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Akutagawa’s chest is a topography of time. Malnourishment makes mountain ranges. He is plowed and furrowed by too slow and too close and you’ll live, get up. Thin red lines show where Rashomon’s armor form cuts into him. Patches of sallow skin fill in the valleys and spaces.
Akutagawa has a habit of holding his breath. It turns his already concave stomach hollow; he counts each oxygen-deprived second, and starving his lungs reminds him of everything he still has to lose.
“Stop that.” Atsushi’s fingers press just above his navel. Moments from true pain, Akutagawa breathes in—slow, deliberate—and deprivation makes life smell like love, linen, and Atsushi.
Fingers walk from navel to neck, catching on old wounds but not missing a beat. Akutagawa once wrung the life from a man without even dirtying his hands just because the hapless mugger pulled a knife on him. Tonight, a creature with the ability to crush a car in its jaws rests its teeth against his pulsing veins, and he’d beg the beast to bite down if he could only find the words.
“Lay back,” Atsushi whispers into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and Akutagawa obeys. The bed at his back is little more than a thin mattress held up by a rickety frame. If Akutagawa lifted his hand, he could touch Atsushi’s spine. If he curled his fingers, he could rip his nervous system out by the root. With a little application of thought, he could turn this drab room black with power then red with blood.
Atsushi slides the black coat off Akutagawa’s shoulders. His unbuttoned shirt follows it. Rather than give another command, Atsushi plants a hand on the small of Akutagawa’s back and lifts him up, pulls his clothes out from under him, and lays him back down. Stripped down, disarmed, defanged—Akutagawa fists the sheets in his hands to stop himself from lashing out when his clothes are thrown to the side.
Hesitation. Hands move to rest at Akutagawa’s hips.
“Your clothes are within arm’s reach,” Atsushi says. A beat later: “We—We can stop, if you want. Whatever you need—“
“No.” Akutagawa speaks for the first time, in a voice that scratches out through a thistle throat. He forces himself to relax his fists. Atsushi’s mouth flutters to roost where Akutagawa’s waits, and the still-unfamiliar sensation sends gooseflesh rippling across both bodies. Akutagawa grips Atsushi’s wrists, almost bone against bone, and moves their hands over his own chest. “Continue,” he says.
“Close your eyes,” Atsushi replies, and the last thing Akutagawa sees is Atsushi sliding out of his immediate line of sight.
Seconds later, Akutagawa bites the inside of his mouth to keep from crying out when warm palms splay out, covering as much of his surface as they can. Atsushi presses down, drags from shoulder to stomach, over breast and rib and abdomen. Akutagawa has never bothered with hot showers, never basked in the summer sun, has always accorded warmth as an unnecessary luxury. Yet here it is, gushing from touch, pouring from the body hovering over his, crashing over him from twin points of pressure that have now lightened, skimming down the length of his arms, lifting his hands—Atsushi presses kisses to each knuckle, then captures Akutagawa’s mouth once more.
Heat. Akutagawa’s mouth falls open slightly. Inexperienced, wet and eager, Akutagawa almost flinches from pale eyelashes striking his cheekbones. He stays obedient, eyes squeezing tighter even when the source of the heat withdraws.
Weight returns to the bed, signaling Atsushi’s return. Fingers trail down Akutagawa’s sternum and he doesn’t react. He recognizes this, this is beginning to seem familiar.
Something soft and dry snags against Akutagawa’s largest scar, a puckered ridge that nearly bisects his stomach.
“Ah!” This time, Akutagawa can’t hold back a shocked, breathy cry, and his eyes fly open; he launches himself into a half-sitting position. Atsushi rises with him, his mouth still hovering over Akutagawa’s scar.
“Do you want me to stop?” Atsushi asks, and a whine builds in the back of Akutagawa’s throat at the waft of warm air across his skin. Akutagawa flops back down on the bed, staring blankly at the bare ceiling. Taking this as an affirmation, Atsushi returns to his work. Moving on from the center, Atsushi brushes his tongue across a trail of small, round burns that wend their way along Akutagawa’s lower belly.
