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Having slept in the same bed for the better part of a year now, they had two unspoken rules about the nightmares. The first was that one of them would always hold the other through it. Always, no matter how early in the morning it was, no matter if Goro had three final exams that day, he would hold Akira tight and press his mouth gently against his forehead until Akira’s breathing resumed its regular pace. He didn’t have to give a damn about his public image or his grades anymore, and there were things worth nearly passing out in the exam hall for. Akira was worth just about anything you could throw at him.
The second rule, of course, was that they wouldn’t talk about it the next day.
Not until now, anyway.
At the beginning, Goro didn’t think this had anything to do with the nightmares at all. Akira had a habit of doing this sometimes—just sat there at the kitchen counter, one leg propped up on the bar stool in the sort of bad posture that was certainly going to give him scoliosis if it hadn’t already, and dropped a sentence like I want you to force yourself on me as though he were talking about the weather. Goro was used to it by now, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still spike his heart rate every time.
“We’ve done that already,” said Goro, stirring a singular cube of sugar into his coffee. He always took it black, before Akira. “If you want a specific scenario, you’re going to have to give me more details than that.”
Akira took a sip of his own coffee. Two creams and two sugars. Goro would taste it later when he kissed him goodbye as he left for work. “I want you to act like one of those cops from back then, in the interrogation room, beat me within an inch of my life, force yourself on me, and then get a signed confession for all my crimes. You could use my blood for it. That would be a bonus.”
The way he said it with zero hesitation meant he’d either rehearsed this countless times in his head or not at all. Goro tried not to wince. It’d been more than a year since the events of the Phantom Thieves had come to an end, but it was clear that, in some demented way, they still had a chokehold on him.
“And you’re sure you want this?” said Goro cautiously. He knew Akira wouldn’t ask for it if he hadn’t already set his mind on it. But he had to be certain. It was a lot, even for Akira, who had about as much self-preservation as the pet fish he’d had as a kid that ended its own life by flopping itself right out of the fish tank.
Akira nodded. “I…” It was his first show of hesitation. “I had a nightmare about it again yesterday. So I thought it might help.”
Goro had long known he was a shitty person, but even so, the sudden feeling of jealousy took him by surprise. To think it was this quick and painless for Akira to admit to something that bothered him, when Goro himself had never been able to talk about the nightmares that have him waking up in a cold sweat. He shoved the thought aside. This wasn’t about him.
“Back then,” he said, picking his words carefully—I want you to force yourself on me. “Did they touch you?”
Akira looked down at his half-empty cup. He shook his head. “Not like that.” He paused. “I didn’t know. If they were going to or not. I was pretty drugged up and out of it.”
Goro nods. There’s little solace to be taken in that, but it’s something.
“It’s kind of not that deep though,” said Akira, in direct contradiction to everything he’d just confessed. He lowered his leg and crossed his legs in the specific way that told Goro he was sporting a boner and trying to hide it. “I just think it would be really hot to do that with you.”
Goro had long known, too, about Akira’s masochistic streak. The adrenaline junkie in him had come out in full force as Joker, and despite no longer venturing into the Metaverse, he was still always seeking something to recreate that high. There was a kind of pride Goro took in getting to be the one to dole out that pain, to be the only one who could satisfy him in that way. “Sure,” he says neutrally. “When were you thinking?”
“Tomorrow night?”
Goro nodded. “We’ll hash out the details tonight, then. Do you still have your Shujin uniform?”
A wicked grin sat on Akira’s face. “Yeah,” he said.
He downed the rest of his coffee, hopped off the stool, and bounced on his toes as he watched Goro finish his. Akira didn’t have class today, but he had an afternoon shift at Leblanc, so they parted ways at the door as Goro headed off to campus. Akira’s kiss against Goro’s lips was sweet, more eager than usual. Goro thought vaguely that he might have to start taking his coffee with two sugars too.
