Black + Gold Jin/Maru
Aug. 1st, 2011 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozing_kittenTitle: Black + Gold
Pairings: Jin/Maru, with some Ueda/Junno, Jin/Kame, Jin/Ueda, and Koki/Maru
Rating: NC-17
Summary: If you were in prison for four years what would be the first thing you did when you got out again? Jin’s got a hooker and a bottle of cheap vodka. He’s also got plans.
Notes: This was one of those things that I didn’t mean to do. I hope you like it! I really do. Thank you to my usual angels, I don’t get very far without you, special thanks to my darling beta![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
irisated you’re too good for this world =P
-- There's no way in hell,
I will let you leave,
Let you just get up,
And walk out on me,
There's no way on earth,
Hell would have to freeze,
More than twice before,
I will let you go— Chase and Status – Let You Go ft. Mali
Jin thought that in another universe, in another time, someplace nice and innocent, this city could have been called something else. Something soft—Los Angeles maybe— and less blunt, not as hopeless as Lost Angels, the place where even the angels come to lose themselves; you don’t find things here.
Jin hadn’t been born there. He moved there when he was five, when it was the only place left for his family. The city had swallowed him whole, like Moby Dick or that fucking whale in Pinocchio. Jin was 26 now, and it was his first day of freedom in 4 years. It was raining; of course it was raining, because his life played like a movie that way. He stood on the road in front of the prison for what seemed like forever, the drizzle slowly flattening his hair to the sides of his face, with the guards at his back and the city at his front. Enemy at the gates and all that. No matter how long he spent thinking about being free, all the things he would do first, he just stood there. Eat a steak, fuck a hooker, drink tea.
Faced with possibility, Jin didn’t know what to do so he turned left and started walking, backpack slung over one shoulder and a fifty in his wallet. He went into prison as Akanshi Jin, son, boyfriend. Well now, now he had something to do at least even if it wasn’t being any of those anymore. There were people who needed to pay, someone who had wronged him, and so if he was Akanishi Jin the avenging angel, then who the fuck else would care?
Ueda was hard to find, his job was to be discreet, deliciously discreet, and devious, devilish even. Only discretion wasn’t what brought his clients to him. No, once you had Ueda, you wanted more, he made himself hard to please, and he made you ache to please him.
Jin would know.
The Bleeding Heart wasn’t a classy place. It was dirty, disgusting, and the pool tables were scratched and nicked, the green torn in places, and a little wobbly. You needed to be ace to win on that table. So the first thing Jin did when he walked in was grin at the old man who owned the bar. Leaf had owned this place since the very beginning of time it seemed, and wore every day as a wrinkle on his potato-like face. Jin ordered a cheap beer and bet the change on the table. He worked the guy, winning a little, losing more until he bet everything he had left.
Now Jin had a hundred bucks, and he set to drinking it all in cheap vodka.
“Out of prison and you already smell like a distillery. What has it been, three hours?” Ueda slipped into the bar stool next to him, leaning forwards on his arms and bracing himself on the scarred bar top.
“I had a bit of a dry spell,” Jin answered. “I forgot that the liquor here tasted like piss.” Actually the taste was more like nail polish remover and petrol.
Ueda smiled at him, black hair falling coyly into his large eyes. “Mighty fine piss.”
“The best,” Jin agreed, flagging the bartender again. This called for shots.
The bar closed, and Leaf mopped around their stools. Jin was leaning on the bar, mostly out of necessity: if he let go the world was going to spin madly out from under him. He was barely holding on as it was.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” Jin said—hold that—slurred. Ueda laughed at him; drinking made him mean—meaner? Ueda was always the most beautiful when he smiled or right when he was about to punch you, and Ueda never really smiled anymore, but he was still stunning.
“I was working.” He shrugged, liquid and smooth. “Got fucked by Detective Ferguson, he’s a big boy. Decided to take some down time. Got things to do anyways.”
Jin never had the flare for networking the way Ueda did. Well, that was probably why Jin ended up in jail, and Ueda was free to work the street. Last news he heard was Ueda was trying his hands at pimping. Jin wondered how that went, and if Ueda got himself one of those ridiculous hats from the movies. “Good to see some things never change.”
“This place will never change.” Ueda tapped the table top. “Not for you, not for me, not for anyone.” That was a low blow. Jin decided to ignore it, if Ueda was going to aim for the balls the only defence he had was to pretend he didn’t notice.
“I’m sure Leaf has to die some time,” Jin answered.
“Shut the hell up,” Leaf yelled from across the room and Jin laughed until his stomach hurt. “Fucking punks.”
Ueda was stronger then he looked, managed to hold Jin up, all the way home. At least Jin assumed he did. He was drunk as, as, as, something really fucking drunk. The trip home happened in starts and stops, gaps in his memory, and scrapes on his knees. The apartment was small, and smelled strongly of water damage, but Jin was face down in a mattress and the smell didn’t matter. The more pressing worry was choking to death on his own vomit. Wouldn’t that be awful? He fucking ran prison, and taken down by—
“Thanks for coming to get me,” he tried to say. But he wasn’t sure it came out, or if it did, if it was too muffled by the bed. Ueda’s weight settled down next to him, skin against his toes (shoes?) and a dizzying heat all down his side.
Jin passed out.
--
“Jin, wake up.”
He rolled over. Something had died in his mouth, something small and furry, and now his tongue was mouldy with it.
“You poisoned me,” he slurred, and Ueda kicked him in the ribs, lightly, but he still curled on his side and stared up at him. Skinny hips, bruises on his rib cage, pale skin, and a scowl. Jin couldn’t help but smile crookedly at him.
“You poisoned yourself.”
Probably true. His stomach hurt, like something was inside him pulling viciously at his guts, and it was entirely possible with the way the world was spinning he was still drunk. Jin hoisted himself out of bed, jeans undone but still on, patch of skin rubbed raw by the zipper. Ueda’s bed was a mattress on the floor, pile of clothes at the bottom.
The place lacked any sort of charm, but hell, it was a step up from his prison cell. There was a rubber duck on the ground near his foot, the only yellow thing in a room full of black jeans and blacker button-downs. There were a few more lying scattered about.
“What the fuck man.” Jin poked it. “You doing acid again?”
Ueda pulled a face. “Those are Junno’s. Guy is psycho.”
Junno was another one of the old gang. Tall, skinny, useful only to reach the top shelf most of the time. Jin hadn’t really bothered to wonder what happened to him, just had sort of assumed he pissed off the wrong guy with a shitty knock-knock joke and was killed for it. Or hit by a car or something. He didn’t expect to find him with Ueda building himself a small army of rubber ducks.
“How many does he have?” Because that was totally the point. Ueda gave him a filthy look, and with his hair all messy like that and half dressed, he looked remarkably like Kame. Ribs and bruises and a bad attitude. Only Kame was gone, long gone, if he was smart he packed his bag and left to raise sheep in the country, or grapes or whatever country people did. Ueda had this same look about him, somewhere between ‘you retard’ and ‘fuck off and die’. That face got Kame in trouble in prison more often than his fists could get him out of it.
