Chapter Text
Aki is half asleep when the door creaks open.
His instinct to jump and fight is quelled when he hears the dragging footsteps and realizes it’s just Denji, shuffling over to the edge of Aki’s bed, barely even giving him time to react before he’s peeling back Aki’s blanket and letting in a gust of cold air.
“What’re you doing?” Aki mumbles, too tired to be properly annoyed.
“Power’s snoring.”
And he crawls into Aki’s bed as if that’s a legitimate excuse. His icy toes press against Aki’s calves and he burrows his face into Aki’s pillow with a shiver before pulling the blankets tight over the two of them.
“Go sleep on the couch,” Aki says, throat suddenly tight.
“Too cold.”
Denji inches closer until their foreheads nearly touch. His big brown eyes blink at Aki before closing and he lets out a small, contented sigh.
Aki is sure the heat rising in his cheeks doesn't mean anything.
*
Aki sleeps well.
They don’t talk about it in the morning.
Aki definitely doesn’t think about Denji’s sleep-rumpled smile the rest of the day.
*
It happens again.
And again, and again, enough times for it to almost be regular, if unpredictable. Aki has no way of knowing what kind of day will trigger Denji’s need to climb into Aki’s bed, claiming Power is snoring too loudly for him to get any sleep.
He stops bothering to protest.
The apartment walls are thin.
Aki never hears any snoring.
*
Aki lies awake, staring at the ceiling, willing his racing heart to calm.
He’s already smoked the entirety of the emergency pack of cigarettes he keeps in his bedside table, and maybe that doesn’t help the thundering pulse, but it also doesn't help — his anxiety is a hurricane; dark, swirling clouds and deafening cracks of thunder.
He’d almost died. A momentary lapse in concentration, a misstep, a stumble, and the devil had lunged — Aki had heard the Future Devil laugh when the frantic thought, this is it, isn’t it? crossed his mind.
But it wasn’t it.
Denji had jumped in front of the devil’s outstretched claw. His impaled body sagged against Aki, but not before he managed to slice the devil’s head clean off with a flailing chainsaw.
Aki had held him as he coughed blood. Watched as the light left his eyes.
It’s stupid, Aki tells himself now, because Denji dies all the time.
Aki doesn’t usually have to see it, though. At least not from that close up. He’s never the one whose hand smears with Denji’s blood as he fumbles, panicked, for the ripcord trailing from his chest.
When Aki’s bedroom door opens, he almost smiles.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Denji says, surprised. His eyes flick toward the lit bedside lamp and he hesitates in the doorway.
Aki’s heart lodges in his throat. He doesn’t know how to say that when he turns off the light, he sees Denji’s pallid, pale face, filmy with death.
“C’mere,” he croaks instead, lifting the corner of his blanket.
Denji doesn’t say anything when Aki wraps him in his arms, tight, warm, alive , but Aki feels the smile against his neck.
*
Aki pulls a lump of gristled metal from the dead devil’s skull. It vibrates in his palm, shining in a pool of brackish ichor. He grimaces, closing his fingers around it to prevent its escape and looks around for Angel, who he finds sitting on the closed lid of a dumpster, kicking his sneakered feet and gazing at Aki passively.
“Found it,” Aki says, raising his fist.
“Good,” Angel says. He jumps off the dumpster, wings fluttering behind him. “I’m starving.”
The convenience store clerk doesn't blink at their disheveled, blood splattered clothes or Angel's general non-human-ness, for which Aki is grateful. He twisted his back during the fight and wants nothing more than to get back home and sink into a hot bath.
Angel makes a noise at the multiple chocolate bars Aki drops on the counter. Something between a snort and a cough.
“What?” Aki glares.
“Didn’t realize you had a sweet tooth,” Angel shrugs. His face is as expressionless as ever, but there's a gleam in his eye Aki doesn't like.
They're for Denji , Aki almost says. He knows from the way the corner of Angel's mouth quirks he might as well have.
Outside, in between licks of his ice cream cone, Angel says, “So what's going on with you and Chainsaw, then?”