For the past year, they’d been sharing a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a small building in Yoyogi. About two weeks in they realized they slept better in the same bed, so they converted the second bedroom into a den, though Akira seldom used it—he studied better at Leblanc or at the library.
Today, the room was dimly lit, with its furniture removed, leaving one small table and two chairs that sat across from each other. On the floor was an empty syringe Goro had kicked across the room five minutes ago. It was empty, and just for ambiance. They’d already agreed he wasn’t going to drug Akira. Akira had asked for it, but Goro had turned down the request. It would’ve been too difficult to pull off safely.
Behind Goro’s back was the clipboard with the confession he intended to get the wanted criminal Kurusu Akira to sign, even if he had to rid him of all his limbs save for his right hand. And of course, in front of Goro sat Kurusu Akira himself, handcuffed to the chair and looking up at him with eyes far too defiant for someone in this situation.
Goro adjusted his tie, loosening it slightly, before slamming the clipboard down onto the table that stood between them. Akira didn’t even flinch.
“You know what this is,” he said. “Now, are you going to sign it, or are we going to do this the hard way?”
Akira kept his lips sealed, a challenge in his hooded eyes as he glared at Goro. Goro drew his arm back and slapped him across the face.
The sound rang throughout the room. Akira’s head whipped to the side. Goro looked on proudly as the skin began to turn red. But this wasn’t going to be enough, was it? That spark of something in Akira’s eyes hadn’t dimmed at all—quite the contrary. As the station’s youngest detective, if he could get the country’s most wanted criminal to break… then he’d have the chief’s favour in his back pocket. He was going to break Kurusu Akira piece by piece using every method up his sleeve.
Goro rounded the corner of the table so that he stood towering above Akira, and kicked his chair over with enough force to send it skidding across the floor as Akira toppled onto his side. He bent down, keeping a smug look plastered on his face as he picked Akira up by the scruff of his hair to assess the damage. No blood so far. Akira let out a grunt that, if Goro listened closely, sounded almost like a moan. Goro tugged harder—this time Akira really did moan—before dropping his head unceremoniously back onto the floor, fighting the urge to smile.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Goro. “You’re not taking me seriously, are you? Just because they sent in someone your age, you think you’ll get off easily.” At the words get off, Akira squirmed. Oh, he really was so easy. “Unfortunately for you, it’s the other way around. They sent me, a kid, in here alone because they knew it wouldn’t take me much effort at all to break you.”
He kicked Akira a couple times in the stomach for good measure. It was a delicate area, so he didn’t go too hard, just enough for Akira to grunt again, before shifting his foot down to where Akira was already half-hard in his school pants. Goro hadn’t expected to get here this fast—he thought he’d have to rough Akira up a lot more before getting to this part of the scene, but he could work with that. He laughed cruelly, digging his toe down and feeling Akira’s hips struggle not to buck against him.
“Oh? Don’t tell me you’re seriously into this? How pathetic. Then again, I should’ve expected as such from a degenerate punk like you.”
Akira let out a small, barely audible whine. It was a little too cute, as though anything and everything Goro said could only make Akira more turned on even in a situation like this.
“This does make it easier,” Goro mused aloud. “How’s this—if you sign the confession right now, I might let you do a little more than rub off on my foot. All you have to do is betray everything you and your friends stood for. Sweet deal, isn’t it? I’d take it if I were you.”
At the mention of his friends, just as Goro expected, the neurons of Akira’s brain began firing again. He tensed his jaw and shook his head. Goro uncuffed him only long enough to release him from the chair and bring his hands around to his front, then cuffed them again. He handed Akira the pen. Akira flung the pen aside with the back of his hand, eyes burning with defiance, and Goro watched it roll across the floor for a moment before stopping it with the ball of his foot.
Goro clicked his tongue. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t give you an easy way out.”
He stepped on the pen hard until it cracked beneath the sole of his shoe, then kicked it aside. Grabbing Akira by the collar, he hauled him up until they were face to face. The spark in his eyes was still there, but now it was muddled with confusion.