“Hell if I know.” Ueda tossed a shirt at him, black, cotton. And okay, Jin’s shirt smelled rank with spilled beer and sweat. “Get dressed. I made pancakes.”
Ueda vanished; it took him a few tries, false starts and stops, to get his shirt off. The sun streamed in through the window and it must have been well after noon. It touched the bare skin on his back and Jin could feel the warmth of it, like a hand resting on his back. Ueda’s shirt was too tight, hugging across his chest and shoulders, but it was better than nothing. Fingers through his hair, tangled, he’d been letting it grow, if only because they forced him to shave it when he was admitted.
Jin couldn’t find his shoes, one of Junno’s ducks squeaked under his feet, and he gave up the hunt. His shoes would be somewhere. Unless he vomited on them, then Ueda probably tossed them. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Ueda had been a shitty cook when they were younger. Then one day Koki mentioned it, and just like that he learned to cook. Because that was the kind of man Ueda was, he could do anything he chose to do but only if he wanted to. Jin wondered what happened to Koki, he used to write these long letters, telling him about what the city was like on the outside. The last letter just said ‘same old.’ Jin only wished he wrote back when the letters stopped coming.
“Thanks for letting me crash here last night,” he said, the words making a lot more sense this time; Ueda put the pancakes down in front of him.
“Junno was the one who slept on the couch.” Ueda slid into the table across from him. Jin watched him eat, everything was a little fuzzy, but most of last night was there in bits and pieces spooling like damaged reel film in his head. Ueda matching him drink for drink, and talking about everything but the one thing Jin wanted to ask.
“I need your help.” Jin said, chewing slowly.
“You need more help then I can offer.” Ueda arched one regal eyebrow at him.
“Funny.” Jin took a sip of the orange juice, looking at the table. So many plans, so many things to do. Kame would tell him, over and over, ‘let it go man, it’s not worth it. You’re just going to end up back here, and I’m not going to be there to watch your back then.’ So for Kame he made other plans, he was going to hitchhike to the coast. He was going to move to the country and start a family, have a little girl and he could tie ribbons in her hair. He said those things, because they made Kame smile, and not because he ever had any intention of giving up. “I want to find Nakamaru.”
“Jin.”
“I need-“
“He was the one who put you in jail in the first place.” Ueda was glaring at him now, cold and any other time in the years they had known each other he would have let it drop.
“I need to find him.” Honestly, he still wasn’t sure if he was just going to kill him on sight or not. It didn’t matter, he would deal with that one when he needed to hide the body.
“I told you.” Ueda stood up, hitting the table on the way, and it creaked, wobbling, but held. “You should have never been with him to begin with.”
“What, and me and you were going to live happily ever after?” Low, meant to hurt, to cut and to sting. But they hadn’t had this fight in four years, he kind of missed it. The bruises from last time took forever to heal, Ueda didn’t hold his punches.
“We were good.” Ueda tilted his chin, daring Jin to take the first swing.
“You’re better on your own.”
“I’m not alone.” Ueda sat down, and at least they weren’t about to destroy the kitchen. Jin highly doubted the table could handle their combined weight. “I’ve got Junno.”
“Got to say, didn’t see that one coming.” Cautiously Jin went back to his food.
“He’s—” Ueda paused, and the strangest thing, his angry expression smoothed out, and he looked like he did when they were kids, scruffy knees and climbing fences and scaling the sides of buildings, racing to the top. Younger, happier. Jin could never make him look like that. “I think he’d probably be dead without me.”
“The rubber ducks still weird me out.” Jin muttered.
“Yeah, me too. Sometimes I think that is why he does it.”
Jin finished the pancakes, delicious. He’d missed real food. Missed it more than almost anything else.
“So are you going to help me find Maru? Because I’m going after him, with or without your help.”
“Yeah.” Ueda stared hard at the table top, “I will.”
--
Lost Angels was a cesspool. Last stop to anywhere. You could get ahead here, but chances were doing so would result in bloodshed. The police force was just a mockery of justice. It seemed even the sunny days were hazy and broken, eh? That was probably the smog.
Jin figured this was just the way life was everywhere growing up. He had his gang, and they ran the streets, living life without really meaning too. It had been four years since he last walked the streets, and it was amazing to see how little had actually changed. Ueda had been right when he said that this city changed for no one. Look what trying had gotten him. Four years in a concrete box to think about the error of his ways.
Ueda had tossed a different outfit at him, Ueda’s jeans too tight for him.
Junno worked the bar at a club. They all called him the Hatter there, not because of any hat, but because he could serve you anything you asked for. No matter what brand of illegality you were feeling that night, Junno had it, like the gatekeeper for wonderland or some shit. You didn’t put much stock into what a raver high as a kite said. He also made a mean cocktail.
It was early enough when they arrived that the place wasn’t hopping, just sort of shuffling. There were pockets of people around the edges and one girl flailing around in the middle of the dance floor, all alone but looking to be in sheer ecstasy. Junno noticed them immediately, and his smile was huge, exactly the same as when they were younger down to the number of teeth he flashed. He would always smile at them, even when they dared him to pickpocket, or one time he’d been beaten by a rival gang, and he grinned through the split lip, blood dripping down his chin and a manic look in his eyes.
“What’s with the ducks?” Jin yelled over the counter, leaning on it. Early enough in the night that the varnish wasn’t sticky with spilled drinks yet.
“That’s my secret.” Junno said, flipping a long, slender bottle of vodka end over end in his hand.
“Going to be a busy night.” Ueda commented, watching the one girl, her arms were going this way and that without any sense of the pulsing throb of the music. “What the hell is she on?”
“What isn’t she on?” Junno shrugged, “she wanted Eden. I gave her something for it.”
“I want something.” Junno gave him a slow once over. “Not that.”
“Pity.”
“Junno,” Ueda said sharply and Junno gave him a coy look, biting his bottom lip like a porn spread. “Shove it.” Exasperated this time.
“I’m looking for Maru, Ueda said you’d be able to find him.”
Jin missed the look Junno gave Ueda, eyebrows raised and head cocked to the side. Distracted by the shot Junno slid across to him, it was a rather startling shade of electric blue.
“Yeah, I know how to find him.”
“Good,” Jin nodded. This saved him a lot of time.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. I’ll put a word out with Koki, he can find anyone.” Jin had sort of wondered where Koki had gotten too. He’d just assumed that he finally managed to get somewhere. They used to make fun of his dreams when they were younger, but Jin would have done anything to help him. Koki had been the only one not involved in the incident that put Jin away; he’d been in the hospital at the time. “Want something for the night?”
“Yeah,” Ueda answered for them. “The usual.”
The next shot glass had a pill at the bottom. “Cheers.”
Whatever the usual was, it made him feel light and airy. Jin could see why Ueda liked it, he was here, and he was everywhere. He just was. The bass pounded in his blood his like his heart, the air moving with it, pressing against his skin. Ueda’s eyes were dark, so dark and yet so bright, shining at him like a fever.
