction on asking questions shattering into a thousand shards of glass.

He had wanted to know why Soubi was packing his things, where he was going, who those people had been, what the fuck had happened to Soubi's hand. Kio might have thrown something, might have stomped, might have fallen to his knees and begged.

He had watched, broken and faded on from the floor as Soubi had steeled his gaze, tightened his jaw.

"This," Soubi had growled, "has nothing to do with you."

Kio's mouth had fallen open and he'd reached out his hand.

"Sou-chan, please," he whispered, his voice cracking, "I love you..."

Soubi had turned away then, his knuckles white around the handle of his suitcase. "So troublesome," he had said.

And that was when Kio had wilted, his body folding under a sudden desert drought.

But now Soubi is back and Kio's body is swelling to life, becoming full and whole again under Soubi's hands and mouth and affections. They are standing again, Kio's back and Soubi's knees covered in dust of the studio floor a nd Kio mumbles something about a bed in another room and it seems so far away. So they are stumbling and Soubi pushes Kio down again. Kio falls, sticks his hand out behind him, and he gasps out at the aching sound of a rip.

Kio's hand pushes through taut canvas, his delicate chrysanthemums torn, an 'X' scoring through them, the frame of the canvas exposed, naked. Soubi whispers an apology and lets Kio's mouth find his own. It is rough and urgent and Kio wonders if Soubi has someplace important to be.

Clothes are discarded and Kio keeps his arms close to his body. It feels like it must look almost defensive and he wonders if maybe it is, but he lets Soubi manipulate his body because Soubi knows what he's doing. Soubi is pressing him down, crawling down his body, pressing kisses along ribs, making him squirm and Kio thinks about his friends, about what he'd planned to be doing at this time.

He thinks about the pretty boy that's started hanging out with his friends lately, the nice one with the blue eyes that doesn't paint but plays guitar and thinks Kio must have a nice singing voice. He thinks about his friends and how they make him feel wanted and valuable.

And he thinks about Soubi and what he's doing with that tongue right now and how Soubi's fingers stroke at his hip and that simple touch does more for his ego, for his heart than all the flattery of all his friends dole out combined. He arches his hips, feels Soubi's teeth slide along him, feels Soubi's tongue swirl, feels Soubi's fingernails dig into his hip, trying to hold Kio still. It's almost too much and altogether not enough and Kio wonders if Soubi will even stick around until morning this time.

I'm successful, he tells himself as Soubi's teeth nip at his inner thigs, I have my friends, and my art, and my gallery. I'm happy.

Then Soubi is crawling on stop of him, pressing his knees to the floor on either side of Kio's hips and watching his eyes. Kio indulges himself and thinks he sees a bit of a pained expression cross Soubi's face when he sees Kio's tears. He definitely sees Soubi sigh before he leans forward, brushing his lips over the moist corners of Kio's eyes.

"Why so sad," he asks, "isn't this what you want?"

Kio whimpers, then Soubi is sliding onto him and Kio knows that it must hurt, that this isn't how he'd envisioned this happening the thousands of times that he's been awakened in the night by messy dreams or that he's been distracted when meeting with investors by his impure thoughts. He'd pictured it loving and slow, his kisses, his hands loving Soubi, preparing Soubi, preparing himself because something as intense as their lovemaking would be was surely something for which he should prepare himself. He'd pictured it on a comfortable bed, or in the bath, or the shower, or someplace that wasn't a dusty studio floor.

But Soubi is here now, moving his hips in a way that makes Kio moan and buck his hips. He hates this, wants him to stop, or at least slow down so they can go somewhere more comfortable. So they can go somewhere that will be a better set for when Kio replays this in his head. He'll replay because he knows it won't happen again. This will be the last time and it will be spent dirty and cramped and far too fast. But he has Soubi and he knows that, as much as he craves more, this is enough. It has to be.

And so he moves with Soubi, lets Soubi's body guide him forward, lets himself cling to Soubi's shoulders, holds his hands - even the one that can't hold him back - kisses his chest and neck and lips. He lets himself get carried away in this because he'll never feel it again, he knows. He lets his voice cry out in the form of Soubi's name, licks Soubi's crown-of-thorns scar like he's seen Ritsuka do, whispers "I love you" into the hollow near Soubi's shoulder. Soubi cups the back of Kio's head, kisses his cheek, his earlobe, runs his fingers over Kio's lips as he feels Kio's hips buck in orgasm.

Kio keeps moving his hips, even if he's sore, watches as Soubi's body is carried upward, led by the rhythmic rolling of his shoulders. It's beautiful and he commits it to memory, a snapshot of pleasure and contentment. It would be so easy, so delightful to always remember Soubi this way, always remember them together this way. Kio bites his bottom lip until it's swollen as Soubi's back arches and he comes, sticky and warm against their torsos.

Soubi lets Kio cling to him, arms around his neck. It's warm and safe for a moment and Kio falls asleep as fast he can, doesn't bother to clean up, because if he falls asleep before Soubi leaves, he's less likely to embarrass himself. In all the years of their friendship, he's never drifted off to sleep curled against Soubi's side.

He knows that he will awaken to an empty apartment, the mess of beer cans and plates thrown away or washed. Soubi always finishes everything so perfectly.

He'll feel cold in this drafty apartment, not feel like going to work the next morning, even though he loves his gallery.

What he wouldn't give to trade this damned rich-and-full life for the simpler, emptier one when he could follow Soubi, lovesick with a wagging tail. He would give away this perverted version of "happy" in exchanged for the painful ache that had resided in his chest before.

Kio will reach for a chupa, but in their place he will find Soubi's half-finished pack of cigarettes and will stare at them for a long moment before taking one, slipping it between his lips and lighting it. He will let the scent fill the room, make his eyes water, and will feel the wilting begin again.