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Three years.
Three years .
He almost couldn't process who was standing in front of him, holding out his hand to help him up, like it had been no time at all.
And like it had been no time at all, Beat took it and got to his feet. There were always too many thoughts in Beat's head, but now they whirred and raced throughout his whole body, and his heart pounded with an entirely different fervor than it had under Minamimoto's onslaught. There were so many things he wanted to say - maybe not with his mouth...or at least not in the traditional way. Fortunately or unfortunately, the flood of thoughts and needs and wants bottlenecked between concept and action, and that brief moment reminded him that they weren't alone. That recollection effectively erased at least half of the unruly desires, allowing one benign impulse to come through:
"I looked everywhere for you!"
--
He would've kissed him. He wanted to, and if the kids hadn't been there... Three years was a long enough time that even when he didn't want to think, even when he shut and locked the door to those thoughts, they still scratched at it and demanded attention, and when his guard was down, they slipped in and refused to leave.
Which was to say, yeah, he'd thought about his feelings for Neku. They scared him at first, drove him into denial - loud, somewhat physically violent denial. Rhyme had torn him a new one for it, too, but it helped get his head on right. Moving had also helped. He could only just barely afford a tiny apartment, but its lack of space also came with a lack of parents and their judgements on how he should act and what he should like and all that other crap. Away from them, it was a lot easier to accept the realities about himself, like how he liked skateboarding for itself and not just its anti-authoritarian culture, and how he liked sweet things more than he used to admit, and...how he liked boys. Or at least one boy. He'd babbled to Rhyme about it over the phone one night when neither of them could sleep - she'd offered a label, but he could never remember what it was. The point was, he wasn't the smart, manly, ambitious, straight kid his parents wanted. And he was okay with that.
What he wasn't okay with was, now that the adrenaline from the near-erasure experience had faded, he had even less of an idea than normal of what to even say. The kids had already passed out, and in a few hours, they'd be warped to their new starting points. Beat already had a tolerance for whatever knock-out magic the UG worked to facilitate that, but Neku could take it a step further and cancel it out entirely. They'd have to sleep to be warped with the rest of the team, but they still had some time to themselves.
"Fuck, I missed you," Beat finally blurted out.
Neku gave him a soft smile and Beat was pretty sure his heart stopped for a moment. "I missed you, too."
Beat wanted to ask him where he'd been, why he'd disappeared, how he came back... He also wanted to tell him about moving out, about Rhyme's new hobbies, about Shiki and Eri, about...everything. Anything. Instead, impulse took over and he leaned over to kiss Neku.
He moved too fast and neither of them were prepared, so their faces crashed clumsily together, but then Beat's lips were properly on Neku's, and after a small squeak of surprise left Neku's throat, he was kissing back. Somewhere in the back of Beat's mind, he knew he should probably stop and apologize, but Neku's hands came up and relocated Beat's headphones to his neck before those nimble fingers threaded through Beat's hair, tugging at it in a way that made Beat involuntarily moan against Neku's lips. And then Neku's tongue was in his mouth and if he thought about it rationally, it should've been kinda gross, but it felt so good and so right that all he could do was meet it with his own.
The kiss was nothing short of messy and sloppy, and with neither of them knowing what the hell they were doing, they broke apart, panting. For a moment, there was no sound but their heavy breathing.
Their eyes met and something just short of a conversation passed between them. Beat shifted forward, jerkily, hesitantly. Neku met him where he stopped and they were kissing again, both of them more sure in their intent this time around. Neku climbed into Beat's lap, knees straddling Beat's hips. Beat let out another moan, longer and lower, when Neku shifted his hips close, grinding a foreign but familiar hardness against Beat's own.
Beat wanted . He couldn't even name anything - it was all just formless want and need , and Neku was at the epicenter of it all. He ran his hands under Neku's shirt, reveling in the way his calloused fingers rubbed roughly over Neku's smooth skin, the way he could feel Neku's abs tense has he traced the faint outline of muscles, the way Neku whined as his thumbs brushed over the nubs on his chest, the way Neku's hips twitched when he met the small patch of fine hair just above the hem of his pants...
"Are you..." Beat breathed against Neku's lips, voice barely above a whisper.
"Please," Neku breathed back, sounding even more strained than Beat as he ground their hips together again.
Beat fumbled with the button of Neku's pants, grateful that there wasn't a belt to contend with, and soon had Neku's cock in his hand, already hard and tipped with beads of precum.
Neku half-moaned, half-whined into Beat's mouth, and Beat felt Neku's fingers travel down to his own still-trapped member.
" Please ..." Neku said again, nearly shorting out Beat's barely-functioning brain.
"Yeah," Beat managed to reply.
Neku undid Beat's pants with just a tad more grace. When Neku's fingers curled around Beat's cock, he nearly came right then and there.
"God, Neku ," Beat moaned.
"Together," Neku replied.
He shifted their hips closer again and wrapped his hand around his and Beat's cocks. Beat followed suit, his mind going crazy at the sensations, and their hands pumped in time.
It didn't take long for them both to lose it, but only Neku had enough functioning braincells to cup his hand over both their tips, keeping their cum from getting everywhere.
Neku dropped his head against Beat's shoulder, both of them panting and shaking.
"Why..." Beat started, still trying to catch his breath, and Neku's heart jumped, worried he'd done something wrong. "Why weren't we doin' this three years ago?" he finally managed.
Neku relaxed and laughed. "Could you have really made it three years knowing what you were missing?"
Beat chuckled, still somewhat breathless. "I dunno, maybe you woulda fought to come back sooner if you'da known what you were missin'."
"Hmm..." Neku picked his head up and kissed Beat on the lips. "Guess we'll just have to make up for lost time."
Beat grinned and kissed him back. "Hell yeah."