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When Mikey opens his eyes, the room around him is navy blue and silver. Not the yellow green of a hospital room.
He visited there in his dream, as he visited so many times over the past days. The sickly, sterile scent, the slow beeps of a heart monitor. The insidious red glow of the operating light that flickered out like the life of the boy they were trying to save.
Mikey still feels it, as real as the thudding of his heart in his chest. It’s warm in his bedroom. The moon offers no coolness when it streams through the window blinds above his bed. His sweat dries uncomfortably on his skin.
The dream felt real, and part of it was. There was a hospital room, there was the monotonous beeping. There was the red light that acted as a barrier between life and death, between Mikey and his Ken-chin.
He makes himself remember the real parts as his mind sluggishly wakes up. It was over a week ago. Mikey’s stomach had sunk like a stone in water when the doctor had emerged from the operating room. All that waiting, Mikey didn’t know what he’d do with himself if the surgery had been anything but a success. It was, but for a long time after hearing the good news, it still seemed impossible to take a deep enough breath.
He turns to Draken, asleep next to him on the bed. His face is so serene, no wrinkle between his eyebrows, no downturned lips. The moonlight makes everything look like it’s underwater, peaceful to sway back and forth with the currents. Mikey traces the outline of the dragon tattoo peeking out from under his cascade of loose blond hair.
Mikey’s eyes still have to adjust to reality. He spent so much time in Draken’s hospital room, in the hospital cafeteria, on the hospital roof, that for the week of Draken’s stay Mikey was a patient there too. Only the nurses didn’t have anything to heal the kinds of wounds Mikey was left with.
They aren’t in the hospital anymore. Draken is here, and it means he’s okay enough to be discharged. Still, Mikey quickly blinks away the images of his dream that seem to want to torment him. That’s the only explanation for why his brain would supply him with thoughts of what isn’t real, what might have happened but didn’t. Mikey needs all the reminders he can get. Draken is alive and warm under his fingers.
Mikey feels along the valley of his cupid’s bow, counting each quiet breath as it breezes out Draken’s nose.
It’s Draken’s first night since being let out. Mikey insisted on Draken staying with him because he knows what it’s like at home. Draken always has chores, always has to fix something, always has to muscle his way around a house that’s all women.
Mikey saw him bending down to carry something, and it would be so easy for the scar tissue to pop. The seam of his freshly healed skin would burst, and all his blood would spill onto the floor. He already lost so much of it just a week ago. Could his body handle it again?
Or worse, everything would seem fine on the surface. But one fall off a ladder might dislodge the careful way his insides had been restructured by the doctors. Hours, maybe days pass, and then Draken collapses because of something no one can see coming and no one can save him from.
Mikey had been plagued with nightmares about this since the night of the Moebius fight, and now he was seeing the horrors of his best friend dying in broad daylight? So Mikey ordered him to stay the night, and Draken is here with him, under his careful watch. He’ll tell Draken to stay for as many nights as it takes.
It’s August. The days are hot, and nights aren’t much better. They both fell asleep in just their boxers. The thin blanket that had covered them had been kicked off at some point before Mikey woke up, either from Draken getting too warm or Mikey trying to run away from his dream. When Mikey lays a hand on Draken’s bare chest, the difference in their temperature is imperceptible. Draken is no colder and no warmer than Mikey, so it’s like they blend into each other this way. Blur the edges between their bodies. If only Mikey could somehow fold him up and tuck him in between his ribs, next to his heart, where he’ll be safe.
His hand does some wandering, following the valleys between muscles. He sees Draken all the time but never has the liberty to touch. Not like this. Not for the sake of burning the sensation of Draken’s skin into his memory.
Dark eyelashes flutter across the tops of Draken’s cheeks, but he doesn’t wake up. Is he dreaming? Can he feel Mikey’s fingers following the lines of his collarbones, the dimple of his belly button? He’s never heard Draken complain about nightmares before, but he must get them sometimes.