He probably should have just fallen in love with Ueda. When their lips touched, it was dead, it was just a kiss. Jin held his narrow hips in his hands and they danced. Maybe this place wouldn’t change, but he had.
--
“You’re looking for Maru?” Koki frowned, leaning against the wall smoking. He looked good, hair dark now, none of that punk blond. He looked slick. “That a good idea? He fucked you up pretty bad last time.”
“He’s going to pay for it.”
Jin just needed to know, he needed to know why.
The day Jin met Maru, the world changed, expanded and contracted to a single point in time, the full curve of his bottom lip and the sharp angles at the edges of his eyes. That was the first time Jin had ever wanted to be a better man, to be someone that could be depended on. He’d tried to explain it to Kame when they were curled in his bunk, Kame’s narrow shoulders just barely fitting into his space. Greater poets than him had failed at explaining love. He couldn’t explain it, but he did live it.
“Man, are you sure that’s such a good idea? His Daddy is still the police Chief you know. He got re-elected.”
“I don’t give a shit. Can you find him?”
“I don’t know. He fell off the grid when you went in. It’s like he vanished with you.” He shrugged. “I can see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises. I don’t know if he even stayed in the city.”
Maru wouldn’t just leave. Jin hated the thought that Maru could just get up and leave, like it was nothing to him.
“Stop lying, Koki.” Ueda had been leaning against his car, watching some kids in the street across the street play absently. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t do this.”
“Shut up Ueda, what the fuck do you know?” Koki snarled. Koki and Ueda had been close once, but the way they were looking at each other now. Jin had never felt guilty for going to jail before, as ironic as it was, but right then, he realized how much could have changed in four years without him.
“Is Maru really worth it? Everything Jin did for you.”
“Fuck off.”
“I didn’t want to be the one to tell him that his best friend moved in on his boyfriend as soon as he went away, but you had to go and ruin it.”
Jin stared at Koki, and Koki looked like he was about to hit Ueda. Face flushed and angry. “It’s not like that at all, you wouldn’t listen.”
“What is there to listen too? Maru put Jin away. Now not only are you fucking him, you’re protecting him.” Ueda took a step forwards.
“Fuck you man.” Koki looked at Jin, something in his expression complex, beyond words. Jin had dislocated his finger on a man’s jaw in prison, and he hadn’t even felt half as angry then as he did now. “Jin. Shit. Jin. Listen to me man.” Koki was pleading with him, “I swear it’s not like it sounds.”
“Tell me where Maru is and you can go. If you lie to me, I will find you next, I learned some neat things in prison. Don’t get in my way.”
“He’s got a place,” Koki’s shoulders slumped. “Down on the East end, Revanche street, apartment 6. Jin, please don’t hurt him.”
“Why not?” Jin roared, and Koki flinched. “What what the last four years of my life worth, huh? How much did he get for it?”
“What? Jin, no.”
“Shut up.” Pain bust across his hand, the same aching feeling, and Koki was stumbling away, hands flying up to cup the blood pouring from his split lip.
He really wanted to slam Koki’s face against the wall, wanted to make him hurt. Instead he spun on his feet, walking away. “I’m going.”
“Jin.” Ueda called after him.
“Alone.”
Ueda was better off without him; four years had proved that.
Maybe Ueda was wrong: this place did change, everyone got on with their lives, four years spent living while Jin was stuck in time, screaming and yelling to be let out. Four years of plotting all the ways he was going to get his vengeance. And so, he was a little hung up on it, could you really blame him?
He walked until his head cleared and he felt less angry. As the adrenaline surge faded, his hand ached, throbbing in time with his pulse. Well, at least that explained why Koki stopping writing him, that son of a bitch. He didn’t feel guilty about punching him in the face.
The walk all the way down to the east side took over an hour, and it was approaching twilight by the time he made it there. It wasn’t the best end of town, run down, and forgotten. Jin paused at the mouth of the cul-de-sac. This is where Maru had been living. There was only one apartment building so Jin headed for it.
The paint on the door was peeling around the edges of the brass number six. This wasn’t the place to hesitate, this was the place to charge through, guns blazing and facing away from the explosions. Jin knocked.
For several thundering heart beats there was nothing, just silence, anticlimactic. Something on the other side of the door moved, and Jin stopped breathing all together.
“Coming.” Faintly inside.
Thump, thump, his heart was beating so fast. On the inside some guys had talked about that one critical moment, when they pulled the trigger or slipped on the ski mask, where everything moved so slow and it was like the world was crystal clear. One moment when it felt like everything was coming together –coalescence. Jin couldn’t feel further from it, his heart was pounding and his thoughts were racing and scattered between a million different things, and the door rattled, opened a little.
Maru looked the exact same, same hair, same eyes, same mouth, a shocked expression on his narrow face.
“Jin.” The word was breathed, hanging between them. In the TV shows this would be where he said something slick and witty, and his script-write must have had the day off because Jin couldn’t think of anything to say, nothing that made sense anyways. “You can’t be here,” Maru said. Jin pushed his way inside the apartment before Maru had the chance to try and close the door on him. “You really can’t be here.”
“It’s good to see you too.” Jin smiled thinly.
“No, Jin.” Maru looked around, like the shadows might jump out at him. “If they find out I spoke with you…”
“What are you going to do, toss me in jail again?” He crossed his arms over his chest, Maru seemed so much smaller now, muscle hiding under his hideous sweater, and eyes darting around.
“It’s not safe there.”
“No shit.” It was meant as a deterrent as a reason.
“Jin, you need to leave. Go away.”
“No.”
Maru took a step towards him, straightening his back to his full height and Jin let him push his way up into his personal space. He let out a sharp gasp when Jin grabbed him, spinning him around fast and slamming him hard enough into the door to leave him gasping for breath. Maru’s hands came up to grab at his wrists, so he batted them away, pressing his forearm against his shoulders to free up one hand. When he wrapped it around Maru’s throat, he pressed a little harder then he needed to pin him in place, just to watch the way his eyes widened.
“I haven’t decided if I’m going to kill you yet. So I’d be good if I were you.”
Maru glared at him, teeth snapping together with a click.
“If you’re going to kill me, you had better be prepared to disappear fast.”
“I’ve had a few years of practice.” He hissed. “Do you know what it’s been like? To realize that for four years I’ve been gone, that everyone went on without me. Do have any idea what that feels like? I want to know why.”
“Jin.”
“Why, Maru?” He didn’t mean to sound needy, couldn’t help the slight whine. He’d been betrayed by lots of different people, but no one he had wanted to be everything for. “Why did you set me up?”
Jin met Maru and the world changed.