“Let’s see,” Goro mused aloud. “Perhaps I could waterboard you. That always works. It’d be a shame to cover up your pretty face, though.” As if struck by an idea, he pulled out a pocketknife, twirling it in hand. “Should I cut you up until you bleed out, then forge your signature with your own blood?” Testing the waters, he held the blade to Akira’s throat, firm but not hard enough to break skin. A visible shudder of excitement ran down Akira’s spine even as he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
“No?” Goro let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, it’s cute how you think you have a choice.”
He threw Akira to the ground again. Before Akira could straighten himself back up, Goro straddled him, bracketing him with his legs to keep him pinned to the ground. Like this, he could feel how hard Akira was against him, could hear it in the desperation of the shallow, breathy whimpers. His face was flushed a gorgeous shade of red, mottled with purple by the bruise starting to form on his right cheek.
Akira made a poor attempt to struggle, tugging against his cuffs with about ten percent of his actual strength. Goro tried not to chuckle. He grabbed Akira by the wrists and pinned them above his head with one hand, dragging the blade of the knife slowly down his neck with the other. He watched the sharp edge snag on the fabric of Akira’s turtleneck, and slowly cut a jagged line down the front until the shirt fell away, revealing a pale chest rising and falling rapidly. With the dull edge of the knife, Goro prodded at one of Akira’s hardened nipples. Akira whined and arched his back, head falling to the side and showing off a smooth expanse of neck. He was so beautiful to look at, it almost hurt to know that Akira really would let him do anything he wanted to him.
For now, he knew what he wanted. He let go of Akira’s wrists, content when Akira kept holding them above his head, then pressed his thumb to Akira’s mouth, bitten shut.
“Open,” said Goro. Akira didn’t budge. “I said, open,” he repeated, digging the knife’s edge into Akira’s neck again, this time hard enough to make a tiny cut, until Akira reluctantly opened his mouth.
“Good. Now, suck.”
Slowly, eyes half-open and dazed, Akira swirled his tongue around the pad of Goro’s thumb. A hot jolt of pleasure shot through Goro’s body, making his toes curl. He laughed quietly to himself. He was pretty good at this, at ordering Akira around and knowing what made him tick, but somewhat more surprising was the fact that he was, rather deliriously, having fun. He’d spent the majority of his teenage years pretending to be someone else entirely, and even when he no longer wanted to, he still carried in the line of his shoulders the pressure to be someone perfect and put-together. It was a release for him, too, to take the darkness that hungered inside of him and wear it on his sleeve, knowing that, for some reason or other, it was something Akira liked about him—wanted from him, even. Something soft unfurled in his chest at the thought. He looked down at Akira, his lips obediently wrapped around Goro’s thumb, and tried not to let any hint of affection show on his face.
“You’ve been wanting to do this since I first walked in, haven’t you?”
Akira remained silent, though his dick twitched in affirmation against the cleft of Goro’s ass.
Goro pried Akira’s mouth wider and shoved his index and middle fingers in. Akira groaned around the intrusion. “If you do a good enough job on my fingers, I might let you suck me off for real.” Akira responded with enthusiasm, immediately taking Goro’s fingers deeper into his mouth. “You want it that bad, huh? Tch, so much for being the leader of the Phantom Thieves—from the way you’re acting like such a filthy little whore, I’d almost think you committed a crime just on the off chance you’d get to fuck me.”
