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“I’ll see you again, right?” Haruki asks.
“Yeah,” Michinaga tells him. “Don’t worry, you won’t ever be alone.” He glances up and nods to Daichi who places a comforting arm around the boy’s shoulders.
“Your mom grew up here, too. It might take some time, but I’m sure it’ll soon feel like home.”
Hakuri looks between them and seems hopeful but unconvinced. Michinaga tilts his head to catch his eye.
“I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Michinaga holds out a pinky and after a moment Hakuri links his own, both smiling at one another.
From afar, the God of Creation watches Azuma Michinaga speak to the hybrid child with something close to awe.
He shouldn’t still be here. Every second he lingers, the chance of his past self discovering him increases. Something like that might only invite assumptions of his intentions and needless misunderstanding.
But who could blame him? This is an anomaly he never expected. This newfound gentleness remains as Michinaga stands and hides a wince from the pain of his injuries. He gives the boy one last pat on his head and then leaves the grounds of the facility.
Ace follows.
It’s not an insignificant distance between the two places. Each length of the journey home, clear on the other side of the city, adds a noticeable measure of lethargy to Michinaga. He even briefly falls asleep on the bus. Ace takes the time to observe him openly from the seat directly across the aisle. The evidence of the day’s conflict still mars Michinaga's skin, but when has brutality ever done anything but cause him to burn more beautifully?
An old ache wells up from somewhere deep down, like a half-forgotten bruise making itself known.
Several minutes pass in peaceful calm. People enter and exit at a steady pace, never once paying either of them any mind despite Michinaga's state and Ace's own odd appearance. The orange glow of the fading sun colors the world in a way he hasn’t witnessed in hundreds of years, but his attention is magnetized to the dozing man in front of him.
The bus goes over a speed bump, jostling Michinaga enough to wake him up. He blinks owlishly for a moment, but settles again soon after and stands once the bus comes to a stop. Ace is no longer in the seat but watching from the top of a building as Michinaga steps out and continues on the last stretch to his apartment.
Though it wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to fall into bed first thing, Michinaga heads for the tiny bathroom as soon as his shoes are off. It’s tempting to join him inside. And Ace almost does. Standing less than a meter from the door, he’s not sure what keeps him rooted there as the minutes tick by. Perhaps he still needs a moment to collect his thoughts.
Stepping back, he glances around the apartment, taking in the slightly messy yet simple living space. There are work clothes thrown haphazardly into a hamper, an old and scuffed up handheld game next to the futon that didn’t get put away that morning, several photos without frames taped in a cluster on one wall that he spends some time investigating. It’s only in the open closet that any sort of extravagance can be found. The clothes inside are few but most are high quality, perhaps the one luxury Michinaga allows himself.
“How like you,” Ace says to the otherwise empty room. One article of clothing catches his eye and he can’t help but reach out to look. His own handwriting greets him, black on faded white.
“Geats!”
Dragging his eyes away from the familiar shirt, Ace turns to see a freshly washed Michinaga standing in nothing but a threadbare pair of sleeping pants, body tense as if anticipating a fight. It almost feels like an intrusion, seeing him this way. Without his oversized layers, covered in lacerations and contusions, he seems so much smaller than should be possible. The barely there memory of that thin waist in the darkness of a hideout one tryst and a thousand years ago leaves Ace unprepared for the reality of him.
How could something that looks so fragile have stood against him with such stalwart strength? A better question, why is he surprised that Michinaga continues to defy his expectations?
Like now, for instance. Instead of attacking him on sight, Michinaga is watching him, cautious and confused. Ace lets the shirt fall from his fingers, walking over to him in slow steps. He’s permitted to get much closer than he would have thought before Michinaga tenses even further.
“What do you want?”
“Want?” Ace lets that word rest on his tongue. When was the last time he wanted anything? Michinaga frowns, then tries again.
“Why are you here?”
“Because of you, I suppose.”
Michinaga looks even more confused, but is it really so hard to believe? The very thing Ace set out to do in this time was rendered completely null thanks to his actions today. Lives may still have been lost, but an entire world was saved all because Michinaga made the one choice Ace never counted on.
The tenacious attitude, the honest heart hidden behind a mean mouth, and the ever-burning fire within; these things are unchanged and Ace has always been fond of them. But this patience is new. New and strange and so intriguing. The moment he watched Michinaga approach Haruki, to protect instead of destroy, Ace knew that something was profoundly different in this timeline than his own.
“The you in my memory and the you before me now… they’re not the same,” he finally says. And the cause of that inconsistency has been driving him crazy with a need to know why.
Michinaga’s frown twists into something resembling a pout.
“Well, sorry!” he says, sounding more offended than apologetic.