Maru was a rebel in his own Oxford kind of way; he wore button-down shirts and jeans with sensible shoes. He used to touch Jin’s mouth and whisper against his jaw ‘we should have never met.’ They came from two different worlds. Maru was the son of the police chief and Jin was your run of the mill thug. Maru was special, he looked at the sky-line from the hood of Jin’s car on a hot day and he didn’t see shit and hell the way everyone else did. Maru thought Jin was a big dumb idiot, Jin thought Maru looked like a good time, things probably in a sane and rational world wouldn’t have gone past that. Only Jin’s life played like a shitty movie and of course he would fall for the boy from the other side of the tracks.
One day, laying in bed, filthy and worn out, Maru had lit up a cigarette, stared at the window for long enough that Jin was almost asleep by the time he spoke again. 'My father is a bad man. I need to do something about it.’
Jin told him off, said it wasn’t any of his business, that there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Nakamaru wouldn’t let it drop. It took him months and months, but slowly he began to build up evidence of his own father’s corruption. It got to the point where Jin believed in him, thought that he could change things, expose the cancerous corruption in the police department.
Jin, Junno, and Ueda, it had been raining that day too, and he dashed from the meet point to the car. He had picked up some documents, proof, irrefutable proof, and deliver them to a reporter for Maru. The whole thing was secret, which was why Maru was having lunch with his father and a few other city officials while Jin made the drop. Only it didn’t go down that way.
Jin showed up where he was supposed to meet Maru so he could call his reporter to let him know where to be, having taken the most round-about route through the city to shake any tails. Maru had lectured him on the merits of being overly cautious; his father was a powerful and brilliant man. There was no one there. ‘We should go.’ Ueda said, and Junno agreed with him, but this was important, and Jin had told them both to sit the hell down and wait. Maru would be there. The car that pulled up, wheels splashing through the pot holes and tinted windows was an unmarked police cruiser.
The official arrest record showed that he had resisted, and that the police had needed to use force to bring him in. Boots to his ribs, driving the air from his body in a sputtering woosh, dirty, greasy puddle water soaking into his clothes and hair.
‘What have we here? This is a lot of drugs.’ He tossed the envelope at his partner. ‘You’re going away for a long time. Burn that, I can’t believe this is the guy that has been nosing around in the boss’ business.’
Only Maru knew about the drop point, and Jin had a long time to think about it. Clearly they knew someone was gathering evidence. Either Maru set him up to clear his own name, or he did it for money, because the evidence was destroyed when they caught him.
“Why didn’t you show up? Why did you sell me out to them?” I wanted to trust you.
“I wanted to, Jin.” His fingers tightened around Maru’s slim throat, he could feel his pulse there, hammering just under the tips of his fingers. How many times had be pressed his tongue to that place right there and felt Maru alive and squirming underneath him?
“That’s not good enough.” He growled. “I wanted to be a pop star when I was a kid.”
“He handcuffed me to his car.” Maru snarled. Eyes flashing angrily. “Made me stay there in the parking lot all day. I tried Jin, I tried. I don’t know how he found out, but he did.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He told me that if I continued, that,” Maru swallowed hard, “he said, that people die in prison all the time, fights and stuff break out. If I tried to contact you, or did anything, that he would have you killed.” Maru stared hard at him. “Now I work in a fucking library, Jin. I couldn’t risk you.”
“That’s why you’re fucking Koki?”
“Koki is trying to get into the council office. He wants my contacts and all my research. Four years is a long time to be suspicious of all your friends. It was lonely.”
“Tell me why I should believe you.” Four years was a long time to spend plotting what he was going to do, it wasn’t like there was much else for him to do.
“I can’t.”
A tipping point. It was almost exactly like the first time they kissed, Jin boxing Maru in with his arms, trying to loom over him, and Maru refusing to be intimidated. Just like that time, he knew better but he couldn’t help himself. Jin leaned in, and Maru leaned up and they were kissing. Dry lips unbearably soft under his, Maru’s hands coming around his waist, the tips of his fingers digging into his sides enough to hurt and Jin didn’t want to let go either. Despite everything, this was all he wanted, the taste of Maru on his tongue, opened his lips so Maru could kiss him properly.
One kiss stretched on forever, morphing into a series of smaller ones, breaking apart to smile against each other’s mouths, but never being far enough away to be breathing separate air, resting their foreheads together.
“I missed you.” Maru, his voice was thick against his mouth, words slurred against his cheek. “So much.”
“I’ve spent most of the last four years thinking about all the ways I was going to make you pay.”
“What did you decide on?”
Those close Maru’s face was all blurry, lines and features fuzzy with the lack of perception.
“I didn’t.” Maru kissed him again, soft and lingering, kissed him in a way they didn’t quite understand when they were together. Pressed up so close together that Jin could feel Maru breathing with his whole body, and there was real danger of him crushing Maru into the wall. “I spent so long trying to decide.”
He shifted his grip so that he was brushing his thumb over the wet shine of Maru’s bottom lip.
“Maybe.” The word was pressed against the pad of his thumb, Maru’s tongue touching it like a shy little kiss. “You’ll never decide.”
That was, that was, Jin thought about it, an attractive idea. “I think I like that.” Jin was too stupid to stay away from dangerous things. After all, if he wasn’t he would have been gone a long time ago.
“It won’t be easy,” Maru sighed, they were pressed so close together that there wasn’t even a sliver of space between them but Maru was trying to pull himself closer, tight, trying to worm himself inside of Jin’s chest.
“It’ll be like the old days.” Jin pressed a kiss against Maru’s hair. “You and me babe, against the world.”
Maru made a soft amused sound. Yeah, maybe it was a little cheesy. That was okay. Then nothing else mattered because Maru was sinking to his knees in the narrow space he made for himself between the door and Jin.
“It’s been awhile,” Maru murmured, looking up at Jin through his bangs.
“Speak for yourself,” he joked, running his hands through Maru’s thick dark hair.
Maru hummed, pressing his face against the roughness of Jin’s jeans. It had to be scratching at the smoothness of his cheek, but he didn’t seem to care pressing his face against Jin’s hip and breathing deeply. Jin cradled the width of his skull with his hand, letting his head come to rest against the door so that Maru was caged in. It was ironic, or symbolic, or something, Jin wasn’t sure but he wanted to keep Maru here forever. Just like this.
The words were there, all caught behind his teeth. Proclamations, confessions, everything he never said to Maru when he had the chance. Of course, Maru would mock him mercilessly if he actually said any of it, he had this way of mocking him with his eyes when he was blowing him. Couldn’t shut him up even with a dick in his mouth.
“You miss this? Missed me?” Jin murmured into the odd silence that settled between them while Maru toyed with the loops of Jin’s stolen jeans. “Tell me now.” Jin pet through Maru’s hair, all dull brown now, missing those rebellious little blond streaks Jin put there and Maru had kept because he liked the way they made him look more bad ass.
“Missed your dick maybe,” Maru mumbled into the arch of his hip, tugging the jeans as far down as they would go with the button still done up. The rough weave scratched at his skin, and Jin twisted up into it. Maru had surprised him the first time he nodded, looking serious, curious and most of gorgeous when Jin told him he could be as rough as he wanted.
