The Uke Flu

Chapter Thirty-four: Family Ties

Akihiko was sitting on the edge of the bed he shared with Misaki, watching his lover sleep. Aki was napping in the next down at Misaki, Akihiko sighed; he longed for a cigarette.

Misaki had been having nightmares again the last several days. This had driven the young man back to sleeping in the afternoons: it seemed the only time Misaki could truly rest was when he knew it was light outside. After being held virtually blind for so many months while he was captive, he still had a strong fear of waking up in darkness.

Well, at least last night Misaki allowed me to turn the light off. Misaki had tentatively asked that it be kept on throughout the night for each of the three days prior, like he had every night for the first several months after they'd been reunited.

Akihiko frowned. Misaki had repeatedly offered to sleep in another room, so as not to trouble him with this need for light, but he had refused. Despite how it compromised his own sleep, Akihiko couldn't bear the idea of sleeping without Misaki: he was as terrified of waking to find Misaki gone again, his arms empty, as his lover was of the dark.

Two steps forward, one back. Their therapist, Kobayashi, said this would be Misaki's process in healing... And my own. Akihiko reached over and gently stroked a pale cheek. He reveled in the silk of Misaki's skin, the gentle flutter of the younger man's thick eyelashes.

"Misaki…" he whispered in smoky tones.

The restraint he'd been able to cultivate since Misaki had been so blessedly returned to him still amazed Akihiko. Gone were the days when he would awaken his lover simply by pouncing while Misaki was still wrapped in his dreams or by doing something as graceless as sliding a finger (or something else) into Misaki, before the younger man had even fully regained consciousness and had the chance to properly protest.

Green eyes opened slowly and Akihiko saw in them the familiar panic that lasted until Misaki reoriented himself to the world.

"Shhhhhhh, Mi, I'm here." Akihiko soothed. One of his long fingers pushed a sleep-tousled lock of hair from Misaki's cheek back behind the ridge of an ear. That this immediately stilled the wild fear in his lover's eyes gave Akihiko a terrible pleasure.

"Mmmmmmmm…" Misaki looked up, blushing already as he beheld Akihiko from under lids still weighted with his recent sleep. Knowing he was safe and his seme was near, Misaki settled, sighed, and stretched. He reached out and took Akihiko's hand in his and pulled it up, nestling it under his chin. Misaki offered Akihiko a crooked smile.

"Where's Aki, Usagi-san?"

"Still napping in the other room."

"Was I out for long?"

"A few hours, but I think you needed the rest. I would have left you longer, but Hiroki called and said he'd come by today for his lesson after all. He should be here in about forty-five minutes or so." Akihiko secretly hoped that this visit by Hiroki would have the same positive effect on Misaki that the last had. The thought of Kamijou-sensei visiting brought a wider smile to Misaki's face. It was funny how much his feelings towards the professor had changed over the last couple years. He had been so terrified of the "Devil" when he had been his student.

Akihiko leaned over and brushed his lips across Misaki's forehead. He was surprised when he went to pull back to feel Misaki lightly wrap his arms around his neck and gently but firmly hold him there.

Akihiko looked down as Misaki looked up.

"Aki's still asleep, Usagi-san?" Misaki flushed brighter as he asked this and turned his head slightly to the side, avoiding Akihiko's gaze as he waited for the answer.

"Like a most lovely rock." Akihiko's heart thrilled at the unexpected offer held in the query. He wasted no time. The moment Misaki looked back at him and he saw the hesitant hunger held in the green seas of his lover's eyes, he leaned in and captured Misaki's lips. Misaki opened up immediately, and soon their acrobatic tongues were engaged in complex contortions within each other's mouths.

Akihiko moved over further onto the bed, straddling Misaki. He took the younger man's hands in his and pulled them up and around trapping them above Misaki's dark head. He entwined his fingers with Misaki's, further locking his lover down. He hardly noticed anymore, the initially odd sensation that flared when his fingers covered the place on Misaki's left hand where his pinky finger was missing.

Korovin had cut it off and sent it as a taunt when the madman had first discovered the author was hunting him. Akihiko had never told Misaki this, but he'd had the tiny digit cremated and had worn the resulting trace of ash in a pendant around his neck the entire time he had been searching for him, determined to keep his Misaki with him at all times, whether in life or death.

Akihiko pushed this macabre memory from his mind. As he did so, he was simultaneously filled with overwhelming rage at what had been done to his beloved and an indescribable gratitude that the gods had brought Misaki, however damaged, back to him alive. He leaned down and lavished his thanks on his green-eyed heart.

Beneath Akihiko, Misaki made soft sounds of pleasure as his lover's mouth catalogued all his most sensitive spots: just the below and to the back of his ears, the outer corners of his eyes, along the base of his jaw.

Akihiko's skilled tongue traced the length of Misaki's neck. He kissed the Adam's apple made prominent as Misaki tipped his head back and arched his neck in pleasure and nipped along Misaki's collar bones. Under him, Akihiko could feel his partner's mounting arousal through the thin fabric of the loose cotton pants the younger man was wearing.

Akihiko released Misaki's arms and slid down between lean thighs. He pushed Misaki's shirt up slightly and then moved his hands to the top of his lover's pants, releasing the drawstring. He was about to lean over and offer some oral attention to the taut stomach he'd just revealed, when Misaki suddenly reached down, grabbed the ends of his shirt with both hands and pulled it back down.

Resting his silver head atop a now shirt-covered belly, Akihiko growled in frustration.