“Please don’t be,” Ace begs him softly. “You seem happier like this.”
“That’s what we fought for, isn’t it?” Michinaga asks. “Me and Geats and everyone else. A world where anyone can be happy.”
He holds Ace’s stare, resolute and unwavering. Such powerful belief is unlike anything Ace has ever experienced in his time of ascension. Did his former rival really harbor this kind of faith back then? And if so, how had Ace never realized?
That faith is impossible to overlook now. It wraps itself around Michinaga’s entire being, radiating with so much warmth and kindness that Ace can’t help but want to reach out and touch it with his own fingers. He raises a hand, carefully as to give Michinaga ample time to back away if so desired. Michinaga eyes it warily, but doesn’t stop him when all it does is caress the side of his face, a thumb tracing the growing dark spot at the edge of his cheek.
“Yes,” Ace breathes out.
That is what they fought for, what they achieved. And soon, day after peaceful, quiet day, his followers drifted from him. Why rely on a god when you have all the strength you need inside of you? By the time the malevolent jyamato infestation began to encroach on the earth, no one was alive who remembered he was there to ask for help.
“I just wish-” He cuts himself off, not daring to say it aloud. Instead he lets his thumb travel even lower, pulling at Michinaga’s torn bottom lip. The split is slightly swollen and red, but no longer bleeding. Michinaga’s breath hitches, the skin around his nose turning a fetching shade of pink. Ace doesn’t realize he’s been leaning into Michinaga’s space until a voice stops him in his tracks.
“My, my. What’s all this?”
Though Ace merely stills, Michinaga’s startles quite badly, pulling away from him. Annoyed, Ace glances over to where his past self stands, arms crossed and expression unreadable.
“Geats, this-”
“I thought something felt off,” their interloper continues, not letting Michinaga explain. “That wasn’t a real gate, was it?”
Ace smirks despite himself, or perhaps to spite himself, and makes his customary fox gesture.
“You still have a lot left to learn,” he says.
The Ace of this time steps forward, his eyes never leaving him until he’s next to Michinaga. He gives him a quick once-over, checking for any signs of further injury before putting Ace back in his sights.
“Okay?” he asks to the side, but Michinaga just scoffs.
“Obviously!”
“Just how long do you plan to extend this little visit of yours?”
“Until I’m satisfied,” Ace says in a clipped tone. He isn't used to having his actions questioned anymore, by anyone. He’ll leave when he’s good and ready and not a moment before.
“Satisfied, you say.”
The glare becomes a calculating look, and Ace wonders if this is what it’s like to be on the receiving end of his own scheming mind. Is this how he made others feel when a particularly clever idea led to an amused, condescending grin? His past self turns to Michinaga, brazenly combing his fingers through hair that’s still wet.
“How about it, Buffa? For the greater good?”
Not following in the slightest, Michinaga’s eyes dart between them.
“Hah?”
-
This isn’t quite what he had meant, but Ace can’t deny the genius behind it.
“You’re both out of your damn minds!”
Michinaga appears to disagree.
“Blame him, if you must,” Ace says.
Even though he devests himself of responsibility, he doesn’t move from his spot at Michinaga’s feet, going so far as to place a hand on one of his knees. Michinaga jumps, shooting him a glare from where he’s splayed out on the futon and snapping his legs closed in defiance. His upper body is leaned back into the Ace he knows best. Arms hold him fast, gentle yet resistant to his fidgeting.
“Buffa,” Ace’s younger self says, pressing his lips against Michinaga’s ear. Ace just barely manages to make out what is whispered. “You know I’d never share you with anyone but myself. Isn’t this a golden opportunity?” Those words are unreasonably bold, but their effect is immediate. The redness in Michinaga’s face pours into his neck and down to his chest.
“Tch, seriously…?”
Slowly, his body relaxes, all of the performative reluctance melting away as his legs part. Ace is a bit stunned by this sudden cooperation, but he’s never been one to let an opportunity slip him by, so he moves between them. Michinaga stubbornly refuses to look at either of them and instead burns a hole into the wall. It's as close to bashful as Ace has ever seen him.
“So generous,” Ace praises, his fingers tracing the band of the sleep pants.
As irritated as Michinaga pretends to be by that, it doesn’t change the way his own anticipation has him gripping the blazer sleeves of the man behind him who kisses his temple in encouragement, mindful of the wound at his forehead.
“When has he ever given anything but his all?”
“I suppose that’s true,” Ace admits.
“What does any of that have to do with this?” Michinaga asks, his lips pressing into a thin, embarrassed line. It’s adorable how poorly he takes compliments. It makes Ace want to embarrass him further, to bully more of those cute expressions out of him that Ace only recalls seeing on the rarest of occasions.