Jin fucked like he fought, hard and fast, take no prisoners. When they first met Maru looked like he was made from spun glass, delicate with too many fragile parts.
Maru was looking up at him, eyes smirking even as his mouth remained pressed in a not-quite pout.
“I’m surprisingly okay with that.” Jin murmured and Maru gave him a small quirking smile, thumbing the button on his jeans open. “Watch the zipper, I didn’t bother with underwear.”
Maru mumbled something, easing the zipper down.
“Hm?” Jin tipped his head up, and Maru shrugged a bit.
“Sure you didn’t come to fuck me?”
“Not really, no.” Brushing his thumb over the angle of Maru’s cheek bone, he wondered if he actually had the stomach to do it. He liked to think he did, and maybe if Maru really had betrayed him he could.
“You’re psycho,” Maru hummed, pushing Jin’s jeans off his hips, they caught around his knees, Ueda’s stupid hipster pants too tight to just slide to the floor. Jin stepped out of them, making an annoyed sound when it caught on his shoe instead.
Maru laughed, pressing it against his bare hip, tugging on Jin’s shoes while Jin tried to toe them off with his pants caught low on his leg. Between them they managed to get the whole mess off and draped across Maru’s shoe rack. Jin’s dick was half-hard and rising hopefully against Maru’s chin. He didn’t disappoint either, licking at the head with a delicate flick of his tongue as a warning before he took the head into the warmth of his mouth.
Jin hissed softly, carding his fingers through Maru hair twisting the coarse strands between his fingers.
Slick heat, playing over just the head of his cock. Maru sort of ruined blowjobs for him, he doubted the most accomplished career sluts in prison could suck cock like Maru could. And yes, he fucking missed this part, the part where Maru’s eyes slid closed and he just moved, sliding down as far as he could, and pulling back up, getting the whole thing nice and wet.
“Fuck, babe,” Jin groaned, Maru pulling off slow and dirty, impossible suction, and tongue, tongue flicking across the underside on the pull out. “You’re so good for me.”
Maru looked up at him, running his short nails through the wiry hairs on Jin’s thighs. Tickly scrapes down from his hips to his knees that really could mean anything. Jin jerked forwards, and he was slick now, and Maru didn’t have any trouble, dick sliding along the cradle of his tongue deeper still. Jin groaned, letting the sound vibrate from his throat low and deep. Chin pressed to his chest, so he was watching the shadow of Maru’s head as it shifted and bobbed under his hands, slowly getting the length of his dick all wet.
It wasn’t quiet, or even the most elegant, Maru was making these soft little sounds, sometimes drowned out by the louder wet messy sounds.
Desperate, Maru dug the tips of his fingers into Jin’s hips and slid down his cock, just going and going like he didn’t know he was supposed to have a gag reflex. Jin whined, mouth working around the sounds of Maru’s name without saying anything that made any sense at all, because Maru’s nose was pressing against his hips and the muscles of his throat were cradling the head of his cock. He couldn’t help the shallow jerk of his hips, didn’t even try.
Maru made this sound, muffled by his dick, a desperate little hungry keening sound, digging his nails hard into the skin of Jin’s hips, creating a tiny pinpricks of pain in the wake of the wet slide. “You slut.” And that was it, he was rocking his hips shallowly, fucking Maru’s throat.
He slid his hands through Maru’s hair over and over, thumbing the sweet skin behind his ear, cupping the curve of his skull and running his nails over the back of his neck. He wanted to hold Maru everywhere, sit him in the palm of his hand and secret him away. They would fuck later, and Jin would bite at the edges of him, he’d bite and kiss until he forgot Koki was ever here. They would forget the world, and it would be just like the old days.
“Maru.”
Maru made some sort of sound, and Jin couldn’t hear it through the rush of blood in his head, it vibrated around his dick, a sharp spike of sensation and Jin grit his teeth against it hissing.
“Fuck.” Maru did it again, and Jin’s knees shook, leaning hard on the door. He was teetering, balls tight and spine straight, tense. Maru slid back, slowly sweet drag of friction, and Jin groaned the sound tangling with the tightness of his throat, and spilling everywhere. It washed through him, tingling pleasure in waves coming in Maru’s mouth, as he pet him through it. He was still feeling shaky, leaning heavy on the door while Maru slowly tongued him clean all the while making contented little sounds.
“Stop,” Jin groaned, the last shocks were almost painful making his whole body shiver with the sweetest agony. “Enough.”
He pulled away, and Maru was licking his swollen lips, chin shiny with saliva. He was smiling a little, eyes curving and teeth flashing between his red lips.
“You,” Jin said, sinking to his knees and Maru was gangly and their legs were not tangled in any way that was comfortable, but it allowed him to press closer Maru folding into his chest.
His lips were hot and his jaw had to be sore, but their kisses were so wet and deep, like Maru was trying to lick into him, desperate and hungry for more. He was mumbling something between kisses, sounded like Jin’s name mixed with random curses. His shoulders were sharp under his fingers, his palm curving around Maru’s shoulder and eclipsing it.
Their fingers kept tangling together when they both grappled with the button to his jeans. Eventually one of them got it, impossible to tell who. It didn’t matter because they managed to get them out of the way but only just. Maru gasped slick in his mouth when he wrapped his palm around it. The angle was all wrong, not enough movement, but Maru didn’t seem to mind. Groaning into the space between them, and clinging to Jin’s shoulders.
Shallow, but it was enough, and Jin pulled back to watch, Maru’s eyes going closed and biting down hard on his lip, one hand helping Jin, the other digging into his shoulders. He shivered, groaning low in his throat as he came sticky and warm all over their stomachs.
He breathed hard against Jin’s neck, hopelessly tangled together with Maru’s clothes and the shoes. Jin kissed Maru’s warm temple and kissed his dreams of a quiet country life away. He really hoped Kame got it, if only for both of them because he wasn’t letting Maru go. Maru laughed against his skin, like maybe he was listening in on Jin’s thoughts. “You’re psycho.”
“Probably,” Jin agreed, and they really needed to move out of the front hall. “But I can still make you come.”
Eventually Ueda or Koki would come to look for them, probably. Eventually they would need to leave this apartment. Eventually time would catch up with them, but for right now the clock was stopped and he was trapped in an entirely different place. Jin kissed the end of Maru’s nose. “How about we fuck?”
Maru tipped the kiss so he could bit Jin’s bottom lip, eyes shining. “Yes,” he hissed.
They would deal with his father later. Maybe you didn’t always need to lose things; maybe you could find them too.
-- 'Cause if you're not really here, then the stars don't even matter
Now I feel too tall, we all fear
But it's all just a bunch of matter
'Cause if you're not really here, then I don't want to be either
I want be next to you—Ellie Goulding – Black + Gold
Pairings: Jin/Maru, with some Ueda/Junno, Jin/Kame, Jin/Ueda, and Koki/Maru
Rating: NC-17
Summary: If you were in prison for four years what would be the first thing you did when you got out again? Jin’s got a hooker and a bottle of cheap vodka. He’s also got plans.