Aki is too tired to pretend to be shocked by the question, but he frowns at Angel nonetheless as he exhales smoke through his nose.
“Nothing,” he lies. “We just live together.”
Angel hums in consideration, snapping off a thick piece of chocolate shell with his teeth. “He likes you,” he says simply.
Aki taps ash to the ground, turning his face away from Angel in the hopes the devil won't notice the warmth in his cheeks.
“It's inappropriate.” Maybe if he says it aloud he can convince himself, too. “He's only sixteen.”
“Oh.” Angel peers up at Aki, halo glinting in the late afternoon sun. “How old are you? You humans all look the same to me.”
Aki takes a long drag and wills it to calm the frantic fluttering of his heart. “Old enough to know better.”
*
“Take this, and this —”
“Powy, stop!”
“And this disgusting rag —”
“Power!”
“What’s happening?” Aki steps out of the kitchen to glare at where Power and Denji are yelling at one another. Well, more accurately, Denji is standing in the hallway yelling while Power gleefully throws his clothes out of their room. She pauses at the sound of Aki’s voice, hand held poised above her head with Denji’s boxers clutched in her fist.
“Power,” Aki snaps. “What are you doing?!”
“I am merely ridding my room of his presence,” Power says, and with a flick of her wrist tosses Denji’s underwear onto his face.
“This is Denji’s room too,” Aki says, ignoring Denji’s indignant squawk of, “it was mine FIRST!”
“Is it?” Power leers. “For I believe he more often sleeps in your room, Topknot.”
Aki’s face and ears burn. He pointedly avoids looking at Denji, whose bluster has fallen deadly silent.
“It’s both your room,” Aki says firmly, in a tone he hopes garners no argument. “Clean up this mess.”
He stalks back into the kitchen without a backward glance.
Denji’s silence is louder than Power’s responding cackle, ringing in Aki’s ears.
*
Denji doesn’t come to Aki's room that night.
Or the night after.
It takes four nights in a row of terrible sleep for Aki to stop convincing himself he doesn't care.
He hovers outside the bathroom as Denji brushes his teeth. He's not sure what he wants to say — no, that's not entirely true. He knows what he wants to say, and also knows that he is completely incapable of saying it.
He shouldn't be doing this. He should take advantage of Denji’s hurt, let it fester and create the distance Aki knows is supposed to be there. But Aki is merely a moth to Denji's flame, fluttering around the dying ember trying to coax it back to life.
Denji jumps when he opens the bathroom door and nearly walks straight into Aki.
“The hell, dude?” he grumbles, scratching the back of his head. “You coulda knocked if you had to pee.” Denji barely looks at him, instead choosing to scowl at his shoulder. Aki definitely doesn't look at where the frayed hem of Denji's shirt lifts with his arm, exposing a strip of tan skin and a trail of golden fuzz.
Aki's stomach hurts.
“No, I —” Aki grabs Denji's arm when he tries to brush past, and Denji's eyes are wild when they finally land on Aki's face.
Aki swallows. “Come…to my room.”
Denji's frown deepens and he jerks his arm out of Aki's loose grasp.
“Why?” he asks bitterly. “Thought I already had a room.”
“You do,” Aki says, strained. “This isn't — I thought you — fuck, never mind. Forget it.”
This time it's Denji who grabs him as he turns to leave, heart in his throat and stomach sunk to his knees.
“Wait,” Denji says. He scans Aki's face, squinting. Aki's cheeks warm under the scrutiny. It doesn't help when Denji cracks a smile, wide and crooked, and leans up until he's an inch from Aki’s nose to say, “Fine, then.”
Neither of them speak until they're settled in Aki's bed, Denji's head on Aki's chest, listening to the thunder of his heartbeat that slowly calms beneath Denji's touch.
Denji sighs, wriggles impossibly closer to Aki. Whispers, “Took you long enough.”
His lips brush Aki's jaw, and Aki is resigned to his fate.
*
Slowly, Denji’s clothes make their way into Aki’s closet.
Aki sees the way Power glances between the two of them, smirking, but thankfully — miraculously — she keeps her mouth shut.
