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Byakuya
The first time Senkuu had become aware of Tsukasa’s existence had been traumatic. It also happened to predate the stone plague.
He'd been getting ready for school, Byakuya was lounging in front of the TV eating toast because it was his day off and he'd shouted Senkuu through to see a news bite about the sixteen year old who'd just won an international combat competition.
Byakuya had intended it to be a isn't-that-interesting moment but Senkuu had ruined it when his mouth had opened and an unfiltered thought had taken vocal shape.
‘Damn. Wouldn't half be fun to have him shove you up against a wall and shove his tongue down your throat.’
What followed was the most potent silence in Senkuu's life to date. There had been the usual amount of Byakuya paternally talking at Senkuu about sex, dating, blah blah blah. Senkuu had cracked the odd dirty joke in school, observing it as a simple path to acceptance from his peers. However Senkuu had never once talked TO Byakuya about anything even vaguely sex related and if he'd chosen to do so that would not be where he started.
Senkuu had fled the house without a further word and spent a tense school day funneling all his focus into designing a new fuel canister. Then, when he got home, Byakuya was wide eyed and clutching a pride flag.
‘It was appalling Senku. I wanted some straight up facts for the updated talk and all I found was suicide statistics and religious ranting. Do you want a flag?’
‘You have met me before, haven't you, Old Man?’ Senkuu rolled his eyes. ‘This isn't a conversation.’
‘Okay. Just… sorry.’ Byakuya sighed and this seemed so incongruous with the rest of the conversation that Senkuu stopped trying to leave and waited. ‘When I gave you the talk it was all girls. I didn't even think about how there's more options. And maybe it doesn't mean shit to you that I assumed, but it means something to me.’
It would be ten billion percent a dick move to just walk away from that.
‘Look. It's not like I was hiding it or anything. I don't even know if I'm actually into guys. Nothing like that ever occurred to me before today, and then it just slipped out.’ Senkuu sighed. He supposed the conversation wasn't pointless in this context. Byakuya would be impacted by any choices Senkuu made.
‘Sounds like Shi… Shishimu Tsubasa is just your type? Like it sparked something for you?’ Byakuya scratched his stubble in thought.
‘I guess?’ Senkuu hesitated. ‘It… it isn't fun. Everyone talks about wanting to get dates, get snogged, get their dick sucked, like it's the best thing they can imagine. And it just… it's so boring and I don't even think it matters to me if Shishio Tsukasa is my type. Even if he was here… I don't care. I don't want to do anything with it. I don't know if I prefer guys or girls or what because most of the time it's so dull it's like picking a favourite between beige and taupe.’
Byakuya nodded, listening seriously. ‘I didn't get much out of that pride place I found, but there is some stuff about people who just aren't into the romance scene at all. Pretty minimal but the main point is it isn't a health concern or anything. But if you ever change your mind and want to bring someone home… well I don't care if it's a chick or a dude or someone else entirely, so long as they're treating you well and you want them there, it's good with me. Oh! But the condom rule still applies if you're with a guy, cleanliness is still an issue!’
They hadn't brought it up again, but Senkuu had noticed that Byakuya became more tuned in to gay stuff in general, pausing to attend to news items or angrily calling out jokes in public. He thought it was a pointless gesture, though at least it did some good in the world.
And maybe, just a little, it was comfortable to know he was pre-accepted if he did meet someone he wanted to bother with like that.
Yuzuriha
They were fifteen. They were reading Fairy Tail in Shonen Jump and Yuzuriha had sighed and commented that she couldn't help getting excited at chapters where Erza and Jellal had a moment.
Senkuu snorted with laughter. ‘I see what you mean. It might be unrealistic but there's something sexy about a guy who could pin you down and have you take it.’
He froze. He noticed, abstractly, that it was twice he'd said something that outed himself and both were roughly the same form.
Yuzuriha stopped to stare for a moment, seemingly trying to work out if he was mocking her. Then it clicked (he'd guess his expression was mostly wide eyed panic) and she softened.
‘I know right? It's not my type in real life because those guys are jerks but it's so thrilling to read about!’ She grinned and squeezed his arm. She also didn't bring it up again, at least not until the kingdom of science was preparing for its voyage.
