Title: Cigarettes

By: ExquisitelyInked

Summary: Definitely not a family fic. He's not addicted to cigarettes; he only does it so that what he does with Nanjirou isn't the only thing wrong about him. (Read ahead of your own volition, no flames)

Rated: T

Disclaimer: Nope. Don't even think about it.

A/N: So I read this really great fic and wanted to write, write, write. Keigo makes a tiny non-appearing appearance, because I can never let go of Royal anywhere. Crossposted at LJ, too, but it looks prettier here, with better formatting.

Warning: This story contains incest. You are reading ahead of your own volition. Don't come flaming or crying at me, okay.

It's dark outside, mostly. A few stars have started twinkling. It's before night, after evening, that special time where everything and nothing exist at the same time, and you're blind but can see.

The bell tower behind the temple has a pair of occupants sitting in it, even at this late an hour.

Ryoma takes out a cigarette from a box he always keeps at hand. Nanjirou flicks open a lighter and hands it to him, his own already lit. They both take a drag and then breathe out, releasing the smoke out into the tennis court behind the temple. They can't see the smoke, but imagine its vapours dissipating.

It's been silent until now, but Ryoma decides to break the pseudo-silence. "Wanna play, oyaji?"

Nanjirou says nothing, taking another drag and turning his head to look at Ryoma. In the very, very dim light remaining after the sunset his father's eyes gleam without emotion and only the outline of a cocky smirk is seen on his face.

They're both leaning against the huge bell, and Ryoma doesn't have a cap on to hide his face but it's not like he needs one now. Or ever, because Nanjirou has always seen through him like he's a transparent little boy with too much to lose.

"No, huh," Ryoma guesses his father's reply. "Too dark, anyway. But I thought you could play without needing to see, oyaji."

Nanjirou breathes out slowly. The sound of his exhale makes Ryoma exhale, too. They sit like that, peacefully. Or as peaceful they can get, smoking in the vicinity of a holy place. One of the many sins they're committing.

"You shouldn't be doing it, you know," Nanjirou finally says after a while. "These cigs'll fuck you up." He ignores the hypocrisy of the situation.

"Talk about fucking me up, oyaji," Ryoma replies humorlessly.

Nanjirou can't reply. He's getting more and more vulnerable to Ryoma's sarcasm and jibes. He can't help it.

"I'm too young, isn't that right? Sixteen and smoking, just what the hell am I doing with my fucking life?"

"Ryo -"

"Smoking is the least of my worries right now," Ryoma says, running his free hand, the one not holding the cigarette, through his hair. It meets a few tangles, and Ryoma roughly pushes through them, just to feel the pain, to feel the self-inflicted cruelty. "You started this."

"I ended it."

"I never wanted you to end it. You just did whatever the hell you wanted to do, thought you screwed up, and left me to clean the mess."

Nanjirou elects to light another cigarette instead of replying. Ryoma throws his away, suddenly sickened of it all, sickened by Nanjirou not saying anything he wants to hear, not saying anything he doesn't.

"You're my son," Nanjirou says a few minutes later, voice breaking on the last word, like saying it feels wrong but right but so wrong he can't comprehend why his tongue and lips say it. Ryoma feels desperately empty. There's some sort of dull ache in his chest and he thinks he's going to cry any second.

"Did you think about that when you - when you started this -" Ryoma blinks a bit to push back the tears, because he doesn't want to cry in front of his father, even he can't see it -

"Ryoma -"

"Oyaji, do it!"

Ryoma can feel Nanjirou's gaze on him even in the darkness. He shouts it again. "Do it!"

Nanjirou flicks the almost-unused cigarette away, and its firefly-like light blinks out. Ryoma waits, tense. The air is cool around him, but not cool enough to soothe him or his pain.

He almost cries out in overwhelming relief when he feels a smouldering, hot, wet, open-mouthed kiss on his lips.

It tastes of cigarette smoke, but Ryoma tastes of it too.

Ryoma is one when he says his first word - mada.

Nanjirou cracks up when he hears it from his son's mouth. "Not dad, not mom, the brat says mada."

Ryoma is pretty fucking cute, too, all big golden eyes and green-black hair and tiny fists that Nanjirou just knows are going to hold a racket later in life.

