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“Cliché.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kaito grumbled, shifting around in a way that did nothing to dislodge Kyo’s deadweight on top of him.
“A red head with a fire Digimon,” Kyo continued, “and a space heater too? Cliché.”
Hot breath tickled Kyo's ear as Kaito groaned. “You’re such an asshole. Get off me then.”
Kyo did the opposite, digging his arms further underneath Kaito’s back. He hadn’t been complaining. The room was stuffy, and the sheets no longer cool, and Kaito’s skin was solid heat underneath his cheek, but the cold expanse in his chest was unchanged.
He was so tired.
“Bastard…”
Kyo didn’t know what Kaito was grumbling about—between them, since the day they’d met, it was always Kaito wanting to be closer and closer. He could remember Kaito, thirteen and stuck somewhere between teenage self-assurance and inexperienced uncertainty, spending a whole evening bullheadedly working up the nerve to put an arm around his shoulders.
He remembered the way Kaito’s eyes shined when he allowed it, even though he hadn’t managed to tolerate it for long. Back then, the touch and warmth had left him feeling jittery and electric, and he’d lasted maybe five minutes before storming off. The feeling had lingered for hours afterwards, no matter how much he’d scratched at it. Cougarmon had had to pin him down before he tore open his skin.
Human touch still left him feeling raw, but he refused to run away from it. Like this, bare skin against bare skin, warm and firm, he found himself melting boneless instead. Maybe if he draped himself over Kaito enough, absorbed enough of his excess heat, it could fill up the emptiness inside him. Maybe he could gather it up, keep it inside, and turn it into a fuel, something that could get even his leadened limbs to move.
“One of these days…” Kaito said, as his hand sunk into Kyo’s hair, pushing through the thick of it to reach Kyo’s throat. There, he squeezed, a threat so toothless and brief Kyo didn’t even bother to react, before gliding his palm all the way down Kyo’s bare back, leaving gooseflesh in his wake.
Kyo let him touch. It took everything he had to stay still, to not tense or push away. Moving would be an even more insurmountable effort. It was hard enough to just exist.
He was so tired.
But morning light was creeping in through the window. The alarm clock had gone off twice.
“Get up.” Kaito dug knuckles into his back, shifting. “We have work to do.”
Bounties to delete. Problems to erase.
People to kill.
The abyss yawned wider, darker, deeper. Kyo was so sick of staring into it. He did not move. He could not move. He would not move.
“Kyo. Seriously.”
He wouldn’t.
“Fine, I’ll make you.”
The words barely registered, but it didn’t matter. His reflexes had always been faster than thought. Before Kaito could get his arms into a position for leverage, Kyo had shifted from lazing lion to alert predator, tense and ready over him. Kyo’s thighs were like a vice over Kaito’s waist as he sat up, one arm keeping Kaito’s shoulders pinned to the mattress while the other caught his wrist and squeezed until something creaked.
If it was a fight, it was over before it even began.
Kaito scowled up at him, swallowing with renewed heat to his gaze. He'd always liked it like this, Kyo knew. He could always tell by the way his eyes were always so wide and dark, like he couldn't get enough of the sight of Kyo bare shouldered and upright above him. But all Kyo felt as he looked back was the cold creeping back over his naked skin as the air leeched away all that remained of the borrowed warmth. The phantom touch of Kaito’s hands on his back stung, and Kaito’s excitement, ignited by the swift scuffle, was nothing to the sour frustration thrashing inside him.
He was so tired.
Kyo said nothing as he pulled away and slid from the bed, a familiar thick tightness clogging his throat.
The floor was cold against his feet. He hated it.
“Hey!” Kaito snarled behind him, “you can’t just leave after that! We aren’t done, Kyo!”
The necklace was where he’d thrown it the night before, when he ripped it from his neck and sent it skidding over the floorboards. He didn’t want to pick it back up and put it back on. The weight of it around his neck was too much, tugging on his throat like it was trying to restrict his breath. He wanted to go back to being a boneless husk, his steel melted into something soft and pliant by the warmth of Kaito’s arms. But already he was cooling, hardening, back into that rigid automaton he’d at some point become. And so pick it up he did, letting the sharp edges of the yellow jewel bite into his palm and anchor him back into the real world.
He’d preferred Kaito’s fingers—Kaito, who was cursing and scoffing as he got out of bed—that reminded him of a different sort of world, one of heat and red and skin, that only existed in fleeting moments when their bodies collided, sparking and screeching like a blacksmith hammer against a steel blade, bright and hot and loud for a moment, and then gone.
The gold chain settled around his neck as he slid his clothes back on and stormed out the door, collared and back to work, like the cliché he was.
He was so fucking tired.