His counterpart beats him to it, so quick to find an avenue worth exploiting.
“Eeh~? Are you saying it’s not just your nature?” Ace’s younger self teases. “Doesn’t that mean you like me so much you want even more of me?”
“Like hell it does! I can barely stand one of you!”
“So dishonest,” Ace says, delighting in the way Michinaga squirms, anxious, like he can’t decide if he wants to posture in intimidation or shrink down so small that they lose interest. Unfortunately for him, there’s nowhere to go, caught as he is between the two of them like this. “You say one thing and your body says another.” He runs his hand over the growing hardness that’s begun to form a tent in Michinaga’s pants.
“Mnn-oi!” Michinaga’s hands fly to his shoulders, but they don’t follow through on pushing him away. Instead, fingers curl into the white coat and his eyes fall closed against his will. “It’s- that’s just… because you-” He can’t manage to get out a full sentence as Ace touches him through the fabric, his lower body making aborted motions as he tries not to rock up into the hand.
Let him have his little denials. They make his contradictory reactions all the more delicious.
Hands run slowly down Michinaga’s front, slipping underneath the band of the pants to mold palms against the harsh angles of his hips. Ace’s younger self places a kiss on Michinaga’s head, behind his ear, on the swell of his cheek.
“It’s okay. I like you just as much. Maybe more. You know that, don’t you?”
Michinaga’s frown turns wobbly at that, and Ace stares at it in fascination.
Does he like that? Wouldn’t something so gentle be far too soft, too sweet, for someone like him? But Ace can’t argue with the way Michinaga’s body sinks back into his counterpart’s chest.
“Who asked you to?” Michinaga mumbles, even though he tilts his head to let the other man press another kiss to his jawline.
Ace feels something akin to shame; it never even occurred to him to try such cloying romantic gestures. Why would it? The Michinaga he remembers was only interested in the purely physical act, a quick venting of the tension that had grown between them for so long. Over and done with and never spoken of again after that. At the time, that had been enough.
But Ace wants this, too. All of the affection he kept locked away for fear of it being rejected in disdain, he wants to cover Michinaga in it now, have him submit to it willingly like he’s doing with Ace’s past self. This may be the only chance he'll ever get.
The pants come off easily, tossed to the side while Ace’s hands run over newly revealed flesh. Bony knees are a mess of bruises and small cuts. Ace lifts one, placing his own kisses along battered skin; his to create, his to soothe. So many injuries made by his own hand. Should he make sure all of them receive the same treatment? He does his best, setting out to find as many as he can.
Michinaga fidgets again, but he doesn’t pull away from Ace’s hands or lips, letting him kiss all the way up his thigh and to his midsection. Ace reaches the fresh scar near his center, just under his heart. The deadly wound he suffered today has been mended together with something that looks less like flesh the longer one looks at it. Still, it’s warm under Ace’s mouth, and he can feel the strong heartbeat beneath it.
“This is… weird,” Michinaga says in a stilted voice.
“We’ve barely started.”
“It’s not funny!”
Michinaga cranes his head back to throw the chuckling man behind him a dirty look. The two of them gaze at each other with unguarded familiarity, a comfortable repertoire born from adversity and time and trust. Already, Ace’s touches are being forgotten in favor of this little stand-off they’re having with one another. It spurs Ace to move back down, purposefully licking a long stripe on the inside of Michinaga’s thigh, just to get that precious attention on him again.
“H-hey!” Flustered, Michinaga turns away from the other man, and Ace maintains eye contact as he bites teasingly into the sensitive area as punishment for ignoring him. He can’t stay mad forever, though. Not when the moan that Michinaga lets slip is so gratifying.
“This world’s champion never did receive his prize, did he?”
“Prize?” Michinaga asks.
“Ah, that’s true,” his younger self agrees in good humor. His fingertips trail a sensual line down Michinaga’s sternum. “But which of us has the better reward?”
How absurd. That earlier, moral victory is giving this past version of himself more confidence than is warranted. As if he could provide anything Ace can’t. A sense of competitiveness, once long dormant, stirs and bubbles to the surface. He dips his head low, running his tongue along the crease where Michinaga’s leg meets his pelvis, tasting the salt of his skin. The stuttered breath and the fingers that dig into his shoulders are a point for him.
“Geats!”
Michinaga’s shouting is hushed by the man holding him up, his wandering hand finding and toying with a nipple until it hardens. Fingers pinch and pull and rub into the sore muscles of his chest, eliciting another gasp. He wriggles in their hands, but not out of discomfort, meaning they must be even again now.
But Ace can do much better than that. He rises again, laving at the other side of Michinaga’s chest and bringing the beaded nub between his teeth in a soft bite. Michinaga grips his white hair too tightly, causing a groan to claw itself from Ace’s throat.