Too personal? Goro hesitated for a moment. Apparently not. Akira whimpered like Goro had flipped a switch inside of him. He tried to close his legs together. Of course, he couldn’t, since Goro was between them. The outline of his clothed cock pressed against Goro’s ass again. He was so hard it had to hurt. It took a significant amount of self-control not to cut Akira’s pants off immediately and ride him until he was sobbing Goro’s name, but Goro managed it. He narrowed his eyes and shoved his fingers deeper, nearing the back of Akira’s throat, until Akira gagged and instinctively tried to pull away. Goro didn’t let him. He wrapped a hand loosely around Akira’s throat to hold him there and fucked his mouth with his fingers until Akira was twitching and moaning beneath him, rutting up against him like an animal in heat, and then all of a sudden he seized up and—
Goro felt a spurt of hot wetness spread across the fabric of his pants where Akira’s cock was pressed. It took a moment to register what had happened, and he felt so dizzy at the idea that Akira had come untouched that it was hard to think or speak for a moment. After he’d gotten his bearings together he stared down at Akira, who was panting and twitching uncontrollably, and curled his lips up in a devious smile before drawing his arm back and slapping him hard across the face.
“Did I say you could come?”
Face red and stunned into silence, Akira hesitated to respond. So Goro slapped him again. Upon impact Akira’s hips twitched upward again. He was still hard and hadn’t gone soft at all. An incredible rush of adrenaline burst through Goro. He felt like he could take on a hundred Shadows in the Metaverse right now. He grabbed Akira by the hair and said, “Answer me, Kurusu.”
Akira shook his head.
“Presumptuous little bitch,” said Goro. Akira whined like he was being praised. “I think you deserve to be punished. Don’t you?”
Before Akira could answer, Goro stood and hauled him up again. “On your knees.” Akira scrambled to obey. Goro turned so that his back was pressed against the wall, then unzipped his pants and, with a fistful of Akira’s hair, shoved his face against his own cock.
He was aware that he was essentially giving Akira exactly what he wanted, but he was too far gone to care about staying in character. Nobody ever said the detective didn’t want this just as badly, didn’t sign up to be alone in the interrogation room with the leader of the Phantom Thieves for a shot at this, too.
Akira took his cock like he was made for it. Goro didn’t bother being gentle, keeping his grip tight in Akira’s hair and using Akira’s mouth like a cocksleeve for his own pleasure. He kept his pace shallow and fast at first, then thrust hard and deep until Akira choked and tried to pull away, tears budding in the corners of his eyes. Goro wasn’t about to let up, though.
“For someone who wanted this so badly, you’re not very good at this, are you?” He glared down at Akira. “Relax, Kurusu.” He gazed down at the empty syringe, and though it was just a prop, an idea hit him. “Or do you want some more of this?” He kicked at the syringe. Out the corner of Akira’s eyes he saw what Goro was referring to, and his muscles tensed. “I’ve been authorized to use as much as I want, you know. Two more doses and you’ll barely be able to move on your own—is that what you want? To be kept on the edge of consciousness while I fuck your throat raw? Shame, all that talk and swagger, and this is all you’ve amounted to. I’m disappointed.”
Akira made a noise. It didn’t sound right. The line of his shoulders was so tense he was shaking. He pulled Akira off his cock and watched him closely—his eyes were squeezed shut and he was shaking his head. Panic spiked in Goro’s bloodstream. He tapped the back of Akira’s neck three times—time out—and ran a hand softly through his hair.
“Akira?”
No response. Akira pressed his face against Goro’s inner thigh, breathing hard.
“Hey,” said Goro gently, smoothing his thumb over Akira’s bruised cheek. “I’m not going to drug you. We talked about it, remember?”
Slowly, Akira nodded. He was still tense. Goro tucked himself back in and zipped up his pants, then lowered himself down to sit in front of Akira, pulling him in close.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “We’ll stop here. Okay? You did well.”
Akira nodded. The tension was beginning to seep out of his body, though all of it felt like it was being transferred to Goro, a pit opening up in his stomach. He pushed the feeling aside to focus on Akira, brushing aside his hair matted with sweat to press his lips to his forehead. He counted the seconds, counted the beat of Akira’s heart pressed to his own skin, and rubbed circles in Akira’s back until his breathing returned to its normal pace. Pulling back slowly, he examined Akira’s face. His eyes were half-open, downcast, lips pursed in a guilty little frown.
“I’m sorry,” said Akira, voice hoarse.
“Don’t apologize,” said Goro. “You did nothing wrong.”
