Romance Drabbles

Disclaimer: Don't own.

Author's Note: I decided to try a new thing and write drabbles. These are the romantic ones I posted in September; presumably I'll keep doing them and update every month.

1. Burning (Hayama/Nakatani, 387 wds, M)

Nakatani watches the court, watches his team, tries to figure out a strategy—but his eyes are drawn to one player in particular like moths to a burning lamp. Hayama Kotarou and his kerosene eyes, the less-than-half-crazed mouth, the way his body is moving with a wicked grace—they should really turn the heat down in this building. Nakatani feels the sweat trickle down his forehead and his temples and the base of his hair, falling down his neck and into the crevasses in his ear. He's losing focus, losing sight of the game, eyes caught up in Hayama's dribble—Nakatani feels like he might faint.

His throat is dry; he needs water, feebly signaling for one of the bench players to get him a bottle and distractedly handing the kid the clipboard because he can't open the bottle with one hand. He drains it, chugging it in one gulp, and those eyes have found his and almost leer at him from the other side of the court, and now they do not leave his even as Hayama moves. He does not need to look at targets to shoot or pass or steal or know when the ball is coming to him.

After the game, Hayama corners him. He's alone; he still has that flaming honey look and his mouth is burning, open sweet and spicy and hot on Nakatani's lips and flesh. Nakatani half-wonders if he's leaving cauterized wounds as Hayama's mouth moves down his jaw and neck. Hayama reaches under his shirt and claws at his hips and Nakatani can't really do anything. Hayama doesn't want him to do anything, because Hayama is wildfire and Nakatani is a grove of trees, rooted to the spot, forced to crumble under Hayama's slick, relentless heat. Hayama flips him over and fucks him against the brick wall, rough edges scraping against Nakatani's chin and neck as he winces and pulls his head back, fingertips scrabbling for some indent to hold onto and finding nothing. Someone could find them here, say something, see them—but it doesn't happen.

Nakatani goes home alone on the train that night. A hand rubs absentmindedly against his throat, feeling the newly-formed scabs, the only reminder, the only proof that anything had happened at all. The skin is hot where he touches it.

2. Precious (Kiyoshi/Furihata, 205 wds, K+)

The way he smiles softly, cautiously, a flickering expression—that is the way Furihata normally smiles, always indecisive, always unsure of whether he should be smiling or not and worrying about the next bad thing that's going to come after him. He lets Kiyoshi kiss him but when they part the smiling is always awkward and afraid of when Kiyoshi is going to stop wanting to kiss him, and Kiyoshi can't help but hate himself just a little bit (because if he's really what Furihata wants and needs, then Furihata won't have to ever worry that Kiyoshi will stop loving him; the thought never need cross his mind).

Sometimes, though, Furihata bares everything, all that is in his trembling soul, blinks up at Kiyoshi and lives in the moments and gives him a smile that's full and pure and wanton all at once, and it's the most precious thing to Kiyoshi; he will die to protect that smile's existence, will do anything just to know that it will even once more grace Furihata's lovely face (because when Furihata worries, even if it's about something irrational or that others would consider trivial, Kiyoshi worries, too; he shares that burden to ease it from Furihata's aching shoulders).

3. Desecrate (Kagami/Himuro, 568 wds, M)

The rings chained around your necks are choking both of you, pulling you so far down, the weight of bonds long since dissolved and reformed over and over and over again until the original bonds might not have been formed in the first place were it not for the heavy reminder that you were once—no, are—brothers, that brothers do not do this, that you are desecrating the most sacred of bonds, the familial ties of a chosen sort—it would be easy to say that you do not care. You can pretend all you want under light kisses and touches and feelings and fantasies that remain in your imagination. You can dress it in pretty wrapping and call it just a complex, some latent thing disguising itself as lust. But it's hard to say that you just really admire your brother a lot, that you're proud of him and that you cherish him in a certain way and only that certain way—it's awfully hard to say that with a straight face when you're in your brother's bed with his cock in your mouth and you're rock-hard, too, and his toned thighs are beneath your fingers and his voice, a voice that you cannot wholly convince yourself is someone other than his (you've tried, to see if it would make your head accept this for what it is) is making clear sounds of pleasure.

