You Know You Wanna

Athrun/Kira

Rating: M

a/n Hey M—It's nice to hear from a familiar reviewer. ;) Thanks for still liking my story enough to come back after an entire year.

And thanks to all of the new fans, too. I do enjoy the lovely feedback…

However, that same lovely feedback seems to have slowed to a mere drizzle lately. There is but two reviews for the last chapter, and it's been several weeks. I'm losing interest in this fic again; urm, so, there won't be any more chapters until I hear from some of you, okay? Last chance…

5: You Know You Really Wanna

Kira was curled up under the covers, now somewhat dry. The room was still relatively cool, but compared to the spring shower outside it was slightly warmer. Athrun wondered if he was really asleep, or if he'd been awake to hear his recent conversation with "Fiona Apple."

Making as little noise as possible, he slipped out of his jeans—they'd been most uncomfortable when he'd fallen asleep on the couch—and lay down on the bed next to Kira. For some reason, he had no desire to sleep now. Instead, however, he felt the overwhelming need to talk to Kira. The only problem was that Kira was asleep. When Athrun had stirred the bed ever so slightly, Kira had not moved, and his breathing remained level and deep.

The rain outside was slowing. Athrun listened as the pat pat pat of water grew fainter and fainter. The air conditioner made a subtle hummm that reminded Athrun the room was slightly on the cold side. With Kira having stolen the majority of the covers and bundled himself up into a cocoon, Athrun could hardly wake him to steal them back. He wanted to, but…

As he stood up to turn off the AC, an ambulance's siren suddenly blared out of nowhere, just outside their window. The loudness of it startled Athrun so much his knees gave way and he fell flat on his ass. And it woke up Kira.

The brown-haired boy blinked in a comatose stupor, his short hair frizzy and sticking in wild directions as it had dried in the room. When his violet eyes met Athrun's bewildered stare where he sat in the floor, his confused expression turned to one of irritation. He turned over.

"Kira," Athrun said, trying to sound as nice as possible, "I need to talk to you."

"Do you know what time it is, Athrun? Because I'm pretty sure it's too late to be having conversation. I'm tired. Let me go back to sleep."

Athrun looked down at his feet. He didn't have the heart to get back into bed with Kira. "I—no. I need to talk to you now. This can't wait."

"Too bad."

"Kira…" Athrun's voice was pleading now. "You left before I could…say anything."

Kira was silent for a long time. If he responded to that statement, it would mean he was willing to talk to Athrun at God knows how early in the morning. If he didn't, he could go to sleep, have nightmares about trying to save red-haired princesses from blue-haired dragons, and wake up tomorrow knowing he could call off the bet. He'd call up his lousy excuse for a sister and tell her she'd just have to go to school and be herself. He wasn't fooling with this anymore.

But then…

"What else was there to say? You said enough."

Athrun's hopes brightened. "When I said… that I had to sleep with her, I didn't mean that I had any feelings toward her."

"Okay."

The silence returned, and Athrun started to wonder if Kira was expecting him to say something else. "I, uh, don't think you've said the real reason for running out so abruptly."

So he was going to make Kira say it, huh? Fine. Kira didn't care anymore. He was so sick of them pretending, or what he thought they were pretending, that he just didn't give a shit. He'd say it, all right.

"Athrun, I like you—"

"Okay," Athrun replied casually, "we've already established this—"

"—in an intimate way…I think…"

"You…do?"

"Yes. I do." Kira's voice broke, and it was then that Athrun realized he was crying. "And I…I thought you did too… I thought… I dunno what I thought. After you said that you were going to sleep with my sister, I thought I was wrong. I thought you'd done this entire thing to have an excuse to get at the girls from that stupid school… And… I thought I knew you better, you know? I thought you weren't that kind of guy…

"…And then…the way you kissed me; the look in your eyes when you were hovering over me was…" He paused, catching his breath. The memory was still fresh in his mind. "What was that, Athrun?"

Athrun stood up, his legs shaking. He'd acquired a headache in the past minute from Kira's confession. Kira suddenly turned around and glared at Athrun, sitting up on the bed, tears glistening from the dim glow of the night lights through their window. It was such a swift movement that it startled Athrun again. He found himself sitting on the floor again. "Don't you dare say it was practice. I swear, Athrun, if I didn't know you so well I would have let you get away with that. But I'm too tired and too hurt for any more lies. Be forward with me, please."

He didn't know what to say. He had been about to say it was practice. He looked up at the angry scowl on Kira's face and wished he hadn't been trying to think of an easy way to lie around his feelings. "Give me a second, would ya? Even criminals strapped to the chair get last words, don't they?"

"So you're a criminal, are you?" Kira barked a laugh that made an invisible hand tighten around Athrun's heart. It stung. Athrun did not reply; he reasoned Kira was being sarcastically rhetorical.