Too slow. Atsushi nuzzles his face against Akutagawa’s sternum. Too close. A barely-there peck ghosting against the thin pink line at the base of Akutagawa’s throat. You’ll live. Hands framing his face, thumbs kneading his temples. Get up. For the third time, Akutagawa feels the firm press of Atsushi’s mouth against his own, but he’s frozen, pinned to the bed—Atsushi has driven pins into his palms, it seems, has pointed all the light of the sun itself directly into his eyes, and Akutagawa cannot even know his thoughts.
When Akutagawa doesn’t respond to his kiss, Atsushi pulls back. “Akutagawa?” he questions, concern weighing down each syllable. “Please, say something, I’m sorry if I—“
Tiny, hiccupping breaths cram Akutagawa’s lungs, and no matter how much he wants to answer he just can’t. A swirling film wells up over his eyes.
This is where you were weak, says each cut and puncture and burn, and here, and here, and here. Atsushi is babbling something, but Akutagawa can’t make out any real words. Remember this? Say Atsushi’s caresses. Remember when you weren’t enough?
Cold, suddenly. Weight lifts off the bed. Atsushi flumps down next to the bed, hands over his face, curled in on himself and shaking slightly.
Akutagawa has never wrapped himself in blankets straight from the dryer, never embraced another person just for the pleasure of sharing two hearts pumping heat through two bodies. He has always considered warmth an unnecessary luxury.
With the suddenness and ferocity of a summer storm, warmth becomes a need.
But panic and hyperventilation have left Akutagawa’s muscles uncooperative, so rather than manhandling Atsushi back onto the bed like he wants, he simply rests his hand on top of his lover’s head.
“Please,” Akutagawa croaks. He smooths his hand down the long piece that hangs in front of Atsushi’s face, rests the back of his hand against Atsushi’s cheek.
Atsushi seems to get the message and climbs back into bed, this time fitting himself against Akutagawa’s side instead of hovering over him. Atsushi buries his face in Akutagawa’s shoulder but doesn’t touch him anywhere else.
I have to say something. But the words won’t come. Words have always been a problem. But Atsushi’s hands are staying curled submissively beneath his own chin, and Akutagawa can feel wetness trickling from his lover’s eyes.
“Dazai-san says that I’ve grown strong,” he says. Wrong. Fuck. What the hell? He dislodges his arm from beneath Atsushi to curl it, clawlike, around Atsushi’s narrow shoulders. He can feel Atsushi’s stare burrowing into his skull.
“The scars…” he continues, “I only have them because I was weak. But now I’m not. So they don’t matter.”
Atsushi sits up at that and rests his hand lightly on an even patch of Akutagawa’s chest. They stare at each other, Akutagawa pinned by a fire alight behind Atsushi’s eyes. Slowly, Atsushi unbuttons his own shirt.
A large pink swathe splotched across his ribs. Neat incisions, chillingly even-spaced, striping his other side. Atsushi’s whole chest striped and pockmarked with marks from life-threatening wounds to the little chicken pox scar above his left nipple.
“I know you think I’m weak,” Atsushi says. “You’ve made it no secret in the past. And you’re probably right. But I think…” He trails off and rests his hand once more against Akutagawa’s skin, this time directly over his largest scar. “All that matters is that I’m still alive. We’re still alive. Despite everything. I was trying to show you that your scars are just proof of how much you’ve survived—that your scars make you strong. I’m sorry that I didn’t make that clear enough.”
Akutagawa gapes like a fish. Atsushi’s fierce glare fades into a soft smile, and he leans in to peck kisses on both his cheeks.
“Come here,” Akutagawa murmurs, sliding his arms around Atsushi’s back and rolling them both over to face each other on their sides. Akutagawa rubs their noses together, and Atsushi giggles almost despite himself. Akutagawa can feel bumps and ridges under his fingers as his hand skims up and down Atsushi’s back.
Like the legend for a map unfurling under their skins, their scars are landmarks of a life spent ill-used by the people around them. It’s not a map that’s easy to read, either—Akutagawa is jealous of the ease with which Atsushi can blow from spot to spot, finding paths with fingers and lips and tongue. Maybe, if he lays back, Atsushi will teach him.