More than Rinko, it's Nanjirou who cuddles his son, swaddling him in tennis towels and giving him yellow balls to hug at night.

When he is two, Nanjirou teaches him about Eastern and Western grips. "It's the one where you hold it like a handshake," he tells him. Ryoma just yawns and looks at Nanjirou's hand, grabbing it with both paws and trying to bite into it to get his father to stop talking.

Nanjirou cuts the long locks of his hair when Ryoma is five and bratty already, and when he comes home and his son sees him, he turns around and walks back into his room without a word. At dinner that day Nanjirou loses the English address of "dad" and instead gets "oyaji".

Nanjirou sneaks into his room at night. Ryoma isn't sleeping.

"Why d'you have so much of a problem if I cut my hair, brat?" he asks the darkness.

"Don't know."

Nanjirou feels his way around the room to the bed where Ryoma's (not) sleeping and sits down. "Brat, stop whining already."

"I liked your old hair."

"Too bad."

Ryoma shuffles around, sitting up, and says, "Let me touch your new hair."

"What?" Nanjirou's somewhat afraid Ryoma will grow up to be a creepy little kid.

Ryoma doesn't ask again, just stands up so he can reach his father's head, and puts both his hands in Nanjirou's hair. Nanjirou can only sit there, weirded out slightly, feeling Ryoma bunch his hair and let it go, running his fingers through the spikes.

"I knew it, I hate your hair." Ryoma gets back to his sleeping position, and Nanjirou sighs. "Tough luck, kid. My hair doesn't follow your wishes."

"It should have, you look ridiculous."

"Who taught you to say ridiculous at five, huh, brat?" Nanjirou starts tickling his son, and when Ryoma starts screaming with laughter, things are a little bit better.

Their tongues are slowly, languidly licking at each other like they have all the time in the world for this guilty pleasure. Ryoma raises his hand and runs it through Nanjirou's hair. The roughly-cut locks jab into his skin but he doesn't care, he's already felt them so many times before that it's an addiction, among others like it, all related to Echizen Nanjirou, the man Ryoma has always wanted to best through tennis. He lost that goal along the way, somewhere, when he accomplished it.

It's been so long. So unbearably, intolerably, agonisingly long since he had this. This sort of kiss, the sort of caress that only Nanjirou can give him, a gentle thumb from the corner of his lips to the place where the bottom of his ear joins his jaw.

He gasps as they pull away after a very long time, and Nanjirou says, "Sorry."

"For?" Ryoma says.

"Fucking you up."

Ryoma laughs breathily. "Whatever, oyaji," he says, and reaches out for him again. Nanjirou shivers; whether it's repulsion or not, whether it's aimed at his son or himself, Ryoma doesn't care; he just wants to feels that skin under his fingers, just wants to kiss the stubble growing on that face.

He goes to do that, and Nanjirou pushes him away. Repulsion aimed at him, probably.

"Brat, we can't keep doing this."

Back to square one. Ryoma wants to scream at his dad, blame him for starting it, because it is his fault in the end that Ryoma even wants it despite all the emotions it brings up in him. Guilt now isn't going to help. Guilt, regret, humiliation, they're all feelings that Ryoma pushed away and buried inside a corner of his mind because he never felt they were all worth it, and he'd thought Nanjirou had done the same but apparently fucking not.

"Oyaji," Ryoma drawls, desperate. Desperation was one thing that Ryoma hadn't been able to control in himself.

Nanjirou lights up a cigarette. Ryoma watches as the tip briefly glows more than ever, and then goes back to the original brightness.

He comes back for another kiss, but just a short one, because he's not wasting this cigarette. It's probably the last time. Ryoma feels the possibility, but just focuses on those lips kissing his mouth guiltily.

"Stupid American dances, stupid formal dresses," Ryoma mumbles to himself as Rinko buttons up his dress jacket.

"It's just a dance, Ryoma," she says, trying to fix his hair and take the cap off his head. "It's what happens every year."

"Mada mada dane," Ryoma drawls. "I didn't need to go until now."

Nanjirou comes back from the pharmacy. Rinko reminds him that their son is ten before Nanjirou can bring out any of the things he bought. Ryoma cheers up slightly, seeing the mock-crestfallen face of his father's. "I'll go."