*
The lines blur, dissolve, dissipate into dust.
When Aki wakes, Denji is on top of him. Hand splayed over Aki’s belly, drooling into the hollow beneath his throat.
Morning wood pressing up against Aki’s hip.
It’s not unusual; it happens more often than not. Denji is a teenager, a walking hormone, right on the cusp of puberty breaking into manhood. Aki can see the outline of the man Denji will become — and he will , he'll outlive Aki, at the very least, if not all of them — and it only feeds Aki’s wildfire of an infatuation and makes it very, very hard for Aki to exercise restraint.
He doesn’t mean to wake Denji. He’s tried to lie as still as possible to allow his own hardness a chance to abate somewhat (a task near impossible with Denji’s thigh wedged between his). But Denji shifts, smacks his dry lips and murmurs something into the heated skin of Aki’s neck. His fingers clench as he stirs, bunching the fabric of Aki's shirt, nails scraping the skin beneath. Aki suppresses a shiver, but can't stop the way his cock jumps at the sensation.
“Aki…”
Denji's voice is rough and cracking with a heavy veil of sleep. His body is still moving, hips rolling slowly against Aki's thigh. Aki puts a hand out to stop him, because he might explode if he doesn’t, but Denji only moans hoarsely at the contact and Aki's body goes up in flames.
“We should get up,” Aki chokes. He desperately doesn’t want to. But they should , before they — before Aki can —
Denji hums. His lips drag up the side of Aki's neck.
“‘Kay,” he murmurs, hand trailing down Aki’s stomach. “Inna minute.”
Whatever fragile veneer of self-control Aki has left is shattered when Denji’s palm presses over the straining bulge beneath his sweatpants. He turns his head and Denji is there waiting for him, and when they kiss something in Aki’s chest blooms with warmth. Denji licks past Aki’s lips almost immediately, and Aki sighs into his mouth.
He’s kissing Denji, finally , after weeks of wondering. Weeks of self-flagellation over how he felt (after, of course, weeks of denial that he, in fact, felt anything at all), knowing he was weak to Denji’s whims. He’d had dozens of opportunities to push Denji away, had known it was the right thing to do…
But now .
Now, Denji climbs over him, slotting himself between Aki’s parted thighs, kissing Aki like if he stops he’ll die; it’s hungry and more than a little desperate, but not as sloppy as Aki had been expecting, and he’d wonder more about Denji’s supposed inexperience if Denji’s dick weren’t pressed up against his, hard and hot through the thin layers of their pajamas.
Aki’s hands move seemingly of their own accord, sliding down Denji’s spine to settle in the small of his back, fingertips brushing the strip of exposed skin above his waistband. Denji sighs Aki’s name into his mouth and ruts his hips down and they both groan at the friction. Aki wants to touch Denji, wants to reach into his pants and feel how wet he is, wants to see if his cock flushes as pretty as the rest of him.
After just a few seconds or maybe an entire age, Denji pulls away. His pupils are blown, his normally tan skin a ruddy pink. His smile is an array of sharp teeth and it makes Aki’s chest squeeze.
“Denji,” he whispers, fingers clenching Denji’s waist with indecision. “We — I shouldn't…” But Denji cuts him off before he can form an end to his half assed protest.
“It's okay, Aki.” Denji kisses the corner of his mouth. “We can. It doesn’t matter.”
It matters far too much , Aki thinks when Denji’s lips press at the pulse point on his neck.
But it’s — okay.
It's okay when Denji moves down Aki's body, pushing his shirt up until it bunches beneath his armpits, biting the swell of his pec and the bud of his nipple. It's okay that Aki curves up into the contact, that he grabs a fistful of strawberry blonde hair and pushes Denji further down, down past his navel, down to suck at the leaking tip of his cock through two layers of fabric.