Notes: This was one of those things that I didn’t mean to do. I hope you like it! I really do. Thank you to my usual angels, I don’t get very far without you, special thanks to my darling beta
irisated you’re too good for this world =P -- There's no way in hell,
I will let you leave,
Let you just get up,
And walk out on me,
There's no way on earth,
Hell would have to freeze,
More than twice before,
I will let you go— Chase and Status – Let You Go ft. Mali
Jin thought that in another universe, in another time, someplace nice and innocent, this city could have been called something else. Something soft—Los Angeles maybe— and less blunt, not as hopeless as Lost Angels, the place where even the angels come to lose themselves; you don’t find things here.
Jin hadn’t been born there. He moved there when he was five, when it was the only place left for his family. The city had swallowed him whole, like Moby Dick or that fucking whale in Pinocchio. Jin was 26 now, and it was his first day of freedom in 4 years. It was raining; of course it was raining, because his life played like a movie that way. He stood on the road in front of the prison for what seemed like forever, the drizzle slowly flattening his hair to the sides of his face, with the guards at his back and the city at his front. Enemy at the gates and all that. No matter how long he spent thinking about being free, all the things he would do first, he just stood there. Eat a steak, fuck a hooker, drink tea.
Faced with possibility, Jin didn’t know what to do so he turned left and started walking, backpack slung over one shoulder and a fifty in his wallet. He went into prison as Akanshi Jin, son, boyfriend. Well now, now he had something to do at least even if it wasn’t being any of those anymore. There were people who needed to pay, someone who had wronged him, and so if he was Akanishi Jin the avenging angel, then who the fuck else would care?
Ueda was hard to find, his job was to be discreet, deliciously discreet, and devious, devilish even. Only discretion wasn’t what brought his clients to him. No, once you had Ueda, you wanted more, he made himself hard to please, and he made you ache to please him.
Jin would know.
The Bleeding Heart wasn’t a classy place. It was dirty, disgusting, and the pool tables were scratched and nicked, the green torn in places, and a little wobbly. You needed to be ace to win on that table. So the first thing Jin did when he walked in was grin at the old man who owned the bar. Leaf had owned this place since the very beginning of time it seemed, and wore every day as a wrinkle on his potato-like face. Jin ordered a cheap beer and bet the change on the table. He worked the guy, winning a little, losing more until he bet everything he had left.
Now Jin had a hundred bucks, and he set to drinking it all in cheap vodka.
“Out of prison and you already smell like a distillery. What has it been, three hours?” Ueda slipped into the bar stool next to him, leaning forwards on his arms and bracing himself on the scarred bar top.
“I had a bit of a dry spell,” Jin answered. “I forgot that the liquor here tasted like piss.” Actually the taste was more like nail polish remover and petrol.
Ueda smiled at him, black hair falling coyly into his large eyes. “Mighty fine piss.”
“The best,” Jin agreed, flagging the bartender again. This called for shots.
The bar closed, and Leaf mopped around their stools. Jin was leaning on the bar, mostly out of necessity: if he let go the world was going to spin madly out from under him. He was barely holding on as it was.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” Jin said—hold that—slurred. Ueda laughed at him; drinking made him mean—meaner? Ueda was always the most beautiful when he smiled or right when he was about to punch you, and Ueda never really smiled anymore, but he was still stunning.
“I was working.” He shrugged, liquid and smooth. “Got fucked by Detective Ferguson, he’s a big boy. Decided to take some down time. Got things to do anyways.”
Jin never had the flare for networking the way Ueda did. Well, that was probably why Jin ended up in jail, and Ueda was free to work the street. Last news he heard was Ueda was trying his hands at pimping. Jin wondered how that went, and if Ueda got himself one of those ridiculous hats from the movies. “Good to see some things never change.”
“This place will never change.” Ueda tapped the table top. “Not for you, not for me, not for anyone.” That was a low blow. Jin decided to ignore it, if Ueda was going to aim for the balls the only defence he had was to pretend he didn’t notice.
“I’m sure Leaf has to die some time,” Jin answered.
“Shut the hell up,” Leaf yelled from across the room and Jin laughed until his stomach hurt. “Fucking punks.”
Ueda was stronger then he looked, managed to hold Jin up, all the way home. At least Jin assumed he did. He was drunk as, as, as, something really fucking drunk. The trip home happened in starts and stops, gaps in his memory, and scrapes on his knees. The apartment was small, and smelled strongly of water damage, but Jin was face down in a mattress and the smell didn’t matter. The more pressing worry was choking to death on his own vomit. Wouldn’t that be awful? He fucking ran prison, and taken down by—
“Thanks for coming to get me,” he tried to say. But he wasn’t sure it came out, or if it did, if it was too muffled by the bed. Ueda’s weight settled down next to him, skin against his toes (shoes?) and a dizzying heat all down his side.
Jin passed out.
--
“Jin, wake up.”
He rolled over. Something had died in his mouth, something small and furry, and now his tongue was mouldy with it.
“You poisoned me,” he slurred, and Ueda kicked him in the ribs, lightly, but he still curled on his side and stared up at him. Skinny hips, bruises on his rib cage, pale skin, and a scowl. Jin couldn’t help but smile crookedly at him.
“You poisoned yourself.”
Probably true. His stomach hurt, like something was inside him pulling viciously at his guts, and it was entirely possible with the way the world was spinning he was still drunk. Jin hoisted himself out of bed, jeans undone but still on, patch of skin rubbed raw by the zipper. Ueda’s bed was a mattress on the floor, pile of clothes at the bottom.
The place lacked any sort of charm, but hell, it was a step up from his prison cell. There was a rubber duck on the ground near his foot, the only yellow thing in a room full of black jeans and blacker button-downs. There were a few more lying scattered about.
“What the fuck man.” Jin poked it. “You doing acid again?”
Ueda pulled a face. “Those are Junno’s. Guy is psycho.”
Junno was another one of the old gang. Tall, skinny, useful only to reach the top shelf most of the time. Jin hadn’t really bothered to wonder what happened to him, just had sort of assumed he pissed off the wrong guy with a shitty knock-knock joke and was killed for it. Or hit by a car or something. He didn’t expect to find him with Ueda building himself a small army of rubber ducks.
“How many does he have?” Because that was totally the point. Ueda gave him a filthy look, and with his hair all messy like that and half dressed, he looked remarkably like Kame. Ribs and bruises and a bad attitude. Only Kame was gone, long gone, if he was smart he packed his bag and left to raise sheep in the country, or grapes or whatever country people did. Ueda had this same look about him, somewhere between ‘you retard’ and ‘fuck off and die’. That face got Kame in trouble in prison more often than his fists could get him out of it.
“Hell if I know.” Ueda tossed a shirt at him, black, cotton. And okay, Jin’s shirt smelled rank with spilled beer and sweat. “Get dressed. I made pancakes.”