‘Hey, Senku? You remember when we were reading Fairy Tail?’ She sounded hesitant.
‘You better not be asking me to dig up Mashima-sensei because we do not have the resources for that right now.’ He quipped.
Yuzuriha laughed so hard she had to clutch her sides even though the joke sucked so he knew she was worried about what she wanted to ask.
‘I just… is it only guys who can pin you down?’ She asked and pointed at Kohaku.
Senkuu honestly hadn't thought about it until that moment but damn is that an interesting thought. He'd always been able to picture things vividly and he suddenly imagined his back hitting the rough bark of a tree trunk and Kohaku's blue eyes boring into him.
It's not enough to make it all worth the effort - but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't a thrilling prospect.
‘Apparently both.’ He answered, glib.
Gen
It started with Gen claiming he could “divine soul mates”. Senkuu had needled him about the stupidity but also probed him for the underlying theory.
Part of it was simply people believing things they wanted to believe. But Gen also explained the things that people said and did which hinted at what they wanted and valued in a partner, and that when those wants overlapped, it made sense to push them together.
‘I must be annoying as hell in that regard.’ Senkuu had laughed, thinking that was the end of the conversation.
‘Oh not at all. Someone as picky as you is far easier to matchmake than someone like Ginro whose standards are so low “human” is barely a requirement.’ Gen chuckled and didn't offer to elaborate, which Senkuu knew damn well was a mentalist trick but also worked. He wanted to see himself through Gen’s eyes.
‘I'll bite. What makes my soul mate so easy to find, Gen?’
‘First of all, you want someone emotionally independent but who accepts acts of service as tokens of love. You don't like communicating through conversation, so even if they don't need you to help them, they have to want it. Secondly, to attract you, they need to be assertive and bold, you're turned on most by people who take what they want. Finally, they have to be smart enough to follow a plan even if they can't understand all the details.’ Gen pauses and leans in to whisper in his ear. ‘Your top three right now would be Tsukasa, Kohaku and Ryusui, that order, and you'd want them to make the first move but reject them because you don't feel comfortable with them expecting a boyfriend experience from you.’
Uncomfortable heat flooded Senkuu's face. ‘I'd say that doesn't count as picking out a soul mate.’
‘Of course not. If I told you which you were most compatible with, you'd run for the hills.’ Gen cackled. ‘But for the record, someone’s already made a move that you completed issed-may.’
‘They did?! Who?!’ This made Senkuu panic, the weight of unmet expectations strangling him.
Quite unexpectedly, Gen leans in, their faces now close, and brushes Senkuu’s hair out of his face. ‘Maybe someone who didn’t push it because they knew you’d make this face.’
Oh.
Senkuu wondered how it felt, to feel like that and see you didn’t even make the top three.
‘Gen-’
‘Sssh, Senkuu.’ Gen grinned at him. ‘I’m having tons of fun watching this unfold. So don’t worry about me, and keep struggling away with your questions.’
And if struggling with those questions involved the occasional probing of his boundaries with Gen, that seemed to be okay. There would be times their fingers interlaced as they spoke. Gen reported his own romantic entanglements with a sense of duty.
Senkuu kisses Gen just once and it frustrates him that it doesn’t quite give him what he needs. And his own instinct is trial and error when something doesn’t quite work, but for the first time Gen draws a line and asks him not to do that again.
‘I want you to think about what you really want , sweet Senkuu.’ Gen whispers, smiling at him, but there’s a hint of guard in his eyes and Senkuu understands he’s being told and unless that’s really me, please don’t go there again.
‘I will. I… I’m sorry, Gen.’ Senkuu hates himself, his inability to know by instinct what all this means.
But Gen wraps him up in a hug and murmurs. ‘Don’t be. Thank you for considering.’
Ryusui
Ryusui was the one person Senkuu had taken as Gen listing purely Senkuu's own type rather than a conceivable option. The self-proclaimed lover of all women frequently declared he “wanted” Senkuu, but Senkuu had always taken it in the same vein that Ryusui wanted the Perseus, the moon and feasts. Ryusui just liked claiming things and it was easy enough for Senkuu to ignore.