He finds the fresh scar like it has its own gravity. Propping up on an elbow, Mikey watches himself draw around the shape of it. Draken’s abs jump under his touch, and he worries if even this featherlight contact still hurts.
The tissue healed in such a jagged and ugly way, from the knife tearing into him and the rushed interference from the surgeons. All that violence etched into him. And it’s so small, only a few inches long. Compared to the rest of Draken, who’s big and strong and fast and brave, it seems so insignificant. But that little cut almost ruined everything.
Clenching his jaw, Mikey tells himself that it’s a scar, and it’s ugly, but it’s healed.
Overwhelmed by the sudden need to be closer, he draws himself in and banishes the normal, impersonal few inches that separate them. His hand comes to rest on Draken’s hip, sharing space with his waistband. Up close, they’re warmer now. Mikey’s palm heats up on Draken’s skin, and he unconsciously wipes the sweat on the leg of his boxers.
He lays his head on Draken’s shoulder. This must be so familiar—Draken always carries him around when he’s asleep—but Mikey is never awake to savor it. Draken won’t be carrying him for a while, and it could be so nice if the roles reversed. If Draken let himself nod off whenever he needs to rest, Mikey’s strong arms whisking him away.
His hand slides over the center of Draken’s hips, just out of curiosity. Mikey isn’t paying much attention to it until he feels a twitch under his fingers. Now, just like with the scar, he traces the shape of it. Commit him to memory. The shape changes as Draken starts to swell, filling up his loose boxers and pushing against Mikey’s palm.
Even half hard, he’s big. Mikey’s eyes dart up to Draken’s face, almost expecting to find them open. When they aren’t, Mikey blindly searches through the hole in the fabric and feels along the skin underneath. It’s soft, semi-squishy. Getting harder and hotter.
Draken feels so real when Mikey gets a hand around him, stretching the foreskin around the head and back up again. He almost can’t tear his gaze away from Draken’s face, which seems a touch more pinched than a second ago. His forehead wrinkles slightly, his lips part. Mikey lifts his head again and stares at Draken’s open mouth. He wishes he could breathe his life into that mouth, and when he catches himself closing in to do it, he stops. That’s what gets him to look away, down at his hand instead.
It’s solid now, hot from the blood filling it up. It’s a good sign, that his blood is pumping and his heart is working. Mikey thumbs the slit of his cock, captivated by a dot of moisture that beads out of it, shiny in the dim light. The next breath Draken exhales is tailed by a barely there moan.
Something desperate and lonely curls in Mikey’s chest at the sound. Over a week of nothing but strained grunts and labored breath, dragged-out physical therapy appointments and bottles and bottles of blood work. Mikey doesn’t know if this little bit of pleasure can overwrite all that pain, but he wants to give it to Draken regardless.
And, quite selfishly, Mikey wants to give this to himself too. He clings to the belief that providing Draken with something good will mend what’s broken in his heart.
He drifts down the bed, the hair on Draken’s thigh tickling his chest. From this angle, Mikey can see his sleeping face from a vantage point he’d never considered before. The underside of Draken’s strong nose, the soft center of his jaw that flexes with the motion of his tongue when he swallows. Mikey keeps his eyes on him as he takes his cock into his mouth.
Draken makes another small sound. It’s so vulnerable, tender. Mikey wonders if he makes the same sound when he touches himself, or if those moans are deeper and louder, more intentional. Sleep makes him honest. Mikey needs more.
Slipping off Draken’s cock, wet with his saliva, Mikey shoves two fingers into his mouth to see if he gags on them. He does, a little, and the automatic clench of his stomach squeezes tears into the corners of his eyes. He sucks on his fingers, imagining that this is what Draken feels when Mikey goes down on him again. Is he a good mouth? Is he the right fit for Draken?
He’s ready the next time he gags, the cockhead clogging the back of his throat. More tears leak out that don’t seem to fall solely because of a gag reflex. But it’s okay if he cries a little because he can blame it all on the cock in his throat, and Draken isn’t awake to see it anyway.