So tough, yet so responsive to any touch. Ace isn’t much better, really. The delightful sting in his scalp and the feeling of Michinaga against his tongue are doing truly awful things to him. Stimuli like these have no place in the digital lives of humanity in his future, making the experience strangely nostalgic. The last time he connected with someone like this was…
It was his first and last time with Michinaga a millenia ago, before he accepted the burden of godhood. Truthfully, there’s no one else he’d rather be sharing this with again. It’s not as though the two of them are alone now, however.
“Well, Buffa?” he asks, blowing air on the skin wet with his saliva.
“Well… what?”
“Which of us is doing better?”
“I don’t know!” Michinaga tells him. “Does it matter?” Both Aces go completely still. Michinaga looks at one and then the other, becoming increasingly unnerved as they stare at him. “What?!”
“Sometimes I forget how cruel you can be,” Ace’s younger self sighs. Michinaga blinks, taken aback.
“Hah?”
“Please think before you speak,” Ace says.
“You can both go to hell!” Michinaga elbows the man behind him and then pulls at Ace’s hair, forcing his head back a little. An electric tingle races down Ace’s spine, but he does his best to keep an indecent noise from leaving his mouth. “If you don’t stop screwing with me, I’ll crush you!”
“That’s not the kind of incentive you think it is,” he can’t help but say. His body reacts a little too strongly when Michinaga looks at him with what Ace easily recognizes as the urge to punch him in the face. Yes, please…
But even if he wanted to, the hand not in Ace’s hair is suddenly captured by Ace's past self. He kisses torn, purpling knuckles before darting a tongue between thin fingers and nipping at their tips. It effectively derails Michinaga’s wrath, putting him on the defensive again where he's trying not to vocalize how much he likes it.
Disappointment at his delayed pummeling probably isn’t the proper response to have, yet Ace feels it anyway.
“We’ll just have to get serious, then,” his younger self says after kissing Michinaga's palm. The devious half-smile he gives Michinaga could double as a warning. He spares a quick glance to Ace. “After you.”
Ace assesses him for a moment. It’s not like himself to give up the opening move. There must be some advantage he gets out of giving Ace the go ahead like this. He decides to test the waters, starting simple by mouthing openly at Michinaga’s pronounced collarbone, letting his teeth rake against the ridges. Michinaga sucks in sharp breath, a shiver running through his body.
And just as Ace suspected, his other self immediately ups the ante. He brings two of Michinaga’s fingers into his mouth, sucking on them with a slow, measured bob of his head before just as slowly dragging his lips back up and pulling his own special sound out of Michinaga.
“What are you guys doing?” Michinaga asks them, words heavy and genuinely at a loss. “This isn’t-mmm… Do you really have to do all of this?”
Of course they do. Ace needs to. To do anything less would be to forfeit yet again to his past self and he’ll be damned if that happens twice in one day.
“You should be paying attention,” Ace says, dipping his tongue into the hollow of Michinaga’s throat and feeling the vibrations of his voice when Ace presses his clothed erection down onto Michinaga’s naked one. A simple roll of his hips is enough to have the body beneath him pushing up into his. “Who is making you feel good?”
“Geats-”
“Who?”
“Now, now,” his counterpart chides. “Rushing the judge is against the rules.” Though he says this, he still reaches down to caress one of Michinaga’s thighs, urging it further to the side so that Ace fits more easily in the valley of his legs. “But I think I’ll allow it~”
Ace lets him know exactly what he thinks of his little pity maneuver when he locks eyes with him over Michinaga’s shoulder and grinds down. Michinaga cries out, his body going bow-string taut for a second as his cock is forced to rub against the rough material of Ace’s trousers. Ace doesn’t relent, intent on making sure his younger self regrets recklessly giving up this ground.
The man doesn’t seem overly concerned yet, instead breaking his staring match with Ace in order to gaze at Michinaga’s profile as his face contorts in pleasure. He’s obviously far more interested in what all of this is doing to Michinaga specifically than whatever battle they’re currently engaged in. He plants leisurely kisses on a bare, bruised shoulder, adding a little comfort to the forceful attack from Ace’s end. It seems to help Michinaga relax, their opposing strategies evening the other out and allowing him to withstand the sensations.
Open panting draws Ace’s eyes to Michinaga’s full lips. They’re practically inviting him to have a taste. He leans up to dutifully oblige, but a hand suddenly wraps around Michinaga’s mouth, blocking Ace from reaching it. He casts an irritated glare at himself.
“Don’t get greedy,” he’s told.