"Oy, seishounen, better watch that mouth of yours, or I'll crush you when you come back, with your own racket." Nanjirou picks up a red racket that was lying on Ryoma's desk and points it at him with a shit-eating grin.

Ryoma reiterates, "Mada mada dane."

"You're lightyears away from me, brat," Nanjirou says, and yawns widely, adding, "You better not ditch any girls when you get there."

Ryoma doesn't even have a reply to that. He's thinking about all the ways he could counter his dad's shots in the evening.

"Can you not play tonight? Ryoma will be coming home at eleven, you know." Rinko finishes dressing Ryoma up and gives him a once-over to make sure there's nothing amiss.

Nanjirou yawns again, saying, "Better not mess it up early, brat."

Ryoma throws a tennis ball at his back. Nanjirou catches it without looking and turns his head to again give him the shit-eating grin Ryoma hates so much. "Lightyears," he sings, walking out of the room.

Ryoma goes to the dance. His mother drops him off, greeting the chaperones, and ... has to come back to pick him up just an hour later.

"Why?" Rinko has some sort of idea as to the reason for Ryoma's leaving the dance so early, but she needs to hear it from her son. Ryoma crosses his arms and says, "It was boring, and I want to play a match with oyaji."

Rinko sighs, taking him back home.

Later, she tells Nanjirou, "You got him addicted to the sport."

Nanjirou replies, "I just gave him one shot. He got hooked of his own accord."

"He's dreaming of defeating you now, and it increasingly looks like it's the only thing he'll focus on in his life."

"Then he'll die without fulfilling his goal." Nanjirou spits out the word goal like he's mocking it, like he's no goal to be attained.

"He's your son, Nanjirou! Don't you care about him?"

Nanjirou says nothing, thinking of things far in the future, back in his past, and Ryoma's frustrated face that evening as he lost yet again.

Nanjirou stands up, having exhausted his supply of cigarettes, and walking out of the bell tower, says, "Get back into the house; it's too dark out."

Ryoma wonders when Nanjirou started caring.

"Let's talk."

"No, brat, get in."

"Oyaji, let's finally clear everything."

Nanjirou doesn't want to. Ryoma senses his hesitation, but presses on. Normally, he would be happy not talking about it, because these sort of things are not usually talked about, ever, but he needs to, because he needs Nanjirou in a way a son should never want his father, and because it's messed up, fucked up, insanely screwed up and Ryoma's getting jealous of his goddamn mother and he's just so tired with needing all the time.

"What's the use?"

"Don't talk like you've given up."

"What have I given up on?"

"Me."

Nanjirou turns around - Ryoma hears the shuffle of Nanjirou's monk robes - and says, "What the fuck are you talking about, brat? You're my son, and I made a mistake, and I'm paying for it, so get on with your life."

Ryoma takes a deep breath, and says, "I want you to continue making that mistake."

"Are you crazy?" This time Nanjirou's voice is more of a sigh than a shout. "Did I really break you this badly?"

Ryoma has no answer, only reaching out with need.

Nanjirou's footsteps recede - Ryoma can't see anymore, it's too dark, but he knows Nanjirou walked away, and he hangs his head in rare shame. He sighs. His father left the lighter here. He lights a cigarette.

He's not addicted to cigarettes; he only does it so that what he does with Nanjirou isn't the only thing wrong about him.

He's on his sixth one that night, he still hasn't gone back, just leaning against the huge metal of the bell, knowing his weight won't be enough to shift it, smoking and feeling depressed as if he has the right to.

He coughs slightly, and then coughs a lot - this sixth cigarette of the night is probably the hundredth in his life - and then coughs a bit more. When his throat settles down, Ryoma cries a bit.

There's also a tennis racket beneath the huge bell. Ryoma felt it when he threw his hands back. He draws it out, and checks the tension with his fingers. He doesn't know why he's doing this. Probably doesn't want to go home and see his mother, or worse, his father.