His fingers are wet, glistening in Mikey’s peripheral vision. Draken’s next moan sends a pang reverberating through Mikey’s body. It echoes and echoes and makes him realize how empty he is. These fingers, he already knows they won’t fill him. His own body is achingly not enough for him anymore. But this obstruction in his throat, this extension of his best friend definitely would be.
He starts with his fingers, hand slipping down the back of his boxers. The angle is rough, trying to hold himself over Draken, keeping his balance and the cock snug inside his mouth. Slurps and weak whimpers escape his lips. Everything’s so messy, from the drool sliding down his chin to the searing stretch of his rim to the swirling emotions inside him. Grief and love and fear and lust. So deep inside him that he needs Draken’s help to untangle them all.
Draken still hasn’t shown signs of waking up despite how carelessly loud Mikey’s been. He thinks, deliriously, that this is what it would be like if Draken was dead. Eyes unopened, fingers unmoving. But there are other indications that he isn’t dead, Mikey reminds himself. His cock is hard and throbs with a heartbeat against Mikey’s tongue. It leaks precome, which he greedily swallows so he can taste more. His slumbering breaths catch on little moans.
He takes his fingers out and sits up. Moonlight hits Draken’s bare chest, the shadows rippling like waves every time his ribs expand and contract. Mikey stares, wondering when Draken got so beautiful. He must be noticing it only now because he almost lost this beauty, but that doesn’t sound right. Draken's always been this way. Mikey wonders if he knows how beautiful he is.
Mikey kicks out of his boxers and dips down to press a kiss to the pink, healed scar on Draken’s abdomen. He likes the view from this perch, Draken’s warmth between his thighs. A faint smile tugs on his lips as he reaches back and holds Draken in place so their bodies can meet.
He thought he’d be ready to take him, but the stretch is so much more than he prepared for. He won’t give up though, not when it feels so good to be closer to Draken than he’s ever been. Breathing in sharply, Mikey sits fully in Draken’s lap and covers his lips with a hand. The burn is a good thing. It means Draken is with him, and it won’t be so easy to separate them.
Draken’s features show faint traces of pleasure, his eyebrows pulling together. His eyelashes flutter, and he might finally wake up. What will he think when he finds Mikey on top of him, relinquishing his body, leaving all of himself for Draken?
Something cold coils in Mikey’s stomach. Draken could hate him for this. For not waking him, for not asking first, for presuming he’d want Mikey like this at all.
The image of Draken below him warps and becomes watery. Mikey sobs behind his hand, limbs shaking. Draken almost died, but Mikey might lose him because of something else entirely. He presses his other hand to Draken’s chest, leaning heavily on him because he might topple over otherwise.
All he wants is Draken. Draken. Ken-chin. My Ken.
“...Mikey?”
He hears his best friend’s gravelly voice over the rushing in his ears, his wet sniffles. It can’t be, though, because Draken is gone. All that’s left of him is the way Mikey still craves him.
“Mikey.”
There’s that voice again, and Mikey shakes his head, wiping his tears as they fall. Something under him moves, and warmth envelopes his arms and back. He opens his eyes, not knowing when he closed them, and sees a blurry, glowing outline of Draken’s face.
He realizes a second later that Draken is sitting up, holding him.
Even if it’s an illusion, a cruel dream, he feels so real. Mikey collapses forward against him, arms going around Draken’s neck. He inhales the crisp scent of his throat—it smells like Draken’s soap and Mikey’s sheets. A perfect mix of them.
The movement draws attention to the heat and the sting in his ass. Mikey chokes a bit, still crying but trying to stop. A warm hand rubs circles across his spine. It soothes him, and he calms down and hears Draken talking to him.
“What?” Mikey lifts his head, voice wobbling.
Draken’s fingers wipe away the moisture on his cheeks, and his face becomes clearer. “What’s all this?” he repeats, sounding more awake, gentle.
“I…” How does he explain what led up to splitting himself on Draken’s cock in the middle of the night? Up until now, it felt imperative. Life or death. He turns his head away. “I thought I lost you. I had to… had to be with you before you were gone.”