His stomach rolls with a wave of jealousy as he watches his younger self turn Michinaga’s head to the side just to steal the kiss he wanted so badly. He’s only allowed to catch glimpses of the tongue he should be savoring, forced to watch Michinaga eagerly indulge in someone else. A pleased sound comes up from deep inside his chest, becoming a high, needy thing that is devoured by the selfish glutton he’s trapped against.
So, this is the ground he’s unwilling to give up.
Though now a vague memory, Ace can still recall his own surprise when their first time together ended with Michinaga straddling his lap and keeping him in place for several minutes longer by way of his demanding mouth. He enjoys this type of intense kissing almost as much as he enjoys sex, maybe more. Ace is loath to admit it, but his past self has made a strong play. He’ll have to work twice as hard now.
Underhanded moves like this are surely why people used to call him an insufferable bastard.
The hand leaving his hair to clutch at his opponent is the last straw. If he can’t have his lips on Michinaga’s, he’ll put them to use on the next best thing. His fingers dig into the legs parted around him and lift them to rest over his shoulders. That’s the only warning Michinaga gets before he’s taken into Ace’s mouth completely, a nose reaching all the way down against his pelvis. The kiss abruptly ends as he cries out and his lower body jolts.
Thighs squeeze around Ace’s head and heels dig into his back, and isn’t that a far better reaction than a mere kiss can obtain? He grasps hips to keep them still while he moves his mouth at an unhurried pace. The way they strain in his hands, the pulse thrumming against Ace’s tongue, the feeling of muscles jumping every time his nose or hair brushes against the ticklish skin of Michinaga’s stomach; it all goes to his head in a way godlike power never could.
He does everything he can to make the pleasure as excruciating as possible, intent on driving Michinaga mad with it. From the sounds of the broken whimpering Michinaga tries to quell, Ace is doing a fine job of it, but the hand never returns to his head. Ace reluctantly pulls up to find out why, unhappy when he sees Michinaga’s wrists being held captive.
“That’s cheating!” he says.
“Is it?” his counterpart asks. The tone is deceptively flippant, the look anything but playful.
The body beneath him squirms, stopping Ace from arguing further. Michinaga is watching him with pleading eyes, lips caught between his teeth to keep himself from doing something as humiliating as begging for more. He doesn’t need to. His desire is practically a physical force, pulling at Ace’s very being to fulfill.
Pleasing him is now so much more important than Ace’s own satisfaction. He quickly licks at his fingers to wet them, then returns his mouth to its work. This time, his fingers assist, teasing at Michinaga’s entrance before one slips inside, soon followed by the other.
“Ah-hha!”
Hot, convulsing walls clench around his fingers, pulling them in. Ace pays loving attention to all of Michinaga’s sweet spots, relishing in something as simple as the warmth of another flesh and blood human being. His hands perhaps remember better than he does, seeking out the places that had Michinaga willingly yielding to him during their one night together.
He gives Michinaga everything his body asks for and more. Or maybe not enough. While Ace is occupied below, his younger self has set upon sucking a series of marks into Michinaga’s neck, perfectly exposed as it is with his head thrown back onto a supportive shoulder.
“Is he giving you what you need?” the man asks into Michinaga’s throat. He lets go of one wrist to place his hand on the quivering muscles of Michinaga’s abdomen. “Poor thing. You seem so frustrated.”
Ace catches the smug look he throws down at him. Not about to stand by and be slandered like that, he adds another finger, pressing even deeper. Michinaga twists his hips, at first to pull away from the unexpected intensity and then back down to chase it.
“Geats! Damnit, just-Nnnhg!”
He’s so gorgeous like this, desperate and falling to pieces. When his freed hand finally finds its way back to Ace’s head where it belongs, Ace rewards him by redoubling his efforts with both lips and tongue. The harder Michinaga pulls, the closer Ace knows he is.
But just as their fight had been so rudely interrupted, he is once again made to stop before he can finish Michinaga off.
The legs are lifted off of his shoulders and Ace lets Michinaga slip from his mouth to see just what the hell his other self is up to now. Michinaga’s displeased whine ends in an angry growl, his fingers digging into Ace’s skull to get him to go back down. As much as he would love to do that, Ace instead takes hold of Michinaga’s hand to keep his head up, then withdraws his fingers to try and reclaim a leg.
“Stop interfering,” he warns.
“Relax. I’m only helping.”
“Quit messing around! Both of you!” Michinaga yells. He plants his foot in the middle of Ace’s chest and starts grinding his knuckles into the side of the other’s head.
“Buffa, that hurts.”
“Get bent!”
Rather than do anything to stop him from punishing his younger self, Ace shucks off his heavy coat, then grips the ankle of the foot holding him at bay. Michinaga freezes and looks at him with suspicion. Ace holds his stare, kissing the top of his foot and beginning to work his way up a second time, licking at shallow scratches and sucking at the bruises already there to make them darker as he goes.
