[SIDETHREAD AU]

[keijisan]

It... had been a rough transition, to say the least.

I had come back to work after an extended leave to find the whole police force still mostly in an uproar about a threat that I couldn't really tell them they no longer had to worry about, and things were different, but the thing that had changed the most was myself, and maybe that was what was hardest.

It wasn't even my desire to do the work I do--that was as strong as ever. I see people differently now, with more clarity, which would be fine on its own. But the migraines and insomnia, the nightmares that aren't mine, the phantom-limb aches in wings that I no longer have... it's strange, that I welcome those things, if only because they're a reminder of him. I'm cold all the time anymore, even sitting as I am in my heated apartment.

It makes sense for Hina and Eiji to miss him. To explain why I do is... more complicated.

Comments

[redgreeed]

I leave them, Eiji and the girl, thinking that I've gone back to the future with the shy aquatic one. It's not the truth, but it's what they need, for now. It's what I can give them.

Eventually I'll go back, when I can. When I... when I need to.

But I have someone else I should see. Someone else I need to see.

He was a part of me for so long. And I... I miss him? If that's even the right word for it.

I find the apartment easily, like it were another home of mine. Maybe it was, in a way. It was his. And I know it well.

I find a window and open it. Not easy from the outside, but then I am more than I was before.

And yet somehow less.

I slide inside, and shut the window behind me with a loud purpose. The only way I announce my presence.

[keijisan]

I jump when the window slams shut and turn around, moving towards the noise. I almost think burglars, but that's crazy, we're near the top floor--and then I'm standing in the doorway of the room he's in and I have to clutch at the frame to keep from losing my footing.

He's right there, solid and close enough to touch, looking the same as he ever did. My eyes are round in my paling face, my lips parting helplessly as I just stare for long seconds, unable to do anything else. I have to swallow twice before I can speak.

"Ankh?"

[redgreeed]

I smile, subtle and sly. I move my head forwards, sizing him up. He's... he hasn't changed much, a bit more muscle here, a bit less fat there. But he.

He still looks like me. Or I still look like him.

Does it even matter anymore?

"Ah," I don't actually summon my Greeed arm, but I look down at my right hand, fingers curled like my talons are showing. I flex them, into a fist, then slowly relax then.

I look back at him. Staring him down. Though I think my eyes may be much softer than I think they are. "Shingo."

[keijisan]

"Ankh--" And I barely choke out his name again before I'm moving, shoving away from the door to take the length of the room in three strides and wrap my arms around him, burying my face against his shoulder and pulling him in close. I take a shuddering breath, then another--he still smells the same, dust and metal and dry feathers, sharp and warm, and I can feel months-old tension uncoiling at the base of my neck.

"How did you get here? What happened? Did Eiji-kun--" My face is still pressed to his collarbone as I speak, and after a minute I manage to draw away enough to look at him. I don't even care how hungry my expression is. "I'm so glad you're back."

[redgreeed]

He launches himself at me, and I... find I don't really mind.

Not once he's all wrapped around me, when he's speaking almost against my neck. I can feel his breath tickling against my skin. Warm and that wet sort of... human feel.

My left arm is wrapped around him, and I don't even know what that happened. Probably immediately after he made contact and that's...

...that makes sense. Somehow.

"Eiji hasn't." My arm is still around him, like it fits there. Fits with him. I search his face, my own as passive as I can manage. Which is probably a lot more desperate than I mean it to look. "He will, but not yet."

"I... I needed to see you."

[keijisan]

He's so warm--I feel it, straight through to my bones, for the first time in too long. It takes a few seconds to really process what he's saying.

"So--you can't stay?" I ask, drawing back and cupping his jaw in my hands, looking that little bit up at him intensely. My stomach sinks, then buoys up again, and I relax a bit in acceptance. "...I knew he would. All right."

I draw his face down a little, just touching my forehead briefly to his as I feel a shudder race down my spine. "I'm glad you came. ...I've missed you."

[redgreeed]

I swallow hard. I couldn't even admit it to Eiji... but I shake my head. I can't stay. I don't belong here. Not yet.

He cups my face, and looks up at me almost as earnestly as Eiji. But it's different, it's not as pure. Not 'unpure' like it's not honest, Eiji is just... endearingly naive.

Shingo is not.

Shingo knows me in different ways.

Forehead to forehead, I sigh, even and steady, a proper sigh of relief that I don't understand.

He's still a part of me. Maybe I'm still a part of him. Maybe we're a fragment of each other.

"I missed you too." My words are almost silent. More mouthed than spoken. My hand grips at his back. Left arm.

His arm.

[keijisan]

"I'm glad," I say, my fingers trailing down his cheeks. I gasp a little as his grip shifts against my back, suddenly aware of how close his skin is to mine, yet still so much farther than I'm used to. "Not--not that you miss me. But that it's not just me, I suppose."

My left hand reaches down to grip his right, twining the fingers and squeezing lightly as my own right hand curls against his nape, my eyes softening. "You're warm," I sigh, my body relaxing even further by slow degrees. "I'm never warm anymore. And my wings ache." There's a laugh in my voice, before it drops off suddenly. "And I have dreams, when I sleep."