It also wasn't noteworthy to him that Ryusui found skinship with other men so easy. Rather than make him suspect a hidden bisexuality, it actually made Senkuu all the surer Ryusui was straight for how little it made him self conscious.
For Senkuu himself, with his reluctant enjoying of what Yuzuriha described as the “sudden attack” type, Ryusui’s habit of suddenly grabbing a bystander into a one armed hug or ruffling their hair vigorously was a fun little byplay, all the heart racing thrill of erotica without any expectation or heat.
Until one day, when Ryusui was particularly excited because Senkuu had perfectly followed Francois’ requests and their cooking equipment had evolved drastically, where Ryusui decided the only way to express himself was to swing Senkuu up off the ground, turn him a full circle, stumble from the momentum, and they ended up with Senkuu's feet off the ground and his back to the wooden wall of the Perseus and Ryusui pressed up against his front. And Ryusui was ready to blow past the moment with a hoot of laughter until Senkuu had an incident.
‘...Toolbelt.’ Senkuu grunted, wishing he had the strength to pull himself free before the obvious lie was uncovered.
Ryusui laughed. ‘You sure I can't help you with that? I'm a dab hand with tools.’
‘You’re full of surprises, Captain, but sociological experiments support the idiom; don't shit where you eat.’ Senkuu kept his tone light, abjectly refusing to consider how he felt about the offer.
Ryusui let him down and there was an uncharacteristic gentleness that put Senkuu's back up when he replied. ‘Sure thing, Senkuu. Whatever you're comfortable with.’
Senkuu was halfway to the corner when it got the better of him. ‘What's that supposed to mean?’
Ryusui raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Was I supposed to think you'd jump at the offer? That doesn't sound like our chief scientist.’
‘No. I just…’ Senkuu hesitated. Ryusui was one of very few people who exuded a pace he couldn't easily match.
Ryusui closed the gap between them and herded him back into the wall.
Senkuu's breath caught and a sound that was shamefully close to a whimper slipped out in the exhale.
‘Oh that's what you like.’ Ryusui laughed again. ‘I wondered.’
‘Fuck off.’ Senkuu muttered, hot and tingling.
‘Seriously, Senkuu. I don't care. I can get a dozen people to fool around with tonight, here on this ship.’ (Senkuu immediately decided not to find out who those twelve people were. He was pretty sure one of them was Gen and he supposed there was something wrong with him that that didn’t make him jealous.) ‘But I like you and if that's all it takes to get you hard, you want more than you're getting. So give me a knock, if you feel like it. Can't promise you won't be kicking someone out though.’
Senkuu had planned to never take up that offer, but as it happened he would, a few times. Sometimes, when the heat in his brain was too much to take and he needed a pocket of oblivion, he would knock on the cabin and let Ryusui take charge for a couple of hours, and be left calm and clear headed.
‘Doesn't it bug you?’ He asked once as he redressed. ‘I can't be a particularly good lay compared to the others. Zero pillow talk. You don't get other perks out of me. Why not tell me to fuck off?’
Ryusui caught his wrist and pulled him close enough to kiss his hand. ‘You're not a particularly bad one. I like BDSM play, especially domming. I might not get special treatment but you give everyone plenty of perks.’ He gestured around his cabin, which had plenty of creature comforts to mollify the greediest man alive. ‘And I adore you. You said why not tell you to fuck off… I say why would I?’
‘I… You don't want me to… “adore” you, do you?’ Senkuu broke into a nervous sweat.
Ryusui laughed so loud that Kohaku shouted for him to shut up from three rooms away. ‘Nah. I hate when someone thinks me wanting them means wanting them to bind all of themselves up in me. If you get a mono partner or want to ditch the sex for any other reason, that's cool, just don't cut me off with it.’
Senkuu relaxed. ‘In the morning then. Bye Cap.’
Ryusui grinned and nodded, his two finger point indicating the deck above. ‘See you there, Senkuu.’