“What to do,” he sighs dramatically. “It’s embarrassing to see myself behave so childishly. Should I apologize on his behalf?”
Finally, that smug expression worn by his past self falls.
“Childish?”
“Hey, you two…”
“I suppose that’s the folly of youth,” Ace laments, sliding up closer to Michinaga and working himself free from his trousers. “Children do love their games, after all.” He gathers the mixture of saliva and precum from Michinaga’s cock, causing him to twist at the unexpected sensation. Ace uses it to coat his own, then lifts Michinaga’s hips in preparation.
“Heh,” his counterpart laughs, and it’s a hollow, unimpressed sound. “Pretty big talk coming from an impotent god.” The bitterness is so obvious and the words so provoking that even Michinaga glances back at him nervously.
“Oh?” Ace asks before he buries himself to the hilt inside of Michinaga’s ass.
Michinaga’s back arches sharply, barely able to cut off the keening wail that’s forced out of him. Lacking his earlier composure, the other Ace drops the leg he’d been holding hostage, scrambling to take Michinaga into his arms. He worryingly tips Michinaga’s head back to gauge how much pain he’s in only to see unfocused eyes and a mouth parted in ecstasy. He calms slightly, giving Ace a bemused look.
“Careful!”
Ace smirks back but ultimately ignores him in favor of continuing to push into Michinaga with deep, staccato motions. He’s riding the high of his petty win against himself, but it doesn’t feel half as good as the intoxicating heat wrapped around him, and even that can’t compare to what he’s hearing. His measured and deliberate thrusts are producing the loveliest moans and shallow gasps.
“Who knew you had such a pretty voice, Buffa?” he dares to ask aloud.
“Geats, you-! Ahh-nng! Haaa… Asshole!”
Even his insults sound sweet to Ace’s ears. It’s been too long since someone has spoken to him like this. As if he isn’t capable of changing the very fabric of the world around them. As if he’s human. Ace rubs appreciative circles into Michinaga’s hips with his thumbs–a little tenderness to off-set the assault of his thrusts, just the way he now knows Michinaga likes.
Maybe it’s because he’s been too obviously enjoying himself that his counterpart decides to be a nuisance yet again.
Michinaga’s mouth is sealed with another kiss, stifling his pretty little noises, replaced now with wet obscenity. He’s making a show of it, playing with Michinaga’s lips, his tongue, running fingers along the column of his neck and under his chin. Ace hisses out in sharp, cutting pleasure when Michinaga tightens around him every time he’s kissed too deeply for too long. The panting grows ragged and uneven. Each exhale Ace forces out of Michinaga is swallowed whole by his younger self. Michinaga’s chest heaves as he struggles to keep up with them both.
Instead of thrusting forward this time, Ace pulls Michinaga toward him hard enough that his upper body slips into the other man’s lap, away from that troublesome instigator’s mouth. Barely enough air is drawn into his lungs to yell when Ace rolls his hips just right to grind himself into Michinaga's weak spot.
“Careful,” Ace spits back. “He can’t breathe.”
His younger self just laughs.
“What terrible things age does to the memory,” he says, arrogant to a fault. “He likes being a bit breathless, remember?”
He brushes the damp hair out of Michinaga’s face to show off his charmingly dazed expression before unfastening the front of his own slacks and rearranging their bodies slightly. After he works his cock free, he tilts Michinaga’s head toward him who stares blankly at it for a moment.
“Hmm? It’s alright if you don’t think you can.”
The statement does the job of poking at Michinaga’s pride and bringing him to his senses. He spares the man above him a quick, scathing look before giving his attention to the challenge in front of his face.
“As if…”
Ace watches with no small amount of envy as that pink tongue runs flat against the vein and lips open to let the tip be guided inside. It looks so practiced and effortless that Ace has to wonder, as he has silently many times tonight, how often they’ve done this. He does remember Michinaga kissing him until they were both a bitten, winded mess, but he has no recollection of what that mouth feels like around his cock, of how hot that tongue is, or how deeply Michinaga can take him.
He rolls his hips in torturous fashion again, determined not to lose just yet. When it causes Michinaga to moan around the flesh in his mouth, the other man visibly flinches.
“Something the matter?” Ace asks, intentionally doing it again.
“Not at all,” his younger self says through gritted teeth.
“If he’s too much for you, feel free to step out and leave him in more capable hands,” Ace tells him, restarting at a slower pace. But far from backing down, when he rocks into Michinaga’s body, his younger self presses even deeper into Michinaga’s mouth.
“Overconfidence like that won’t-ahh-serve you very well here.”