[redgreeed]

It doesn't surprise me that he has trouble with not having my - his, our - wings anymore. I remember that feeling. That helpless ache, the burning need for flight.

I spread my wings, slowly and carefully, not wanting to knock anything over that might be in the way. I stretch them out, then curl them around us. Around him. The touch of feathers joining the press of my hand against his back.

"Dreams?" I haven't really dreamed much since parting from him. I don't think I'm properly capable of it anymore.

[keijisan]

I sigh, warm and content as I reach up to bury soft fingers at the base of his wings, sliding carefully and straightening feathers against the down. Preening. My hands work absently as I lean in a little closer.

"Mmm," I say, drowsy and... a little reluctant. "Memories, mostly. A few of them are mine, but mostly yours. Things I wasn't awake for--did you really chain my sister up and dangle her over a riverbed for ten hours? Never mind--some of them are just yours, though. From... before you met Eiji-kun." He remembers getting run through from back to front with long claws, pieces of himself wrenched out through along with the clang of medals on the cold stone floor before he collapsed--that one was most recent, and he can still taste the shame and rage and bitter disappointed betrayal in the back of his throat.

[redgreeed]

I shiver, I tremble as his fingers caress my wings, preen at my feathers. Right at the base, where they join my back. Where they're most sensitive.

Tinglingly sensitive. Sensitive in ways I didn't think I could feel. Not since I left his body. Physical sensations all down my spine, pleasant and only familiar because I've been in his body, I've known the humanly physical signs of want and need.

I need him. I want him. That much is obvious as his fingers continue to work at my feathers.

My wings guide him closer, almost flush against me, as he mentions his dreams. Dreams that are memories for me. My feathers fluff out, my wings spreading wider, as if to shield him, and me. Keep us safe.

As if we're in danger here. Threatened by my past, his visions.

"I really did," I focus on the most trivial matter he shares. "Your sister is rather tenacious. I don't like her." That's not entirely true, but still. My feelings for her have matured a bit, but at the time...

[keijisan]

"Yes you do," I laugh, nuzzling in against his shoulder as my fingers work slowly up from the base of his wings, rubbing steadily. I can feel him shiver against me and his wings tighten around us both and I make a warm sound at the heat and the closeness, feeling more comfortable than I have in ages.

"Good?" I ask, reaching the tops of the wing joints with my hands and rubbing slow, firm circles into the muscles there before I drag careful fingernails down the length of where his wings sprout from his back, scritching gently at the base as I lean my cheek on his collarbone.

[redgreeed]

Oh. "Oh."

I shake against him as his fingers works, as he finds all the most sensitive places on my wings to work at. Of course he knows them, he and I were one for so long. He knows me as well as I know myself. Maybe even a little better; I'm rarely honest with myself.

I nod, and press my hand more firmly against his back, palm flush against the base of his spine.

He's a missing piece of me. Not like that Lost piece, not at all like that. Just... something I didn't know I needed this much, until I saw him standing there. Until he was close to me again.

"I need you."

[keijisan]

That gives me pause, and I shiver against him a little before I bury my face in his shoulder and sigh, my fingers pressing more firmly into the tense muscles at the base of his wings.

"I need you too," I tell him warmly. "I'm glad you're--oh." And then his hand presses harder to the base of my spine and our hips slide together, and I can't help but freezing against him. Oh.

"Ankh." My voice is breathless as I draw back to look at his face, my eyes wide and my cheeks flushed. I swallow hard, hesitating for a bare half-breath before my mouth is on his, the touch soft and warm, just a slight brush.

[redgreeed]

These feelings are new to me, as they are now. My own, entirely my own.

And yet maybe also his, still, judging by the way he's looking at me, eyes wide and cheeks warm. It's too deep a thought to reflect on in this moment, and it becomes near impossible to a moment later, when his lips meet mine.

His lips are soft, and the kiss is light. But it sends a jolt through me, and my wings shiver from the contact, feather ruffling before my wings return to enfolding him, keeping him safe and warm. And close.

This is an entirely new feeling.

I draw in a sharp little breath through my nose, pulling back after a few slow moments to look at Shingo. Study his face. I am not naive, I spent enough time in his body to know the physical wants that I'm experiencing on my own now.

Actually experiencing a kiss though is something... indescribable.

[keijisan]

I reach up to cup his face, stroking gently down one cheek. The shock in his eyes startles me until I realize that's... probably his first kiss--the first one he's fully experienced as himself, in his own skin.

I smile and curve an arm around his waist, anchoring him as his wings shiver around me. My forehead presses to his and I sigh, the sound warm and pleased. "Tell me if it's too much," I say before I lean in close again and cover his mouth with mine, my fingers stroking along his jaw and my lips firmer against his, wet and soft and slow.

[redgreeed]

He kisses me again, and I am expecting it more now, in addition to wanting it as much as I did the first time, so I am a bit more... prepared? If that is even the right word.

Warmth, and softness, and... wet. Not unpleasantly so. No, not at all. I want more. I find I want to taste him.