He stopped sobbing a while ago, but every few seconds some tears slip out. Ryoma realizes that his entire life is going to be fucked up if he doesn't get out of this suffocation. This thing. That he has with Nanjirou. Of taunting and being sarcastic and smoking together, playing tennis and losing to him and then getting close enough to touch and then touching and -

A scream erupts from Ryoma's mouth, and he keeps screaming until he's hoarse, because the worst thing ever is that he doesn't want to get out of this.

He's fifteen when he loses his first kiss.

"I'm going to make you cry, oyaji," he has promised Nanjirou, like he does every time they play. It's almost like a ritual. Nanjirou just serves an ace to him to shut him up.

Ryoma really, really wants to win against his father. It's been his entire life's goal, and he doesn't know what he'll do after that, just remembers Tezuka's words and remembers the Nationals trophy, remembers getting tossed into the air by his ecstatic friends, and he doesn't want this ambition, this desire to defeat his father, to remain in his life anymore because it just seems like mundane jealousy to him after all this time.

Today's different. Something strange, but not necessarily bad, is blowing in the air. It's an ordinary Thursday, Ryoma just came back from Seigaku High after having burgers with Momoshiro to celebrate them winning the Prefecturals in their new tennis club of which they immediately became regulars, of course.

But it turns out to be extraordinary.

Ryoma finishes off his father in an excruciatingly long tiebreaker which reminds him of Atobe Keigo and the haircut bet, and seven games to six, that's a fitting score, finally, Ryoma's won.

"Well done, brat," Nanjirou says, resting the racket against his shoulder and grinning at him. "You had it in you after all."

"Of course," Ryoma says, and sees tears in his father's eyes. He jumps over the net, in a rare display of pure happiness, and confidently smiles up at Nanjirou. "I'm better than you after all."

Nanjirou looks at him - the grin faded to just a smirk - and says, "You're one hell of a tennis player, Ryoma."

"Mada mada dane," Ryoma replies, still smiling cockily. He looks beautiful in the golden sunlight and has finally, finally grown taller.

Nanjirou leans down and closes his lips around Ryoma's mouth and there that first kiss goes.

Ryoma stumbles backwards in shock, and looks up at him with horrified eyes that tell him he just ruined the best day of his life, and runs away, literally runs away in disgust and horror. Nanjirou is equally astounded, unable to believe he just did that. There wasn't a reason, there wasn't a purpose, he didn't know he was going to do it, he just did it and fuck, it's all gone now.

They don't talk to each other for a month after that.

But one night, when Nanjirou is at the temple, smoking because he has nothing to do, he hears his son sit down beside him and ask for a cigarette.

"You shouldn't smoke."

Ryoma snatches the box from him and lights one anyway, because he never listens to anybody. He takes his first drag, and the coughing that it reduces him to is pitiful in a sense, but Ryoma stubbornly takes one more, exhales, another, exhales, until he can finally do it.

"It's bad for your health," Nanjirou tells him. "Brat, follow other people's advice for once."

Completely disregarding it, Ryoma says, "Do that again."

"Do what?"

"Do what you did that day again."

"It was wrong."

"Just do it." These words are going to become Ryoma's most spoken words in the next year, even more than mada mada dane, and he just says them without thinking, now, knowing he'll probably regret the fuck out of it. But then he buried the regret, didn't he?

So Nanjirou does it.

They meet up at the temple from then onwards. And that day led up to this one.

Footsteps. Somebody's running towards Ryoma, and it's Nanjirou.

"What the hell? Why were you screaming?" There's panic in Nanjirou's voice, and fear and worry and concern and all of the things Ryoma wants to eat up. But he doesn't.

"Nothing," Ryoma says. "Haven't you gone home?"

Silence for a while (because how will he ask the reason for the scream again), and Nanjirou says, "You think I could go home after that?"

"So you waited right here."

"Yeah."

"You probably heard me crying."

"Yeah."

"Saw me lighting all those cigarettes."

"Yeah."

"Oyaji." Need. Want. Love, maybe. The all-pervading feeling of 'fucked up'.

Nanjirou just pulls Ryoma to him, and Ryoma breathes in, burying his face in the coarse fabric of those monk robes, just giving it all up, fuck it to hell.

They sit at the bell tower for some more time, and both know that they're going to come back tomorrow, and the day after, and more days, for as long as possible.

The cigarette box in Ryoma's hands is empty now.