It's okay that Denji moves like he's used to it. Pulls Aki's cock out and strokes from root to tip, firm but sure. Says, “damn, nice and thick,” like he's got something to compare it to beyond his own. And when he sinks down on Aki's cock, swallowing him down in one go, it's — fuck —
“Shit,” Aki hisses, fingers clenching in Denji's hair. “What the fuck —”
Denji swallows, throat tightening around Aki for a moment of pure bliss before he resurfaces and gasps wetly, wildly — and then he’s diving back down like his very life depends on having Aki's cock shoved down his throat. He brings a hand up to squeeze briefly at Aki's balls, and then his fingers trail down the taut skin of Aki's taint and before Aki can fully register what's happening Denji presses and every muscle in Aki's body contracts like he's being electrocuted by pleasure.
He grunts and thrusts up into Denji's hot mouth, orgasm hitting him embarrassingly quickly — he twitches, pulses, spills into Denji who swallows every last drop, sucking Aki's cock dry until Aki's teetering on the fuzzy white verge of overstimulation.
Denji whimpers when he pulls off. His face is contorted, almost like he's in pain, and Aki pushes to his elbows, concerned, until he sees Denji's arm working frantically between his legs. He watches Denji's face as he comes. Watches the way his lips, still half an inch from Aki's wet, softening cock, purse in a silent oh , and the way his brows tighten into a thin line. His cheeks are bright red, forehead and temples damp with sweat.
He's ridiculous.
He's beautiful.
He's definitely sucked cock before.
*
Aki waits until he has both caffeine and nicotine coursing through his blood before he addresses it.
He probably shouldn’t. He should just accept the facts as they are; Denji has almost definitely engaged in sexual acts with men before and is not the blushing virgin Aki had assumed him to be. And it’s fine — or, well, it should be fine, if Aki didn’t know what he knows about Denji’s past.
“Denji,” Aki says once he can hear the water running in the bathroom and is assured they won’t be interrupted by Power. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Hmm?” Denji looks up, cheeks bulging with half-chewed toast.
“You’ve done that… stuff , before. Haven’t you?”
Denji frowns. “What stuff?” He swallows the impossibly large amount of food in his mouth and says, “Oh, y’mean sucking dick? Yeah. Loads of times. Heh. Loads. ”
Aki’s stomach drops. He must not be doing a very good job of masking his expression because Denji tilts his head and squints at him and asks, “Why?”
“No reason,” Aki says quickly. “It’s — it was just…good, that’s all.”
“Hell yeah it was.” Denji grins, leaning back on one hand and waving a dripping piece of toast with the other. “Blowjobs were fast cash. In ‘n out, easy money.” He shoves the bread in his mouth and makes a crude jerking motion with his fist, spraying Aki with crumbs when he speaks through a full mouth, “Handies were cheaper but so messy , y’know? Hard to get all the jizz off your fingers when you don’t have running water.”
“Right.”
There’s a rushing in Aki’s ears that warp Denji’s words, and he feels vaguely sick to his stomach, but Denji is smiling at his toast like he always does and his shoulders are relaxed and Aki struggles to draw in a bracing breath to calm the racing of his heart because it’s — it’s fine.
It’s okay, Aki.
*
Angel is a terrible confidante.
“I don't understand how you didn't know.”
“How would I know?!”
Angel looks up from the spearhead he's licking clean of blood.
“Well, you're the one obsessed with him,” he reasons, shrugging.
“I'm not —” Aki cuts himself off. Takes a deep breath in an attempt to assuage his rising anger. It doesn't work. “How did you know?!”
Angel tugs a human arm from the small pile of corpses lining the side of the road and examines the blood dripping down stiff fingers with a discerning eye before tossing it aside with a sigh. Aki had asked, first politely and then not so politely, for Angel to refrain from consuming corpses in front of him. Angel had only blinked at him with his big honey eyes and said, “I'm a devil,” and that was that.
“Power was talking about it,” Angel says.
Power and her big mouth.
“Why does it matter?”
“It matters,” Aki retorts curtly.
Because what if Denji only wants him because that's what he's been conditioned to think he wants when a man shows interest in him?
What if Aki is no better than the perverts who paid to fuck him?
What if…Aki isn’t as good?