“That was over a week ago, Mikey. I’m right here.” Draken’s fingers trap his chin, making him look up again.
Mikey has nothing to say to that. He knows, deep down. He knows there wasn’t any danger tonight.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Draken asks. It must be written all over his face. But then again, Draken is so good at reading him.
Mikey nods, his palm slipping to the center of Draken’s chest. It’s solid, impenetrable, encasing the heart Mikey hopes will never stop beating.
“It wasn’t real,” Draken assures him, because he knows Mikey needs to hear it. “Whatever you saw, it didn’t happen. I’m not going anywhere.”
Mikey clings to the words and forces himself to believe them. Draken never lies to him.
The hand on his back slides down, fingers curiously slipping between his cheeks and rubbing along his stretched rim. Mikey shudders at the sensation, at the reminder that Draken is very alive and very big and very buried inside his body.
“Hell of a wake up call,” Draken breathes with a small laugh against Mikey’s neck. “Does it hurt?”
It does, but Mikey won’t say yes. Draken would make them stop.
“I want to make you feel good.” Mikey rolls his hips, savoring the drag. “Can I?”
Draken lets out a small grunt, removing his fingers to hold Mikey around the hips.
Don’t push me away, don’t push me away, Mikey thinks in a panic. But then Draken only keeps him in place to rock up into him, gently, just once.
“You didn’t use lube,” he says.
“I got you wet, though. With my mouth,” Mikey reasons. “I couldn’t wait a second longer…”
“Always so impatient.” Draken cups his cheek, bringing their noses together. “Let me do it next time, okay? Loosen you up nice and slow. You’re really tight right now.”
Mikey nods, shoving his hands into Draken’s hair, keeping him close. Next time. Next time with Draken.
“Ken-chin.”
The centimeters that separate their lips vanish. Mikey kisses him like it’ll be his first and last time ever tasting Draken. He has to remember that now—how easily Draken could slip through his fingers, how precious each beat of his heart is. He won’t let a minute go wasted.
He pushes Draken’s hair away from his face, letting the dragon out, tangling his fingers in the strands. Draken breathes out a low growl against his mouth, tongue pressing forward. Mikey lets him in and grinds their hips together, a small moan escaping him.
Draken’s broad hands trail up and down his back. Even though it’s summer, August, and he’s sweating from the heat of the cock inside him, Mikey’s skin erupts in goosebumps.
He can’t find a good rhythm. The position doesn’t allow for much movement, but Mikey doesn’t want to unravel his arms. He needs to feel Draken on every inch of him. He pants desperately, frustrated, into the wetness of Draken’s mouth.
“Let me on top,” Draken manages to say with Mikey distractedly nipping at his lips.
“No,” he mumbles. “Don’t want you moving too much.”
They can do it just like this. Mikey can do it, circling his hips, trying to bounce without letting Draken actually leave him.
“Why not? I can give you a better angle, make it good for you too.”
Mikey tries to kiss him again to avoid answering, but Draken turns his head before he can. He meets the side of Draken’s jaw instead, and Draken grabs his hips. In the back of his mind, he registers how hot it is that Draken can control him with just his hands. Even if he hates that it’s to make him stop.
“Why not, Mikey?”
Mikey sits back and looks at him, hands falling to Draken’s biceps. “The scar could open.”
When he says it out loud, the images come rushing back to him. The nightmares, the waking horrors. Draken bleeding out on his bed.
His eyes sting with fresh tears. Draken’s thumbs are already there to wipe them away, and for a while he just watches Mikey’s face. Mikey’s so weak in front of him. It’s only okay for him to be this way because it’s Draken.
“It won’t,” he hears Draken’s voice, far away. “The stitches are gone. They let me out of the hospital today. You know what that means? It means there’s nothing wrong with me.”