Akira leaned his head on Goro’s shoulder. His voice was so small and quiet, it felt like someone had reached a fist into Goro’s ribcage and twisted his insides. “I just—when I remembered how it felt when they—I panicked. I didn’t… I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t remember anything. They were trying to interrogate me and I couldn’t even remember what I did, I could barely remember who I was—”
“I know,” said Goro. And that was the thing. He did know, because he was responsible. His own nightmares were proof of that, the other side of the coin—he dreamt, so often, of pulling the trigger with the gun pressed to Akira’s forehead—would wake up in a cold sweat until he rolled over to see the real Akira, alive and well. But the Akira in his arms, though alive, certainly wasn’t well. And that, too, was because of Goro. All this time, Goro had been haunted by the wrong interrogation room.
“You’re okay,” he said quietly, pulling Akira closer, even as the guilt, cold and palpable, wrapped its hands around his throat. “I’m here.”
Akira clung tight to Goro. They stayed like that for a while, just listening to each other’s heartbeats. Eventually, Akira’s grip around him loosened. Goro took the chance to pull away.
“Let me get you some water, okay?”
Akira nodded. Goro turned and headed towards the kitchen. He filled a glass with water, watched it sway briefly in front of him, and steadied his hands before returning to Akira. Goro brushed Akira’s hair back as he downed the glass in one go. The colour had returned to his face, but he still looked like a mess, with his cut-open shirt and pants still wet and probably sticky. It had to be uncomfortable.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” said Goro. He tucked an arm around Akira’s waist, lifted him up off the ground and, making sure he was steady on his own feet, led him out of the den and into the living room, where he set him down gently on the couch. “I’ll run you a bath, okay? Wait here. It won’t be long. After that, we’ll treat your wounds.”
Akira nodded. The raw earnestness and trust in his eyes turned Goro’s stomach. He turned away quickly and headed to the bathroom, where he shut the door and turned on the faucet.
The sound of the running water distracted him for a good while. He didn’t notice that his hands were shaking until he felt them slip against the handle of the faucet. He balled them into fists and tried to take a deep breath. It felt like all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out. Helplessly, he sank down until he was sitting with his back pressed against the outside edge of the tub. Breathe, he told himself. Get it together. Akira needs you. He turned the thought over and over in his head, trying to will himself to get back up.
After an indeterminate amount of time, a knock sounded on the door.
“Goro?” Akira’s voice was quiet, soft. “You’ve been in there a while. Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” Goro answered on reflex. “I was just—” He sat up. What was he doing? Right. He was running a bath for Akira. He peered over the edge to see how much the tub had filled up, only to realize that he’d forgotten to plug the drain, so that all of the water that had been running for the last several minutes had gone to waste. How fitting. He’d failed to kill Akira, left him with a lifetime of trauma, and now he couldn’t even run a bath for him. God, he really was pathetic.
“...Goro? I’m coming in.”
“Wait—!”
It was too late. Akira had already opened the door. As soon as he saw Goro, he bent down to kneel in front of him, brushing a hand over his cheek the same way that Goro had done for him earlier.
“What’s wrong?” he coaxed gently. The lump in Goro’s throat grew larger. He tried to talk, but couldn’t piece together what to say. His fists were still balled at his sides, fingernails digging hard into the palms of his hands.
“This was a bad idea,” he said finally. “I’m the last person you should’ve come to for this. Any of this.”
Confusion flickered across Akira’s face. Goro went on.
“I’ve worked with the police for far too long,” he choked out, “to not know what they were capable of doing to the kinds of people they branded as criminals. I knew what they were going to do to you. I knew it, and I sold you out anyway. It’s my fault that you’re having these nightmares.”
Akira’s face softened. He shook his head. “It’s not. It’s not your fault.”