This is something more, something raw and ugly and all-consuming and mind-numbingly amazing at the same time, like freezer burn maybe. It's hot and cold and neither and both, all at once and it's indescribable. Your fingers are slipping on his legs from the sweat and you can feel the way he's throbbing against the roof of your mouth and his hands are on your face and that sensitive spot where your neck meets your jaw and your tongue is almost lolling but you have to keep it moving somewhat-steadily. This is not pure or lovely, but these bonds are fire-forged and these bonds will last longer than the delicate bonds you adopted so young, that you perhaps were not ready for (that you would never be ready for), the relationship to which you gave a false name because brotherhood was the highest bond you knew back in those days.

He rocks his hips, shaky and jerky as he comes into your mouth and you swallow and let your mouth open and his cock slip out as you grind your hips against his leg and whine without realizing that your throat wants anything at all. His palms are pressed against your face, still, fingers half-flexed away from you but knuckles clenched against themselves, and his back is arched and his knee is at the perfect angle. His hair, usually so perfect at staying in place, is messy, you realize as you sit up and look at his face and the sweat dripping from his forehead. He is gorgeous, and he is yours. You cup his face in your hand and he opens his eyes, peers out through hazy lashes and half-lids and he smiles, open and loving, and it's just like you were ten and eleven only not. It's not the same; it will never be the same.

You smile back broadly and kiss him full-on, without wondering how or why the weight dragging down your neck seems to have lessened somehow.

4. June (Imayoshi/Susa, 316 wds, K+)

Susa flicks the lighter in time with the crickets chirping, letting the flame flicker and dance like a spinning drunk kid who's never had alcohol before and has no concept whatsoever of limits, finally falling. He keeps staring at the ghost of a ghost of overheated air, the silver tip of the lighter barely shining from the weak light sources from the outside. Shouichi's hand covers his, taps it. Susa flicks; Shouichi lights a cigarette. The faint smell of tobacco and cherries fills the air.

The crickets drone. Susa looks at the sky, stars hiding behind a thin sheen of clouds, although the indigo sky does show itself in patches. He squints at a light—that's moving and blinking; it's an airplane. Shouichi stubs the cigarette out and lies with his head in Susa's lap. He's like a cat sometimes, just doing whatever he wants—but cats are pretty dumb and Shouichi's definitely not stupid. He's illogical and can get passive-aggressive, but he's not stupid. Susa runs his fingers through Shouichi's wild black hair, combing out a multitude of tangles. Shouichi winces.

"You're hurting me," he says, sticking out his lower lip. The way he acts like an innocent, sensitive child sometimes is more than a quirk. Susa will never let him know how endearing it is (for it is just as endearing as it is annoying) so he rolls his eyes and sighs and stops moving his hand.

Shouichi frowns and opens his eyes a fraction. "I didn't tell you to stop."

Susa smiles. "Of course you didn't."

His hand begins to move again through Shouichi's hair, and Shouichi's eyes close again and he smirks. Of course he already knows how adorable he is; it's written in his smug expression.

Still, his hair is quite the mess of knots. "Do you even use any conditioner?"

Shouichi just laughs. The sound is dissonant against the crickets.

5. Graceful (Imayoshi/Aomine, 224 wds, M)

The way Aomine moves on the court is graceful and natural, "formless" they call it, but Imayoshi knows better. Arms folded across the name of the school that weighs heavy and the number four that weighs heavier across his slight frame, he watches Aomine tirelessly and endlessly play. He's got such good form that it only seems formless, wrapping around on itself and becoming the opposite. He is truly amazing, gracefully relentless in his purest form.