Mikey knows that, but what if? Impossible things have happened before. Seemingly indomitable people have been taken away from him before. Shinichiro… he was invincible. He was the strongest. And yet the what if got to him. It should be impossible that a tiny, sharp object could cripple Draken. But it happened. How can humans be the most complex creature on the planet and still fall to their knees from a little blood loss?
“Mikey, talk to me,” Draken calls to him, tries to pull him back from the ledge. “Are you with me right now?”
He’s a lot of places right now—this bed, the hospital, the shrine parking lot in the rain. He even sees the red and white flashes outside of S&S Motors, hazy as they’ve gotten over the years.
“I wasn’t there,” he feels himself saying, voice thick. “I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t protect you… You’re hurt because of me.”
“I’m not hurt.” Draken takes one of his hands and presses it to his abdomen. His fingers meet the ridges of his muscles, the soft, new skin of the scar. “You can feel me, can’t you?”
Mikey has to nod because he feels so much of Draken right now—solid under his hand, thick and hot inside him, the breath against his face that tastes like toothpaste.
“Let me show you, okay?”
Draken’s hand wedges between them and wraps around Mikey’s cock. He’d forgotten about his own body for a while, too focused on Draken’s, and the simple touch drags a sudden moan out of him. Draken strokes him slowly, fingers tight around him. Mikey rocks into his fist, forcing everything else out of his mind.
Mikey’s fingers wander up his chest, tracing his nipples and collarbones and finally his jaw. His thumb drags under Draken’s bottom lip, a pink tongue darting out to taste him. The pleasure overrides the agony in his chest, and his wet eyelashes flutter from something other than pain.
“If you don’t want me to move, that’s okay. I don’t have to,” Draken says. “But maybe I should pull out—”
“Don’t—!” Mikey pleads, too quick to be embarrassed about it. “Don’t leave me. Please, Ken-chin.”
He’d stay like this all night if he could, preferring this over falling back asleep to find out what images assault his head. This way is better, this way he can keep Draken close.
“Okay, Mikey.”
Draken scoots back to lean against the headboard, keeping Mikey with him the entire way. His hand pauses briefly, thumb rubbing circles around the head of his cock. Mikey holds his face with both hands and leans in for a kiss. It starts frantic, matching the pace of Mikey’s restless thoughts. But Draken soothes him with slower kisses. Unhurried. Reminding Mikey of where and when they are.
Right here, right now. With me.
The hand on his cock moves again, dragging up and down like Draken wants to tug the bad thoughts out of him. Mikey keeps rocking into his fist with small thrusts that he can’t really help. The glide of skin on skin is so good, hot and wet with precome easing the way. He whimpers against Draken’s mouth, and Draken hums back to him.
His entire body reacts to Draken’s touch. He melts, letting his weight tip forward as his arms slide around Draken’s neck. There’s no more space between them, and it should be like that forever.
When Draken separates from the kiss to fit his mouth over the pulse in Mikey’s throat, he feels himself tighten and throb around his cock. He angles his head back, wanting Draken to bite him and mark him up but unable to form the words to ask.
“Ken-chin, Ken—” is all he can manage as he teeters closer and closer to the edge, breathless. “—KenKen, please.”
“I got you,” Draken’s voice rumbles in his ear.
The pace of his hand picks up again, sliding loudly over his cock. Mikey tries to meet him each time but can’t keep up. His hips give little rhythmless bounces in Draken’s lap until he sits down hard and sees stars. Draken’s cock hits him right where he needs it, deeper than he’s ever gotten, and everything else flies from his mind.
He clings to Draken as his orgasm whites out his senses for a long, intense moment. Draken’s name leaves his lips again in a rush.
Slowly, he eases down, unwinding his arms and sitting heavily on Draken’s thighs. Inside, he’s still hard. Mikey can feel him from the way his walls still flutter with oversensitivity, and Draken gives a twitch that makes him gasp.
A large, warm hand rubbing up and down his thigh makes him realize how much he’s shaking. Mikey touches his forehead to Draken’s and sniffs, looking down at the mess he made. Draken’s fingers idly swirl through it on Mikey’s stomach.