Taiju
Senkuu never spoke to Taiju about his own love life, such as it was. Taiju was as traditional as it came where love and sex were concerned. He'd spotted a nice girl, become friends with fluttery feelings and fallen wholeheartedly in love with her in the purest way possible. He didn't even want to hold hands without a confession and wanted to prove he could take care of her before he gave that confession.
It wasn't exactly that Senkuu thought Taiju would judge him, but he didn't think that Taiju would feel fully comfortable talking about a probably bisexual, apparently submissive, non-romantic uncommitted sex life. So he kept quiet about his trysts with Ryusui, breaking Gen’s heart, and his occasional fantasies.
Until one day, when Ruri cornered him with a posse of girls and asked him to help Minami confess to Tsukasa by luring him to a cliff top at sunset. Senkuu agreed, of course. Shishio Tsukasa might tick every box he had for someone he might want more than the odd shag with, but that didn't mean that he thought he could tick Tsukasa’s boxes in return. Tsukasa deserved a conventional happiness, and a smart, good hearted woman like Minami was a promising start.
He mentioned it to Taiju, commenting wryly that he didn't want to be left alone to haul the materials he planned to use to lure him up.
Taiju looked at him in concern. ‘Are you sure, Senkuu? You could have told them no.’
Senkuu was a little shocked. ‘Do I seem that cold hearted? Come on, why shouldn't Minami have a little boost to her confession?’
‘Because you like Tsukasa, Senkuu! I know whatever you do with Ryusui is easier… but I don't think you should take the easy route instead of going for the person you truly like!’ Taiju grabbed both his shoulders to make his point.
He'd never admitted anything to Taiju. Never dropped a careless remark or gotten an awkward boner, and Taiju wasn't a genius at reading people like Gen. And yet…
‘Why do you think that you big oaf?! Do I look like one of his fangirls to you?’ Senkuu snorted with laughter.
‘Senkuu.’ Taiju got his serious face on. ‘I'm your best friend. I know you don't like to talk about mushy stuff so I didn't want to pry but… what are you doing? Ishigami Senkuu doesn't run away from the things he wants because the world sees them as impossible! You're taking the stone world to space! You really think you can't get what you want just because he's a guy?! That's ten billion percent no sense!’
Senkuu laughed around the lump in his throat and found himself imagining Taiju was holding out a cheap, shitty rainbow striped flag. ‘Nonsense, ten billion percent nonsense Taiju.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Tsukasa isn't the type to accept someone's feelings just because he got confessed to. I’ll let Minami go first since she's been waiting longer… and if she gets rejected, maybe I'll talk to him. Okay?’
Taiju nodded, his face resolute. ‘I'll be cheering you on! Senkuu!’
And the one he did
Taiju walked the tearful Minami home as she assured everyone she was just fine. Senkuu hung back with Tsukasa, not willing to take Taiju’s advice so immediately but also happier than he wanted to admit that Tsukasa hadn't taken the sure bet that was Minami.
‘...Can we stop a moment?’ Tsukasa asked, after they'd walked a few minutes in peaceful silence.
‘You're the one with the bag of timber, go right ahead.’ Senkuu replied. He tried to look over his shoulder at Tsukasa as he spoke, caught his foot in a root as soon as he took his eyes off the barely visible path, and stumbled.
Tsukasa caught him easily in one hand and Senkuu was grateful for the darkness.
‘You should be more careful.’ Tsukasa sounded resigned.
‘Oh please, you're as sworn in on science as any of my minions these days, you won't let me die yet.’ Senkuu scoffed.
‘I won't let anything hurt you, Senkuu.’ Tsukasa’s hand, which hadn't left Senkuu's hip from where he initially caught him, squeezed and Senkuu had to bite down hard on his lower lip because fuck was that so many of those kink switches flicked in one go.
‘Drama queen.’ Senkuu teased. He could feel Tsukasa’s heat on his back despite the gap between them, and he checked there was no approaching light that might silhouette his obvious reaction.
‘No. I betrayed our promise once but never again. I will never let anything hurt you.’ Tsukasa had leaned down, spoken the words softly and right into Senkuu's ear and he wanted to laugh at the intensity of it all but he was too helplessly turned on to do so.