I'm nothing if not bold. So I reach my right hand up, finally, and tangle my fingers in his hair. Tugging his face closer.

I part his lips, knowing this rhythm from his memories. But yet it's also new and exciting for me. Parting his lips, opening his mouth, sliding my tongue inside...

Oh. Oh.

My hands clutch at him - left on his back, right in his hair - as my wings unfurl, fluttering, trembling, as they spread from the sheer force of my feelings.

[keijisan]

I hum and let him have control of the kiss, parting my lips and twining my tongue with his slowly. One hand stays cupped against his jaw, but my free one slides up his back to press slow, firm fingers to the middle of his spine, rubbing in gentle circles and feeling the muscle there shift as his wings move.

I feel him press closer against me and suddenly I want my mouth there, right between his shoulder blades, down soft against my lips. I settle for pushing my hand up under his shirt to touch bare, hot skin, my nails dragging lightly down his spine before my fingers touch the base of one wing, stroking lightly.

I pull out of the kiss to gasp for air and press my mouth to his throat, dragging softly over his pulse. "You're sensitive there," I sigh, rubbing gently through the soft feathers at the base of his wing before I draw my nails delicately over his skin again. I wonder if he's sensitive in any of the places I am, and I slide my mouth up his throat to nibble gently under his ear, my free hand sliding down over his chest and around his waist, holding him close against me still.

[redgreeed]

I am vibrating as his hand works at my wings, up under my shirt, right to the base where the bones meet my back. My wings twitch and shudder at his explorative touches. Fluttering, quivering, spreading wider, and then folding closer, alternating between stretching out into the room, and wrapping tightly around him again, fighting to keep him close.

"Very sensitive." His mouth is at my throat, moving up under my ear, and I have to lean against him as he nips at my skin, my legs trembling, almost buckling beneath me as we stand.

My hand grips at his hair, tugging gently. because it's soft and smooth between my fingers, and I need something to grip at. My other hand moves up under his shirt, mirroring his own on my back, though he has no wings for me to work at. I gently press my fingers to where they would be though. Where they should be.

[keijisan]

I can feel him shake against me as I touch him and my chest tightens a little--it's exhilarating to feel him this undone against me, and I also know this trust and this deliberate surrender of control for the privilege that it is.

My arm tightens around his waist as I feel his knees fold slightly and I catch him against me, bracing him. Goosebumps race over my skin when his hands probe at my shoulder blades--I know what he's doing and it makes me shiver, but they're not nearly as sensitive as his are and I recover my bearings quickly, my lips brushing his ear.

"Bed?" I breathe before my teeth catch at his earlobe, sucking gently as my hand shifts over to bury my fingers against the base of the other wing, feeling skin stretched over bone as I rub gently.

[redgreeed]

He's doing that deliberately now, with a purpose beyond the fact that it feels good for me. I think he may be trying to make me topple over. How devious of him.

I nod, unable to answer verbally with his teeth doing that to my earlobe.

I manage to gather enough of myself to pull back a little, but then his face is there, right in my view, and I can't help kissing him again, hard and fast, practically growling into his mouth.

[keijisan]

"Mmm!" I manage against his mouth, drawing him with me towards the bed and letting him push into the kiss, my lips parted and pliant under his. I pull back as my knees kit the edge of the bed, turning him and pulling back to gasp, flushed and smiling, my fingers slipping up under his shirt to stroke just under his navel, right where I'm sensitive, wondering if its the same.

"Any chance I can take this off?" I ask, tugging up on his shirt before I complicate things by kissing him again, unable to resist the soft redness of his mouth and the dazed look in his eye.

[redgreeed]

I whine when his fingers brush at the sensitive skin low on my stomach. Like he...

He knows.

Like I just know he is also sensitive there, also responsive.

He and I are one, in a way that is so deeply profound. In a way others wouldn't understand.

"Shingo." I breathe, as he hits the bed, barely loud enough to be heard, and then his hands are tugging at my shirt, and I melt a little, in ways I am not proud of.

I groan and growl into his mouth, shivering against him. Wanting... needing more...

[keijisan]

"You sound amazing," I gasp, dragging light fingernails up from the waistband of his pants before I push both hands under his shirt, sliding against hot skin. I pull him in to sit on the edge of the bed and work his shirt up as far as I can, my fingertips rubbing slowly at his nipples, pinching gently as I track wet kisses down his throat.

"Please--" I manage, tracing my fingers along the outside edges of his wing joints, my breath warm on his skin. "Take your shirt off? I want--ah."

[redgreeed]

I sit when he beckons, somehow so much more responsive, and less standoffish, with him. Than I have ever been with anyone else, in all my years.

His hands continue to roam over my skin, rubbing at m-my... "Oh"

I grab at him, at his shoulders, when his fingers circle my nipples, a place I didn't know I could really feel excitement from.

Even when I had all his knowledge (still have) on these matters, feeling them for myself is so...

So good.

And his breath at my throat... I nod almost dumbly, pulling back from him just long enough to practically tear my shirt off. My wings are gone, just for the moment, and my back already aches for his hands at their bones again.