“You still didn’t come,” he says, though he knows it’s obvious to both of them.
“Get up and I’ll do it.”
The corners of Mikey’s lips turn down. It’s supposed to be him making Draken feel good. Instead, Draken had to spend the whole time cooing at him, taming his wild emotions. Putting in all the work when he got discharged from the hospital only this morning.
“You almost made me come a few times already,” Draken says, as if having their foreheads pressed together means he can read Mikey’s thoughts. “You feel really good, you know.”
“Can’t we stay like this?” Mikey raises and lowers his hips once. Draken says he feels good. He can be enough.
“Mikey.”
“Fine, but let me take care of you this time. You just lay down and feel me.”
When he sits up, his hips and legs are sore. Draken slides out and makes him feel empty, and Mikey has to remind himself that he’s not going far. There is going to be a next time.
“Kiss me, too,” Draken says, on his back with Mikey pressed tightly to his side.
Mikey brings their mouths together as his hand finds Draken’s cock. He’s so solid in his grip, big enough that Mikey’s fingers just barely meet. He moves slowly, distracted by Draken’s lips and the low grunts that reverberate in his throat.
Every time Draken tries to move his hips, make him go faster, Mikey bites down on his lower lip. Draken’s kiss grows desperate, one of his hands reaching up to hold Mikey’s arm as an anchor.
Yes, Mikey wants to say. Safe with me.
It’s a new kind of euphoria when Draken comes. Mikey strokes him through it, swallowing the moans sent into his mouth. He feels the hot drips over his knuckles and Draken’s body relaxing under him.
His kisses turn lazy and slow until they eventually come to a stop. Mikey lifts his head and opens his eyes to find Draken watching him with a sleepy gaze and red cheeks. It’s pretty late. Draken must be tired.
He keeps touching Draken even as he softens, not wanting to let go. It must be sensitive by now, but Draken hasn’t pushed him away yet. The drops of come make it sticky, seeping into the fabric of his boxers.
“Still seeing bad things?” Draken asks him quietly.
Mikey shakes his head, not completely the truth, but not a lie either. Right now, all he’s focused on is the way Draken’s lips move when he talks, how pretty his hair is when it’s down.
“Was it good?” he asks.
Draken snorts. “The handjob? Yeah, it was good.”
“Being with me, I mean.” Mikey wipes his hand on Draken’s boxers and rolls onto his back. His ass is sore, evidence that Draken was with him, even if it was for only a few minutes.
Draken leans into his space, all of his hair falling to one side of his head and exposing the tattoo. Mikey looks at it to avoid looking at his eyes.
“That was good too.” Fingers card through Mikey’s hair, pushing it away from his forehead. “But seriously, wake me up first next time. We’ll do it properly.”
It’ll never be enough, Mikey thinks. One more time, a thousand more times—Mikey could have Draken forever and he’ll still want more. No matter when Draken is taken away from him, it’ll be too soon.
“Will you still stay here with me?” Mikey’s eyes drag down to Draken’s throat, his shoulders.
“Tonight? Tomorrow night?”
As long as you’ll have me, Mikey doesn’t say.
Draken settles back down next to him and draws an arm around his shoulders. Mikey curls into him like a magnet, hand resting on the scar, one leg thrown over Draken’s. This is his answer, at least for tonight. He matches his breathing with Draken’s and wonders if he’ll be able to fall asleep again.
“I want to live with you,” Draken says in the dark, in the quiet.
“Here?”
Mikey imagines it, waking up next to him every morning. Draken will no longer have to take the train to Shibuya, ride the elevator up to the brothel, be welcomed home by a new list of chores. Here, Mikey can keep him safe. Never far away.
“Anywhere, Mikey. I’ll go anywhere with you.”
Mikey presses his face into Draken’s chest and pulls himself closer by the hand around his waist. He blocks out everything else—the moon, the blinds, the August heat—until nothing is left but Draken.
“I hope that you do,” he whispers into his skin like a secret shared between them.