Senkuu couldn't physically escape someone as powerful as Tsukasa but he could certainly think his way out of it. Change the topic, back out of the intimate moment in the dark of the woods.
‘Never huh? No wonder you turned Minami down, you can't exactly be her boyfriend if you're running around with me and Taiju.’ Senkuu cackled.
‘Exactly.’ Tsukasa released him. ‘I can't date Minami while I'm pledged to you.’
The words, carefully picked, left enough ambiguity that Senkuu could still see an escape route. It was one he was rapidly forgetting the point of, and before he could think himself out of it, his hand extended and gripped Tsukasa’s shirt. ‘Tsukasa.’
‘I'm right here, Senkuu.’ Tsukasa’s hand covered his and squeezed. ‘I won't leave you.’
‘That's good. In this dark, without your animal might, I'm basically defenceless.’ Senkuu quipped nervously. Tsukasa was still holding his hand.
‘We could stay like this. If it will set your mind at ease.’ Tsukasa ran his thumb over the inside of Senkuu's wrist.
At ease was not currently a good way to describe Senkuu's mind or Tsukasa’s effect on it. His heart was racing, his thoughts unable to corral into focused lines, just circling points like the pleasant but persistent tingling in his stomach, the way he could smell Tsukasa’s own scent (one of the most fastidious in cleanliness, so rather pleasant and more than a little sexy), a soft throbbing in his ankle, how dry his mouth was, that chance remark thousands of years ago about how good it would feel for Tsukasa to shove him against a wall and snog his brains out.
‘That seems… smart.’ Senkuu's voice came out in a whisper. It wasn't smart. None of this was smart. But a crush he'd written off a dozen times was tantalizingly plausible and he wanted to see how far Tsukasa would push if allowed.
They walked the path in silence, still holding hands. They slowed almost to a halt the closer they got to the village, a tacit understanding that there was no going back if they were seen.
Senkuu changed his mind tens of times on that walk about whether he'd provoke the conversation. He simulated paths, tried to estimate odds and found himself squeezing Tsukasa’s hand with all his strength.
‘Could you come drop the wood by the labs?’ Senkuu asked, casually. It wasn't completely abnormal. It was just also closer to Senkuu's own quarters than the materials shed in the main village.
Tsukasa’s breath caught audibly at the implication and when he replied there was a huskiness in his voice that set Senkuu's stomach tingling again. ‘Sounds good.’
There was a light in one of the labs. Probably Chrome at work. Senkuu would normally have insisted on checking it out but he was in the middle of his own experiment.
They put the timber away together, ready for the next round of crafting. Senkuu was slower than ever with his hands shaking and Tsukasa took the last of the wood from him, slid it into place and then caught both of Senkuu's hands in his own and squeezed. ‘It's cold tonight.’
Pull it together Ishigami, you've done things that belong in the pages of a fujoshi's secret journal, you are not getting hard over some hand holding!
‘Y-yeah. I'm freezing.’ Senkuu ran gratefully into the excuse, buying time to calculate what he was going to say, when, where, how.
‘Here.’ Tsukasa stepped forward and gently tugged Senkuu's arms, pulling him in. Tsukasa’s wall of heat soaked through Senkuu's tunic in an instant and Senkuu abruptly felt absolutely tiny against the mass of muscle that was Tsukasa’s chest. Tsukasa’s arms wound around him, holding him there, and Senkuu felt a surge of guilt.
It was ten billion percent obvious that Tsukasa was flirting. That wasn't the problem. The problem came in that Tsukasa seemed very close to Taiju in his flirting stance (being unable to date Minami while “pledged” to Senkuu, how slow and deliberate it all was) so logically this hug said “I like you and I'm going to protect you from it all, the dark and the cold and anything else.”
And for Senkuu, hyper aware that his whole body weight resisting would only have stopped Tsukasa if he'd chosen to heed it, the whole thing was ten billion percent erotica. Yuzuriha was right, you should date people outside of your fictional type, because logically Senkuu didn't want Tsukasa to shove him against a wall and snog him without so much as a “shall we?” But right now it was all his stupid brain wanted to focus on and he ached with the arousal of it all. He was also very aware that unlike with Ryusui, where there was an illusion that he could be really hurt at the other man's whim, that was a tangible possibility here. Tsukasa could kill him again without needing to so much as brace himself and this close, Senkuu was powerless. He fervently hoped it was his understanding of Tsukasa’s character that made that situation so arousing and not something actually wrong in his brain.