“It wasn’t supposed to matter. I was going to kill you anyway, wasn’t I?” His voice cracked. He let out an almost hysterical chuckle. Here he was, sitting across from the person he’d actively tried to murder, and yet Akira was the one trying to comfort him. He was suddenly desperate to get the words out, desperate to have Akira understand. “That’s the kind of person I am. I’d treat your life, your well-being, like something so trivial in the face of my grand, fucked-up, childish revenge plan.”
Akira’s gaze sharpened. “Don’t say that. That’s not true.”
“I can’t understand you at all.” The words were rushing out of Goro’s mouth now, a dam breaking. “How can you bring yourself to trust me? How can you expect me to fix you, when I’m the whole reason you’re like this in the first place?”
He was faintly aware that Akira was holding his hand. Or trying to, anyway, but his fist was held so tight that Akira couldn’t pry it apart.
“Goro,” said Akira, his voice shot through with so much emotion that it made Goro feel physically sick. “I don’t need you to fix anything. I just need you to be there for me. And you have. You went to all this trouble just to do something that would make me happy. You knew me well enough to know when things didn’t feel right anymore, and you took care of me. You don’t know how much that means to me.”
Goro relaxed his fist and allowed his grip to loosen. Immediately, Akira slotted his fingers in the spaces between Goro’s and squeezed his hand. Goro squeezed back, albeit weakly.
“I haven’t done much,” he said. Sometimes it felt as though Goro could spend his whole life loving Akira with everything he had in him and it still wouldn’t hold a candle to the way that Akira treated him, the way that Akira made him feel, and all the ways that Goro’s life had changed for the better due to Akira’s presence in it. “And besides, I liked it too, so I was just being selfish.”
Akira let out a breathless chuckle. “You’re always trying to make yourself out to be way more of a bad guy than you really are.”
“Or maybe,” Goro sniffed, “you’re just an idiot who’s always trying to make me out to be way more of a good guy than I really am.”
Akira brought Goro’s hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “You’re so good to me, Goro,” he said, and as much as the smile on his face was devastating, it made Goro’s stomach feel warm, too. “You are. It would make me so happy if you could be good to yourself, too.”
Goro was trying. He really was. He rested his head on Akira’s shoulder and just held him like that for a while. A sense of deja vu came over him.
“I’m supposed to be the one taking care of you right now,” he said weakly. “Not the other way around.”
Akira shook his head. The movement of his hair tickled the side of Goro’s face, a small, strange comfort. “No, we’re supposed to take care of each other. That’s the whole point.”
Goro let out a soundless sigh. It wasn’t fair for Akira to one-up him in this, too. But the jagged, sharp edges of jealousy that Goro once felt surrounding their rivalry had long since worn down around the edges into something softer, warmer, safer. So, fine. He could let him have this.
“We should probably take a bath,” he said finally.
Akira smiled and nuzzled his cheek with his nose. “Shower instead? It’ll be faster.”
“Mm.” Goro hummed in agreement, letting Akira pull him to his feet. “Fine. I suppose you do have good ideas sometimes.”
Akira grinned. “I still think this was a good idea, by the way.”
Goro raised an eyebrow. “Did you hit your head too hard and knock a screw loose?”
The tips of Akira’s ears flushed red. “It was hot,” he said, somehow defensive and coy at the same time. “Like, really hot. And I think I’m going to sleep well tonight. Especially if…” Akira pressed a tentative kiss to the crook of Goro’s neck, smiling against his skin when he felt him shiver. “We go for round two?”
Goro stared. “That defeats the purpose of showering.”
“No, it’s efficient.” Akira beamed. “We can make each other come as many times as we want, and it’ll wash right off.”
“You’re insatiable,” said Goro, barely masking the shudder that ran down his spine as Akira pushed his shirt up and tugged it off over his head. Their clothes were barely off before they stumbled into the shower. And in the end, maybe it didn’t matter whether it was a bad idea or good one. Maybe it didn’t matter if their nightmares never went away. As Akira pulled him in close and kissed him with all the sweetness of two sugars in his coffee, Goro decided that, yeah, they were definitely going to sleep well tonight.