Not long after Aki was born, Misaki had begun a series of painful laser treatments to gradually erase the record of Korovin's abuse from his body. Now only the worst of his scars remained and most of these too would soon be gone or barely visible with two or three more treatments. Still, the younger man was very self-conscious, more so than he'd been when Akihiko first met him. Despite Akihiko's constant declarations of love of his body, regardless of its scars, Misaki would only allow access to most of his skin now when they were shrouded in shadows.

Akihiko looked up into apologetic eyes. Instantly, his frustration dissolved. It returned, however, when Misaki's face changed and took on a particular expression.

"Usagi-san, please…" Misaki's tone was hopeful. Akihiko pushed himself up; he knelt, straddling Misaki's lower legs.

"No, Misaki, we agreed we weren't going to do that anymore. Dr. Kobayashi said it wasn't healthy for you."

"Please… A… Akihiko."

The author shivered at the reluctant need that filled his lover's eyes and the sound of his first name from Misaki's mouth. Even after over almost three years together, it was an appellation rarely used.

"Misaki…" Akihiko sighed. His mind was filled with conflict, but as soon as he saw Misaki bite a trembling lower lip, his resistance crumbled.

"Shhhhh… It's okay, Love," Akihiko murmured softly as he climbed back up the length of Misaki's lithe frame. He kissed blushing cheeks and then leaned over and opened the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed. He pulled out a long silk sash, verdant in color, like his beloved's eyes.

Misaki's color increased and he refused to meet his lover's gaze as he freely offered Akihiko his hands. Akihiko took them and gently bound Misaki's wrists, making sure that, though it would be difficult, Misaki could pull out of the bindings if he really needed to. Then he tied the ends of the sash to the wooden bars at the head of their bed.

How they had arrived at this particular resolution as a way to help Misaki relax and reach release, Akihiko could not remember. It bothered him greatly to think about how this act connected to his boy's earlier confinement, but on another level he knew that Misaki drew strange comfort somehow in the illusion that his Usagi-san was completely in control.

Once the sash was secured, Akihiko slid back down. He pushed Misaki's shirt up, despite the quiet protests above him. If Misaki was going to make him do this; he was going to use it to his fullest advantage. Akihiko had been erect, but he'd softened a bit in the process of tying the sash. Now, however, watching the expectant flush spread over his lover's unobstructed torso, he was quickly hard again.

Misaki moaned as he felt Usagi-san's ardent arousal press against him. He moaned louder when Akihiko pushed his shirt up further and teased the tender buds of his nipples, alternating his attentions, so that both felt equally attended. Misaki watched the silver head slip lower; the sensual mouth devouring his flat abdomen.

When Usagi-san nuzzled Misaki's navel, he writhed in ecstasy and clung tighter to the silk connecting his bound hands to the bed: in the months before Aki's birth, this area of his body had become amazingly sensitive and remained so, even now. Given this, the sensation of touch, skin against skin, was unbearably intimate.

When Akihiko finally reached the place he'd last left off, Misaki hissed in need and lifted his hips to help Usagi-san divest him of his pants. His rigid length was weeping with want. Akihiko was about to take it into his mouth when suddenly the buzzer for the door sounded.

Misaki started, drawing his knees up. Akihiko cursed.

"God damn Hiroki and his earliness!" He moved off Misaki, propped himself on his side, and struggled to free his cell phone from the front pocket of his pants. This task was made much more difficult due to the tautness of the fabric, stretched by his engorgement. Finally securing his phone, he hit Hiroki's number on auto-dial. Akihiko could just barely make out the sound of his friend's phone below, ringing outside the apartment door.

"Problem?" Hiroki asked when he answered, surprised to see Akihiko's number flash.

"Baby's sleeping; you're early; and Misaki is currently engaged. Fuck off for about half an hour, will you?" Akihiko articulated each phrase in a growl between pants.

"Sure." Hiroki blushed, knowing instantly what was going on behind the door in front of him. Then he realized Akihiko had already hung up.

Upstairs the two lovers waited breathlessly, listening to the baby monitor to see if Hiroki's ill-timed buzz had awakened Aki, but no sound came from the baby's room. Akihiko and Misaki exhaled simultaneously in relief.

"Okay, Usagi-san, untie me." Misaki pulled lightly on his bindings.

"Why? You heard me, Misaki; Hiroki won't be back for half an hour and you can bet your ass he won't be early this time." Akihiko smirked up at his "captive."

"Pervert, Usagi-san!" Misaki exclaimed in a whispered shout, not wanting to wake Aki. "No! I don't want Kamijou-sensei to know what we were doing!" His cheeks were pink and his eyes flashed. For a moment he looked just like the old Misaki.

"He already knows, so why waste it? Besides I'm all stirred up now and won't be able to conduct myself as a proper host unless I get a refill of my Misaki." Akihiko rarely pressed these days, but the moment seemed right. He rolled back over onto his stomach. His long arms wrapped around the thighs of Misaki's still-bent legs and pulled him down towards him.

"Idiot, Usagi, let me go!" Misaki scolded, but a subtle smile curled the corner of his mouth. This disappeared immediately, replaced by an open-mouthed gasp of pleasure, when Akihiko, whose pale eyes witnessed all of this from his position below Misaki's waist, suddenly took his ranting lover into the wet warmth of his eager mouth.

Misaki uttered a few more increasingly feeble no's and then suddenly his back arched and these were followed by a resounding, "Oh, gods, Usagi-san, YES!"

Akihiko smiled to himself around Misaki's cock. He wondered if there was any way he could entice Hiroki to visit them more often.

Sorry for the long wait, all. Rough week. No ANs either, but please know your reviews mean the world to me and I cherish each one.

Kisses,

Cerberus