Slamming a fist against the ground, Michinaga makes an insistent, aggravated noise, his ass clenching down even harder. Both Aces quiet immediately, looking down at him. He doesn’t seem panicked; rather, his legs spread a little wider and he grabs at the hand at his chin with demanding force. If it wasn’t true before, it certainly is now; frustration is evident in every line of him, deeming their efforts inadequate and their constant arguing an annoyance. What he wants is crystal clear.
Will the two of you just fuck me, already?
A temporary truce, then.
Ace transfers his hold from Michinaga’s hips to his waist, fingers curling against sweat-slicked skin. He pulls out centimeter by agonizing centimeter before plunging back inside. His movements become less mechanical in their rhythm, instead paying closer attention to the way Michinaga reacts to every thrust; where he likes it most, how hard, how fast. The deeper the better, it seems, at varying intensity. In this moment, Ace only lives to serve, and he commits himself fully to his duty.
Likewise, his counterpart runs his fingers through Michinaga’s hair as he sways forward, feeding his cock between kiss-swollen lips. Every time he thinks he’s gone far enough, Michinaga makes a needier sound. It’s not until the head is regularly brushing against the back of his throat that his moans turn gratified.
The room fills with the most vulgar and arousing sounds. The punctuated slap of skin when Ace's thighs meet Michinaga’s ass; the vocal, wet choking every time he takes the other man into his throat. There’s a disorienting reverberation happening, the twin echoes of their own pleasured sighs and heavy breaths possibly adding to Michinaga’s dizziness. All of it feels so much louder than it should be, but perhaps that’s because nothing else in the world matters right now other than this.
Ace spends the next few minutes focusing only on the walls molding themselves to his cock and the body held within his hands. There's a tension building in his gut that he chases with vigor before easing off to let it fade, all so he can build it back up again in a devastating pattern that makes Michinaga writhe and whine in the most endearing way.
He's not sure how he's meant to return to his existence of detached apathy after this. The very thought of separating from Michinaga is anathema to him. If only they could stay like this, locked together in the height of each other's bliss, forever.
But the onslaught of both Aces’ attentions has its threshold, and Michinaga is rapidly reaching his limit. It's clear in the way his muscles contract and hands twist into the bedding. He has stubbornly refused to let the overwhelmed tears at the corners of his eyes fall, but his face is so red and his chest still struggles for air. One has to wonder what it’s all in service of; they already know how strong he is. Have they not earned the privilege of seeing him at his weakest?
It shouldn’t take much to get him there and the sight of him like this, so close to being beautifully undone, has Ace feeling merciful. He takes hold of Michinaga’s erection, stroking him in time with the movements of his hips. He then leans down to drag his tongue over the large scar on Michinaga’s torso, nibbling at the strangely textured skin and wondering if it's just as sensitive as the rest of him. Legs twitch and toes curl, but somehow Michinaga still holds out.
As if sensing his dilemma, Ace’s younger self smirks knowingly. He attacks from a different angle, using the fingers buried in Michinaga’s hair to gently massage his scalp. He presses deep into Michinaga’s throat for a few seconds before retreating and speaking softly to him.
"You've been doing so well,” he says, tracing Michinaga’s stretched mouth that’s dripping with saliva, precum, a small bead of blood from the reopened split at the corner of his lip. “Taking the two of us on like this. Is there anything you can’t do, Buffa?”
At any other moment than this, Ace has no doubt that Michinaga would take that as condescension and act accordingly against them. But right now, all Michinaga can do is respond with a high groan that is rewarded with more sweet words.
“Can you feel how badly we need you? You really are almost too much." And then the scoundrel has the audacity to take a cheap, targeted shot when he asks, "How could I possibly live without you, now?"
It’s an unexpected, painful stab in Ace’s chest. But before he can call the wretch out, Michinaga is suddenly coming in his hand and on his cock, almost tipping him over the edge as well. The only thing holding him back is the acrid taste of defeat in failing to be the one bringing Michinaga to release. Even the climax they should have shared has been denied him at the last possible moment.
Insufferable. Bastard.
Michinaga’s body goes slack, and the two of them finally relent. Ace slowly pulls out for now, glaring at his soiled hand, incredulous, and his opponent backs away to let Michinaga breathe properly for the first time in a handful of minutes. Michinaga lies there, torso a mess with semen and sweat, fighting to catch his breath and staring unseeing up at the ceiling, his body occasionally wracked with tremors.
Ace’s counterpart pushes back his own hair, looking far too pleased with himself.
"I do believe that's my win!"
"Best two out of three," Ace immediately demands.
"Of course, of course~"
Still attempting to pull himself together, Michinaga's head lulls to the side at the sound of them speaking, only barely registering what’s being said. His voice is almost completely ruined when he eloquently asks,
"Wha...?"