‘You're shaking. Should I stop?’ Tsukasa murmured into his hair.
Senkuu shook his head vigorously and wound his arms around as much of Tsukasa’s torso as he could encompass. ‘I will never be able to explain one millimetre of this to you, Tsukasa. I'm just fine.’
‘I don't think you're fine, Senkuu. I think you're scared of me figuring out what about this situation is a weakness for you.’
And that was the thing that had pushed Senkuu's crush on Tsukasa from “there's the hot guy I saw on TV” to a persistent nagging guilt that he couldn't shake through anything they'd been through. Tsukasa was smart . He could assess a situation critically and even though he lacked the scientific background he could make assessments through pure logic. He'd instantly caught on that Senkuu was so close to gunpowder. He'd realised just from Senkuu surrendering to his death that he had a way back to life. He'd guessed that the most logical thing for Senkuu's super weapon to be was a phone. Tsukasa saw him in a way that thrilled him and he found himself wetting his lips and asking softly.
‘You caught me. So, what's my weakness?’
‘...It's not that you like me. You've chosen to drop clues to that conclusion, which means whatever part of the situation you want to hide is something that makes you feel so vulnerable that you'd risk me acting on those assumptions over me finding this weak spot. That tells me it's most likely something that interferes with your brain directly.’ Tsukasa paused, his conclusion elementally simple and devastatingly accurate. ‘It drives you to take risks with no external reward, like holding my hand where any villager could see us, or provoking this conversation…’ Tsukasa paused again and Senkuu felt the collection of physiological micro-tells that the uninformed called “the air in the room changing”. ‘This situation is unaccountably pleasurable to you, isn't it? That's where the shaking comes in. It frustrates you that you can't tackle the practicalities with your mind clouded with arousal.’
‘Ten billion percent on the money.’ Senkuu laughed, an edge that could spiral into hysteria if he wasn't careful. Tsukasa hadn't released him yet, if this whole premise was too disgusting he might just get snapped in two. ‘I feel pretty bad. You're trying to be sweet about it and I'm just thinking with my dick.’
‘I've done plenty of thinking with my dick where you're concerned. Maybe we should… calm things down before we talk about this.’ Tsukasa ran one hand down the length of Senkuu's spine and the resulting pulse in his underwear made Senkuu groan softly into Tsukasa’s shoulder.
‘Yep. Good call there. Regroup in my place in ten minutes?’ Senkuu suggested, almost blindly.
‘You'd prefer to handle it personally?’ Tsukasa shifted and one large thigh dragged against Senkuu's crotch. The stimulation itself was garbage, but the humiliation of his stupid boner getting exposed and the way Tsukasa seemed to be conducting this whole conversation like a maestro had his breath catching, his cheeks burning, and his arms tightening.
‘I thought you'd be the type who wants a love confession before getting dicks out.’ Senkuu admitted breathlessly. He was getting the fuzzy feeling in his brain that he'd learned was his body releasing enough hormones that he wouldn't think clearly until he handled the arousal. Cold shower or quick walk, I need my brain back before I fuck this up.
‘You already gave me one, Senkuu. I saw your face when I rejected Minami. And when I caught you in the woods.’ Tsukasa chuckled above him.
And this was what Senkuu meant. He, who worked by artificial light most nights, didn't adapt quickly to the dark of the wilderness. Semi feral stone world purist Tsukasa however? Senkuu should have considered that he would have better night vision. Normally he'd have thought of that but apparently not when his brain was soaked in hormone soup.
‘Oh fine!’ Senkuu pulled sharply away and put a sarcastic bluster over his words. ‘Hi, I'm Ishigami Senkuu, I'm probably bi but lean more to guys, mostly because it turns me on when someone can toss me like a rag doll. I've fancied you since I first saw you and apart from the murdering, what I learn just makes me like you more. I suck at dating but I'm apparently not too bad at sex if you take charge of things. And I can't fucking think straight right now so either decide you're doing something about it or let me get out of here so I can!’