Ueda vanished; it took him a few tries, false starts and stops, to get his shirt off. The sun streamed in through the window and it must have been well after noon. It touched the bare skin on his back and Jin could feel the warmth of it, like a hand resting on his back. Ueda’s shirt was too tight, hugging across his chest and shoulders, but it was better than nothing. Fingers through his hair, tangled, he’d been letting it grow, if only because they forced him to shave it when he was admitted.
Jin couldn’t find his shoes, one of Junno’s ducks squeaked under his feet, and he gave up the hunt. His shoes would be somewhere. Unless he vomited on them, then Ueda probably tossed them. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Ueda had been a shitty cook when they were younger. Then one day Koki mentioned it, and just like that he learned to cook. Because that was the kind of man Ueda was, he could do anything he chose to do but only if he wanted to. Jin wondered what happened to Koki, he used to write these long letters, telling him about what the city was like on the outside. The last letter just said ‘same old.’ Jin only wished he wrote back when the letters stopped coming.
“Thanks for letting me crash here last night,” he said, the words making a lot more sense this time; Ueda put the pancakes down in front of him.
“Junno was the one who slept on the couch.” Ueda slid into the table across from him. Jin watched him eat, everything was a little fuzzy, but most of last night was there in bits and pieces spooling like damaged reel film in his head. Ueda matching him drink for drink, and talking about everything but the one thing Jin wanted to ask.
“I need your help.” Jin said, chewing slowly.
“You need more help then I can offer.” Ueda arched one regal eyebrow at him.
“Funny.” Jin took a sip of the orange juice, looking at the table. So many plans, so many things to do. Kame would tell him, over and over, ‘let it go man, it’s not worth it. You’re just going to end up back here, and I’m not going to be there to watch your back then.’ So for Kame he made other plans, he was going to hitchhike to the coast. He was going to move to the country and start a family, have a little girl and he could tie ribbons in her hair. He said those things, because they made Kame smile, and not because he ever had any intention of giving up. “I want to find Nakamaru.”
“Jin.”
“I need-“
“He was the one who put you in jail in the first place.” Ueda was glaring at him now, cold and any other time in the years they had known each other he would have let it drop.
“I need to find him.” Honestly, he still wasn’t sure if he was just going to kill him on sight or not. It didn’t matter, he would deal with that one when he needed to hide the body.
“I told you.” Ueda stood up, hitting the table on the way, and it creaked, wobbling, but held. “You should have never been with him to begin with.”
“What, and me and you were going to live happily ever after?” Low, meant to hurt, to cut and to sting. But they hadn’t had this fight in four years, he kind of missed it. The bruises from last time took forever to heal, Ueda didn’t hold his punches.
“We were good.” Ueda tilted his chin, daring Jin to take the first swing.
“You’re better on your own.”
“I’m not alone.” Ueda sat down, and at least they weren’t about to destroy the kitchen. Jin highly doubted the table could handle their combined weight. “I’ve got Junno.”
“Got to say, didn’t see that one coming.” Cautiously Jin went back to his food.
“He’s—” Ueda paused, and the strangest thing, his angry expression smoothed out, and he looked like he did when they were kids, scruffy knees and climbing fences and scaling the sides of buildings, racing to the top. Younger, happier. Jin could never make him look like that. “I think he’d probably be dead without me.”
“The rubber ducks still weird me out.” Jin muttered.
“Yeah, me too. Sometimes I think that is why he does it.”
Jin finished the pancakes, delicious. He’d missed real food. Missed it more than almost anything else.
“So are you going to help me find Maru? Because I’m going after him, with or without your help.”
“Yeah.” Ueda stared hard at the table top, “I will.”
--
Lost Angels was a cesspool. Last stop to anywhere. You could get ahead here, but chances were doing so would result in bloodshed. The police force was just a mockery of justice. It seemed even the sunny days were hazy and broken, eh? That was probably the smog.
Jin figured this was just the way life was everywhere growing up. He had his gang, and they ran the streets, living life without really meaning too. It had been four years since he last walked the streets, and it was amazing to see how little had actually changed. Ueda had been right when he said that this city changed for no one. Look what trying had gotten him. Four years in a concrete box to think about the error of his ways.
Ueda had tossed a different outfit at him, Ueda’s jeans too tight for him.
Junno worked the bar at a club. They all called him the Hatter there, not because of any hat, but because he could serve you anything you asked for. No matter what brand of illegality you were feeling that night, Junno had it, like the gatekeeper for wonderland or some shit. You didn’t put much stock into what a raver high as a kite said. He also made a mean cocktail.
It was early enough when they arrived that the place wasn’t hopping, just sort of shuffling. There were pockets of people around the edges and one girl flailing around in the middle of the dance floor, all alone but looking to be in sheer ecstasy. Junno noticed them immediately, and his smile was huge, exactly the same as when they were younger down to the number of teeth he flashed. He would always smile at them, even when they dared him to pickpocket, or one time he’d been beaten by a rival gang, and he grinned through the split lip, blood dripping down his chin and a manic look in his eyes.
“What’s with the ducks?” Jin yelled over the counter, leaning on it. Early enough in the night that the varnish wasn’t sticky with spilled drinks yet.
“That’s my secret.” Junno said, flipping a long, slender bottle of vodka end over end in his hand.
“Going to be a busy night.” Ueda commented, watching the one girl, her arms were going this way and that without any sense of the pulsing throb of the music. “What the hell is she on?”
“What isn’t she on?” Junno shrugged, “she wanted Eden. I gave her something for it.”
“I want something.” Junno gave him a slow once over. “Not that.”
“Pity.”
“Junno,” Ueda said sharply and Junno gave him a coy look, biting his bottom lip like a porn spread. “Shove it.” Exasperated this time.
“I’m looking for Maru, Ueda said you’d be able to find him.”
Jin missed the look Junno gave Ueda, eyebrows raised and head cocked to the side. Distracted by the shot Junno slid across to him, it was a rather startling shade of electric blue.
“Yeah, I know how to find him.”
“Good,” Jin nodded. This saved him a lot of time.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. I’ll put a word out with Koki, he can find anyone.” Jin had sort of wondered where Koki had gotten too. He’d just assumed that he finally managed to get somewhere. They used to make fun of his dreams when they were younger, but Jin would have done anything to help him. Koki had been the only one not involved in the incident that put Jin away; he’d been in the hospital at the time. “Want something for the night?”
“Yeah,” Ueda answered for them. “The usual.”
The next shot glass had a pill at the bottom. “Cheers.”
Whatever the usual was, it made him feel light and airy. Jin could see why Ueda liked it, he was here, and he was everywhere. He just was. The bass pounded in his blood his like his heart, the air moving with it, pressing against his skin. Ueda’s eyes were dark, so dark and yet so bright, shining at him like a fever.
He probably should have just fallen in love with Ueda. When their lips touched, it was dead, it was just a kiss. Jin held his narrow hips in his hands and they danced. Maybe this place wouldn’t change, but he had.