He knew Kira was glaring at him, but he also knew that the apartment room was pretty much utterly silent. Kira had so far confessed that he had new, stronger feelings for Athrun, and that he'd assumed Athrun had felt the same because of the way they had kissed. Now, it was Athrun's turn to roll the dice. Did he feel the same way? He asked himself this question ten times, silently, in his head, and he got the same answer every time: I don't know. Every single time he tried to pull up the feeling of running his hands up Kira's legs, the memory of the other boy's lips burning against his—even just the thought of Kira's smile after Athrun had cut his hair—every time his pulse quickened and thundered through his veins, his vision flew ever so slightly out of focus, and his head told him to stop thinking those thoughts. It was a defense mechanism. Whatever it was Athrun was feeling, his mind and body were automatically fighting against it.

Kira was still waiting for a reply, Athrun realized. The other boy had not moved except to cross his slender arms across his chest. Some of the resentment had faded from his expression, though. The scowl looked less hate-filled.

Athrun decided to let his thoughts trail down an alley that he'd found several times, but had since been avoiding lest he get the slightest inkling to walk down it. What if… he decided… that… he did like Kira that way…

And suddenly everything was back, vivid in his mind's eye. The kiss, the smile, and… Athrun's cheeks turned pink. The most recent memory of staring at Kira's ass was what had started this whole argument, he thought. But, undeniably, he had been staring, and he had wished his hands were cupping those supple cheeks instead of dangling there at his sides. If Athrun could admit that, then surely he could admit, without too much guilt or insincerity, that he shared Kira's feelings…?

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "When I kissed you, I first had it in mind as a joke. But then, when I felt your lips on mine, I…"

The pause was aggravating Kira, Athrun could tell, but he didn't care. The brunette would like it better this way in the end. Athrun slowly stood up again, his hands shaking now instead of his knees. He approached the bed with caution. The goal was not to frighten Kira, but soothe him.

"…I felt something that I had not expected…"

Kira distinctly gulped. If Athrun hadn't been reading only Kira's face, he would've noticed the hesitation in those purple eyes.

"It felt…well, good, to say the least," Athrun chuckled, now only a foot away from Kira, whose adamant expression was still slightly angry. If this doesn't get him to forgive me, then I don't know what I'll do, Athrun thought. He leaned in, placing his hands on Kira's, pressing him against the mattress and pinning him there. His face was inches from Kira's.

"…but if I were to try and tell you what I really felt, then… I'd have to tell you something like this—"

Kira did not fight Athrun's kiss. It wasn't awkward this time. There was no façade of pretending to be a girl, or "practicing" or anything like that. There was just…them. The connection that they had both craved but shunned was finally re-bridged. It was a simple, warm, close-mouthed, apologizing kiss.

And Kira forgave him. After all, admitting to yourself that you have feelings for your best friend/roommate isn't exactly the easiest thing to do when that friend has the same sex as you, and you've hardly even considered the idea of being gay.

Well, the kiss may have been simple at first, but Athrun's mind wasn't even on the same plane as Kira's. Athrun was running his hands up to Kira's shoulders and gently rocking him back onto the bed. Without breaking the kiss or his rhythm, Athrun pressed his chest onto Kira's and smoothly slid his hips between Kira's legs, pressing…other things. Kira could feel the heat even through his rain-dampened jeans.

Wow… Kira thought. I never would've… I didn't…

Athrun subconsciously asked Kira for more permission by swerving his tongue along Kira's lips. One of his hands had already flown from Kira's shoulder to the bottom his gray tank, tugging it upward in order to expose more skin.

Stopping Athrun was the last thing Kira wanted to do, but what one wants to do is not always the same as what one needs to do. Kira, though reluctantly, clamped his teeth together and his lips closed. He stopped kissing Athrun back.

At fist, this scared Athrun. What if he'd done something terribly wrong and irrevocable? But when he pulled back a bit he saw that Kira was smiling up at him. It calmed his fluttering heart a little bit.

"Athrun," Kira said in a barely audible whisper, "I really need to get some sleep if I am to be Cagalli tomorrow."

He'd meant to remind Athrun about the bet in order to make him go to sleep too, but instead saying his sister's name had reminded Kira of Athrun's other bargain. He faked his smile well enough that Athrun didn't notice. Blinking overly much, Athrun stood back a few feet from Kira, licked his lips thoughtfully, and then shyly curled up on the other side of the bed. Kira leaned over and whispered to Athrun again, "Thank you. It was a very nice kiss."

Athrun loved the feather soft feel of Kira's lips brushing against his ear. In fact, he thought that he loved everything about Kira now. "Hey, Kira?"

"Yeees?" Kira asked, sounding cute.

"S'the bet really still on? I mean, you're sure you don't want to back out…?"

Kira dramatically rolled his eyes and slapped his hand against his cheek, holding it there in an expression of poorly portrayed boredom. Athrun wanted to roll his eyes too, but he didn't because that would've made him seem just as childish and immature as Kira. Instead he watched, hoping the other boy was doing this just to be silly.

And—of course—he was.

"You bet it is."

Unless I change my mind or one of you spares me a review, then this is it.