Tsukasa had stood, silent and unreadable (mostly because Senkuu could still barely see shapes in the darkness, so he had to remember that Tsukasa was seeing who knows what on him) through this short tirade and instead of answering aloud, he first reached out, lifted Senkuu clean off the ground and kissed him with nothing chaste or tentative about it. Lust was conveyed in every curl of his tongue and squeeze of his hands and Senkuu was fairly certain that if anyone had captured this as audio and played it back he'd be heartily ashamed of the sounds that he made.
It turned out that Tsukasa didn't need a wall to pin him to, his hands did just fine holding Senkuu wherever the fuck he wanted him.
‘Your hut? It's closer and Mirai uses mine.’ Tsukasa suggested against his lips.
‘Sounds good.’
It took a good couple of hours for minds to clear and bodies to be clean and both were slowed considerably by the reveal that Tsukasa was the sort who liked to scatter small kisses on any skin his partner left available.
But finally, they were both reasonably dressed, huddled under one blanket because Tsukasa was apparently a big hugger and Senkuu broke the ice.
‘So. Either you're a really good actor or you'd like to do that again.’ He quipped.
Tsukasa laughed and lifted Senkuu's chin to plant a lazy kiss on his lips. ‘Quite definitely.’
Senkuu took a moment to respond, his brain having short circuited. ‘Okay. Good. Same here, obviously. Expectations?’
Tsukasa raised an eyebrow and absently rubbed Senkuu's back. ‘I'm not doing this again if we're not a couple. I don't see the point.’
‘I'm still going to suck at dating. It's not like I keep lab hours. I'm not going to get mushy if we go for a long walk up to a beauty spot. I'll still get bored if you want to go to rom coms when they start popping back up, or baseball games.’ Senkuu warned him. Now that the afterglow was fading, it seemed such an impossible ideal. Him, Ishigami Senkuu, dating someone in a way that made them truly happy.
Tsukasa looked at him for a long moment. ‘Senkuu… you are aware I met you before we had sex, right?’
Senkuu snorted, caught off guard by the sarcasm, and Tsukasa used the moment to shift them both into a closer embrace. ‘Let the record reflect that Shishio Tsukasa has, indeed, met me.’
‘I just mean… I never expected you to want baseball games and long walks. I want… consideration. I want you to make a choice to dedicate more of your time off to me. I want to know you're not doing this with anyone else. I want… things like sharing a home and holding you in public to be on the table in the future.’ Tsukasa hesitated. ‘What do you want?’
Senkuu was surprised how quickly he had an answer. ‘Okay, if we're just talking wants not reasonable expectations here… I'd want you to not mind that I have experiment cycles and to want to eat with me and hang out with me in between them. I’d want you to tell me when things are bugging you so I can fix them. I’d want to keep being friends with my sorta exes just without the smutty, flirty parts. I’d want to get physical pretty often. I’d want you to tell people who flirt with you that you’re taken. And I’m good with PDA but I don’t want you to make it obvious I like you taking charge between us. It’s… It’s hot but it’s not…’
‘It’s not reflective of your personality, or how you want to engage with the world. It’s a by-play between us for mutual pleasure, but in your day to day life you deserve and expect a higher degree of respect.’ Tsukasa carefully outlined the concept, and Senkuu was grateful for the specific acknowledgement.
‘Yep. So that's… that's not completely incompatible with what you said. As long it doesn't sound too…’ Selfish. Senkuu didn't quite dare utter the last word.
Tsukasa thought about this for a moment and kissed him again. Senkuu, left breathless, realised he was going to have to recalculate what was a normal amount of kissing and touching when a couple were alone together because so far Tsukasa’s behaviour suggested he was way underestimating it. ‘I do want to know who the exes are.’
‘You better not hit them. That’s only hot in fiction.’ Senkuu snickered.
There was a long pause and Tsukasa’s reply was more than a little petulant. ‘...Noted.’