In bed, he's anything but graceful, clunking his knee against the wall and wincing, yelling sharply, breath hard and erratic and wild in a whole different way. His arms shove roughly against Imayoshi as Imayoshi pins him down, bites Aomine on the shoulder and knows how he winces and struggles and flails and attempts to dominate. It's all in vain, and eventually he stills enough for Imayoshi to actually enter him, and he's so tight and his legs are half-kicking but he's getting used to the feeling already. He whines and soon he's begging Imayoshi to go harder and faster and his jaw is clenched and his body quivers and Imayoshi would be lying if he says he doesn't revel in the sight (and lying is bad!) but it is not graceful or smooth the way he thrusts his hips and arches his back and grunts Imayoshi's name.

6. Tradition (Hanamiya/Nebuya, 532 wds, M)

It's tradition that all five of them meet up like this once a year—a tradition started by either Reo or Kiyoshi, and readily agreed to by Hayama. They wouldn't go if they could avoid it; Nebuya forgets about it every year but then without fail Reo will know that and show up at his door and press the doorbell with his giant fake nail again and again until Nebuya wakes up and opens the door.

Hayama's the only one who plays basketball anymore (Kiyoshi can't; Makoto won't; Reo just doesn't; Nebuya is somehow a mix of all three); he's in the NBA and famous for his temper and erratic behavior even more than he is for his basketball skills. He's famous, signs autographs for fans as they sit in the café, Nebuya and Makoto with matching scowls on their faces. Makoto's hand is like a clawing vice on Nebuya's leg, inching upward gradually until they both get impatient and Makoto finishes his inner battle between pleasing Nebuya (which he doesn't want to do) and pleasing himself, and he puts himself first so he starts groping Nebuya through his pants as Kiyoshi and Hayama yammer on about dumb shit that doesn't matter to either of them and Reo is listening, totally enraptured.

Nebuya abruptly pulls away and stands up, waking off in the direction of the men's room. Makoto follows. It doesn't matter if the others notice, because either way they won't say anything and they don't really enjoy their company or need it. Nebuya and Makoto showing up is just part of the tradition, another farcical element of this "uncrowned kings' reunion". Why do they need to be reminded of what they almost were, in a time so very long ago it seems like different people experienced those moments, played those games? Why do they strengthen the ties that should not bind them, renewing them year after year?

Makoto jerks him off rough and uneven in the bathroom stall and Nebuya chomps down on Makoto's hand in his mouth. It costs him (it always does); Makoto doesn't finish him but instead shoves him down on his knees and Nebuya sucks Makoto off, cutting straight to the chase and jerking himself off, too. Makoto growls, low and almost undetectable but still angry and irritated but ultimately indecisive, unsure of whether he wants Nebuya to suck him off or whether he wants to punish him more—and that, too, is tradition, and so is Nebuya spitting come into the toilet and both of them exiting separately from the bathroom stall, Makoto first, and by the time Nebuya reaches the table Makoto's left the restaurant.

It's tradition, too, that Nebuya pays for Makoto's coffee and half-eaten plate of macaroons (and finishes off the cookies, too, while he's at it, both because he's hungry again and so he can avoid talking to these people) and that Kiyoshi always says they should hang out more and Nebuya always gives a noncommittal shrug which means I'm too wishy-washy to tell you no. And it's tradition that the next time Nebuya jerks off he thinks of Makoto's calloused yet delicate palm and razor sharp nails on his cock.

7. Hemiola (Midorima/Akashi, 189 wds, K+)

"Shintarou, do you know how this type of dance goes?"

Midorima has absentmindedly been tapping his foot to the beat of his favorite recording of Mozart minuet for piano while reading the paper, and it takes a few seconds for Akashi's words to register. "No," he says, and then glances back at the movie reviews. None of them look interesting.

Of course, he should know that since this is Akashi the question is not meaningless. The warm pressure of Akashi's fingers on his right hand cause him to look up again. A smirk plays on Akashi's lips as he pulls Midorima to his feet as if Midorima is a weightless doll, not a man fifteen kilograms heavier than Akashi. Akashi clasps his hand almost roughly to stop Midorima's flinching reflex and the automatic withdrawal of his hands. Akashi leads him around to the music, pressing his body closer and closer and slowing his movements down to once every two beats.

"Can you feel the hemiola, Shintarou?" Akashi whispers in his ear, breath hot on his neck.