*
Denji wants to suck him off again that night, and Aki tries to convince both himself and Denji that he's too tired. Denji accepts it begrudgingly, but asks Aki if he won't at least jerk him off, instead.
Aki is weak.
Denji's cock fits in Aki's hand like it was made for him. He whimpers and gasps and hiccups wetly in Aki's ear, body wriggling and squirming against him, and when he comes Aki is so hard he has no choice at all but to reach down his pants and stroke his own cock, hand slick with Denji's cum, kissing Denji hard enough he tastes blood.
So fucking weak.
*
Jealousy. Disgust.
Neither and both, twisting together and curdling in the pit of Aki's stomach, paving the path for something altogether more insidious and shameful: insecurity.
*
“I thought you were a virgin.”
Aki doesn’t know what makes him say it.
Mounting frustration at himself, probably. Fueled by the way Denji looks at him late at night, moonlight casting spiky shadows off his lashes. Triggered now by watching Denji stripping to change into his pajamas that now live permanently in Aki’s dresser, all sinewy muscle and jutting hipbones.
Denji pauses with one leg halfway through his pants. He stares at Aki for a beat, cheeks pink, before he says, “Not really. Well, kinda, maybe, if you think about it, a little.”
Aki blinks. “What?”
“I mean…” Aki can see the wheels turning in Denji’s head as he talks. “I’ve never fucked a girl, right? Or a dude, either. Only been fucked. So, like, that’s only half a virgin, right?”
Aki finds himself stumped by this logic.
“Are you a virgin?” Denji asks, burrowing beneath the duvet, knees knocking against Aki’s, nose cold on Aki’s cheek.
“No.” Though, by Denji’s own rules, Aki isn’t sure if he qualifies as fully not a virgin or still half.
“Thought so,” Denji says, smug. “Himeno, right?”
Aki barely holds back an incredulous cough, and is grateful Denji, head now firmly on Aki’s chest, can’t see the way his cheeks heat up.
“How did you know?” He’s not sure he wants the answer.
“Slut’s intuition,” Denji says sagely, and this time Aki does choke. Denji revels in Aki's discomfort for far too long before he adds, “Plus, she told me.”
“Then why’d you even ask, you asshole?” Aki pinches the side of Denji’s stomach with one hand and pokes with the other, tickling until Denji is wheezing and wriggling to get away.
“‘Cause,” Denji pants with breathless laughter, pushing to his hands to hover over Aki. “It's funny when you get all Aki about shit.”
Aki barely resists the urge to pout. “What does that mean?”
“Yknow.” Denji's eyes gleam honey brown in the low light of Aki's bedside lamp and his grin is wicked sharp. “You go all, ‘wuh, bluh, nuh uh, ugh, what?!’ and your face gets all red.”
Aki can't control how his cheeks burn in a perfect example of Denji's words, but he can hold back the indignant bluster. Just .
“Shut up,” he says instead, and pulls Denji down into a crushing kiss.
It does shut him up, like he’d known it would. Distracts them both for minutes, hours — an indeterminate amount of time that doesn’t matter when he’s got Denji like this, all the sharp edges of him soft and pliant beneath Aki’s touch.
The sweat on their bodies is cooling and their heart rates returning slowly back to normal when Denji says, mouth muffled against the curve of Aki’s jaw, “It’s different, y’know.”
“Hmm? What is?” Aki can’t think past the warmth of Denji curled up next to him.
“This,” Denji says, voice smaller than usual. “Us.”
Aki’s throat goes tight and his eyes itch with a sudden heat. “Oh,” is all he can say.
“Whatever I — all the shit I — I did before,” Denji stumbles through the words, fingers tapping a self-soothing pattern along Aki’s collarbone. “It didn’t — it doesn’t matter.” He pauses, breathes in sharply, and says, quiet, “This…this does.”
Aki doesn’t say anything. Can’t.
He pulls Denji closer, holding him tight and secure until Denji’s sniffling breaths even out with sleep and the dampness pooling in the hollow of Aki’s throat dries up.
“It matters to me, too,” he whispers finally into the silence of the room.
Denji only snores softly in response.
*