"Buffa, you aren't tapping out just yet, are you? We were just getting ready for Round 2."
“Please continue to take care of us,” Ace tells him.
Michinaga is suddenly fully aware again. He looks between the two of them and realizes with dawning horror that they're both still hard.
"Round... Round 2?!”
-
The apartment’s bedroom window doesn’t offer what anyone would call a good view, but through it one can still see the faint light of morning beginning to creep over the city. The early hours come with a measure of peace and quiet before the world wakes; the day after a calamity averted.
Ace lets the curtain fall closed, looking back down at the futon and its sole occupant. Michinaga is curled up on his side, snoring lightly and dead to everything around him as he clutches his pillow tightly to his chest and mumbles in his sleep.
“Stupid jerk… Geats…”
Cute. He’s so cute, sometimes.
No doubt he’ll have plenty of other harsh things to say about the added marks and aches to his already exhausted, beleaguered body. Ace wishes he could stay to hear them, but it's nearly time for him to leave.
It all feels unfair, even though he knows perfectly well that it isn’t. He doesn’t belong here. There was no intention to stay longer than it would take to rid the future of the destruction it was destined to face. The Jyamato God has been neutralized, by someone other than himself, yes, but all that matters is that it is done. He should have been home by now.
Ace kneels down next to the bedding, reaching out to Michinaga for a moment before thinking twice and retracting his hand. He’s already touched more than he should have, taken more than he should have. To think he’s owed anything else would be shameless. And yet…
“How long would you be angry with me if I spirited you away?” he asks the sleeping man quietly.
Too long, but possibly not forever. That’s such a poisonous thought, altogether too tempting, too within his power to make a reality. Maybe the tangible warmth of Michinaga’s company would make the cold, artificial, uncaring world of his time bearable, enough for Ace to hold on a little longer for the possibility of a day that things might change for the better.
“Being greedy again?”
Ace closes his eyes, hiding Michinaga’s sleeping face from himself before he turns his head. The true god of this era watches him intently from where he’s leaning against the doorframe to the bathroom, first aid kit in hand.
“Don’t forget, he has an important promise to keep today.”
Right. The boy.
Ace stands and backs off when his past self comes to take his place on the floor. The kit is meticulously laid out as careful hands begin to clean the gash at Michinaga's brow thoroughly before placing a bandage over it. The blanket is pulled down to address his other injuries and Ace finds he has to look anywhere else. He's maintained such disciplined control over himself for a thousand years; just the thought of taking advantage is all it takes for it to come apart. Pathetic. He's become so laughably weak.
When the gate opens near the front door of the apartment, Ace wastes no time marching toward it.
"To the victor go the spoils," he says in parting, but he stops just shy of the portal when he hears his counterpart speak.
“It seems that I become something of a sore loser in the future.”
His habit of needing to have the last word is coming back to haunt him. Ace refuses to look at the other man, hands balling into fists at his sides.
“The most I can hope for is a few more happy memories with him. At least do me the courtesy of making them unforgettable.”
“A sore loser and a pessimist. These aren’t good looks for me.”
Ace finally rounds on him, to do or say what, he’s not sure, but he comes up short at the sight of his younger self securing a length of gauze around Michinaga’s upper arm, carefully laying it back down once he’s finished. How many times did he ache to do the same for the Michinaga he knew? Every time his rival stormed past him with a cut on his cheek or a limp in his step. Far too often and never within his right to do so. Ace tries to take a calming breath, urging that ache inside to stay buried down in the numbness he’s lived with for so long.
“What else do you expect from me?” he asks. If he truly held all the answers in the past, shouldn’t that wisdom still remain within him? Or were these revelations external? He has an idea of where they came from, but that person is no longer his. To hold for a time, but never to keep. So why-
"Remember, faith is a two-way street. You should try to have a little of your own. You’d be surprised how much of the world that has the power to change."
Ace looks at his counterpart directly then, seeing more sincerity there than he has the whole night. For whatever reason, it sparks the memory of Michinaga smiling at that child in his mind.
“Don’t worry, you won’t ever be alone.”
Change the world? He’s not asking for something so grand anymore. All he wants is that one simple promise.
"Still trying to impart lessons to your elders?" he asks.
"Depends on how willing they are to be taught."
Ace lets himself laugh a little. There’s so much certainty in the things he says that Ace can’t help but want to believe them with everything he is. That somehow, someway, everything will work out. That when he returns, there will be someone there to stand beside him.
How odd. He might actually be feeling hopeful.
"Buffa was right," he says with a small smile, turning back to the gate. "I really am annoying to the very end."
He takes a breath, makes a wish, and steps through the gate.