Midorima is quite sure they didn't dance like this in the eighteenth century.

8. Morning (Nijimura/Haizaki, 169 wds, K+)

The morning was chilling, down to the bone. Four AM and you needed to get to your first job, the early shift at the gas station. His arm was a hair's breadth from yours but not touching it, palms upward, the underside of the arms revealing the tattoo of a mangled, demented-looking angel. You moved slowly, silently, stealthily and he did not awaken. Several times, his breath hitched but he did not stir or open his eyes, and his breathing returned to normal soon afterward. Why did you feel like some creepy runaway scum, then, as you decided to forgo your morning shave, to wait and use the school bathroom, because you did not want to say even a temporary goodbye? You were never good at parting, always tried to drag it out and suck everything dry. It's not yet quarter past four as you shut the door behind you, turning the knob so the click of the lock is as nonexistent as possible.

He never calls you back.

9. Forever (Imayoshi/Susa, 133 wds, T)

Susa could probably spend forever thinking of new ways to pleasure Imayoshi in bed. Well, strictly speaking that's probably not true, because he'd want to spend some of that forever actually implementing these methods. Because thinking about Imayoshi's eyes half-open and his firm, warm thighs pressed against Susa's torso and his hands clawing at Susa's back with their long nails like miniature serrated steak knives leaving paper cuts in their wake is completely different than seeing and feeling it. His imagination pales in comparison to reality, after all, and besides no matter how sure he is that Imayoshi will react a certain way to a finger here or a kiss placed there, he's wrong at least half the time. Still, the responses are almost always good, and the unexpectedness is its own reward.

10. Louder (Aomine/Murasakibara, 511 wds, T)

Aomine Daiki considers himself a man of action, something that for some reason Satsuki found so funny when he'd said it the first time that she'd been unable to stand for about fifteen minutes while he'd scowled and yelled (probably, he realizes now, not the best way to defend his claim). Still, he knows he's no good with words, other than a choice few phrases. But that's life, really—a few phrases mixed in with sleep and basketball, and he's good to go.

Though he will never concede out loud that someone can beat him at his own games, Aomine knows that Murasakibara Atsushi is at least a close second to him in this lifestyle—he eats, he sleeps, he plays basketball, and he rarely speaks—he's much quieter than Aomine, unless he's mad, which isn't very often. He doesn't really have the energy to be mad with any regularity (it must be the fact that he runs on empty carbohydrates, and even that notwithstanding he can't possibly be getting enough calories for his 210-centimeter body to run optimally.

Sexually, they should be incompatible. Aomine wants to go harder, faster, has endless energy from which to draw from, and Murasakibara's such a lazy guy—but even he can rise to the occasion, push back forcefully, battle Aomine for dominance. Aomine's never been reminded of how much largerMurasakibara is more than when they have sex, when Murasakibara's heavy body is on top of his, when Murasakibara's long torso and eight-pack and insane forearms are bared to him, when those long legs are wrapped around him (they could probably fit twice around his torso) and he could spend hours groping that ass if Murasakibara didn't decide on a whim that now they were going to skip any foreplay and exploration and they were going to get off right now. They fight about it, sure, but regardless of how things unfold, they're both still pretty satisfied with the end result.

Murasakibara's smarter than a lot of people give him credit for, manages to get good grades while barely studying and is able to figure out basketball plays within a few seconds. He surrounds himself with the right kind of people, people who will motivate him and make him do the stuff he positively does not want to but he knows he has to. Aomine is not one of those people, and maybe that's why he stays. He knows there's no pressure. He also knows that Aomine's not the kind of guy who will really enjoy any kind of pillow talk, and that hanging all over him is probably pushing it a bit (of course, that doesn't stop him at all from doing the latter, although doing it to everybody makes Aomine insanely jealous). But in the end, he does what he wants and leaves Aomine to respond however he wants, and sometimes when he spoons Aomine in the midst of the messy afterglow Aomine grabs his arms and pulls them close to his chest, because that says stay better than his mouth can.