--
“You’re looking for Maru?” Koki frowned, leaning against the wall smoking. He looked good, hair dark now, none of that punk blond. He looked slick. “That a good idea? He fucked you up pretty bad last time.”
“He’s going to pay for it.”
Jin just needed to know, he needed to know why.
The day Jin met Maru, the world changed, expanded and contracted to a single point in time, the full curve of his bottom lip and the sharp angles at the edges of his eyes. That was the first time Jin had ever wanted to be a better man, to be someone that could be depended on. He’d tried to explain it to Kame when they were curled in his bunk, Kame’s narrow shoulders just barely fitting into his space. Greater poets than him had failed at explaining love. He couldn’t explain it, but he did live it.
“Man, are you sure that’s such a good idea? His Daddy is still the police Chief you know. He got re-elected.”
“I don’t give a shit. Can you find him?”
“I don’t know. He fell off the grid when you went in. It’s like he vanished with you.” He shrugged. “I can see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises. I don’t know if he even stayed in the city.”
Maru wouldn’t just leave. Jin hated the thought that Maru could just get up and leave, like it was nothing to him.
“Stop lying, Koki.” Ueda had been leaning against his car, watching some kids in the street across the street play absently. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t do this.”
“Shut up Ueda, what the fuck do you know?” Koki snarled. Koki and Ueda had been close once, but the way they were looking at each other now. Jin had never felt guilty for going to jail before, as ironic as it was, but right then, he realized how much could have changed in four years without him.
“Is Maru really worth it? Everything Jin did for you.”
“Fuck off.”
“I didn’t want to be the one to tell him that his best friend moved in on his boyfriend as soon as he went away, but you had to go and ruin it.”
Jin stared at Koki, and Koki looked like he was about to hit Ueda. Face flushed and angry. “It’s not like that at all, you wouldn’t listen.”
“What is there to listen too? Maru put Jin away. Now not only are you fucking him, you’re protecting him.” Ueda took a step forwards.
“Fuck you man.” Koki looked at Jin, something in his expression complex, beyond words. Jin had dislocated his finger on a man’s jaw in prison, and he hadn’t even felt half as angry then as he did now. “Jin. Shit. Jin. Listen to me man.” Koki was pleading with him, “I swear it’s not like it sounds.”
“Tell me where Maru is and you can go. If you lie to me, I will find you next, I learned some neat things in prison. Don’t get in my way.”
“He’s got a place,” Koki’s shoulders slumped. “Down on the East end, Revanche street, apartment 6. Jin, please don’t hurt him.”
“Why not?” Jin roared, and Koki flinched. “What what the last four years of my life worth, huh? How much did he get for it?”
“What? Jin, no.”
“Shut up.” Pain bust across his hand, the same aching feeling, and Koki was stumbling away, hands flying up to cup the blood pouring from his split lip.
He really wanted to slam Koki’s face against the wall, wanted to make him hurt. Instead he spun on his feet, walking away. “I’m going.”
“Jin.” Ueda called after him.
“Alone.”
Ueda was better off without him; four years had proved that.
Maybe Ueda was wrong: this place did change, everyone got on with their lives, four years spent living while Jin was stuck in time, screaming and yelling to be let out. Four years of plotting all the ways he was going to get his vengeance. And so, he was a little hung up on it, could you really blame him?
He walked until his head cleared and he felt less angry. As the adrenaline surge faded, his hand ached, throbbing in time with his pulse. Well, at least that explained why Koki stopping writing him, that son of a bitch. He didn’t feel guilty about punching him in the face.
The walk all the way down to the east side took over an hour, and it was approaching twilight by the time he made it there. It wasn’t the best end of town, run down, and forgotten. Jin paused at the mouth of the cul-de-sac. This is where Maru had been living. There was only one apartment building so Jin headed for it.
The paint on the door was peeling around the edges of the brass number six. This wasn’t the place to hesitate, this was the place to charge through, guns blazing and facing away from the explosions. Jin knocked.
For several thundering heart beats there was nothing, just silence, anticlimactic. Something on the other side of the door moved, and Jin stopped breathing all together.
“Coming.” Faintly inside.
Thump, thump, his heart was beating so fast. On the inside some guys had talked about that one critical moment, when they pulled the trigger or slipped on the ski mask, where everything moved so slow and it was like the world was crystal clear. One moment when it felt like everything was coming together –coalescence. Jin couldn’t feel further from it, his heart was pounding and his thoughts were racing and scattered between a million different things, and the door rattled, opened a little.
Maru looked the exact same, same hair, same eyes, same mouth, a shocked expression on his narrow face.
“Jin.” The word was breathed, hanging between them. In the TV shows this would be where he said something slick and witty, and his script-write must have had the day off because Jin couldn’t think of anything to say, nothing that made sense anyways. “You can’t be here,” Maru said. Jin pushed his way inside the apartment before Maru had the chance to try and close the door on him. “You really can’t be here.”
“It’s good to see you too.” Jin smiled thinly.
“No, Jin.” Maru looked around, like the shadows might jump out at him. “If they find out I spoke with you…”
“What are you going to do, toss me in jail again?” He crossed his arms over his chest, Maru seemed so much smaller now, muscle hiding under his hideous sweater, and eyes darting around.
“It’s not safe there.”
“No shit.” It was meant as a deterrent as a reason.
“Jin, you need to leave. Go away.”
“No.”
Maru took a step towards him, straightening his back to his full height and Jin let him push his way up into his personal space. He let out a sharp gasp when Jin grabbed him, spinning him around fast and slamming him hard enough into the door to leave him gasping for breath. Maru’s hands came up to grab at his wrists, so he batted them away, pressing his forearm against his shoulders to free up one hand. When he wrapped it around Maru’s throat, he pressed a little harder then he needed to pin him in place, just to watch the way his eyes widened.
“I haven’t decided if I’m going to kill you yet. So I’d be good if I were you.”
Maru glared at him, teeth snapping together with a click.
“If you’re going to kill me, you had better be prepared to disappear fast.”
“I’ve had a few years of practice.” He hissed. “Do you know what it’s been like? To realize that for four years I’ve been gone, that everyone went on without me. Do have any idea what that feels like? I want to know why.”
“Jin.”
“Why, Maru?” He didn’t mean to sound needy, couldn’t help the slight whine. He’d been betrayed by lots of different people, but no one he had wanted to be everything for. “Why did you set me up?”
Jin met Maru and the world changed.
Maru was a rebel in his own Oxford kind of way; he wore button-down shirts and jeans with sensible shoes. He used to touch Jin’s mouth and whisper against his jaw ‘we should have never met.’ They came from two different worlds. Maru was the son of the police chief and Jin was your run of the mill thug. Maru was special, he looked at the sky-line from the hood of Jin’s car on a hot day and he didn’t see shit and hell the way everyone else did. Maru thought Jin was a big dumb idiot, Jin thought Maru looked like a good time, things probably in a sane and rational world wouldn’t have gone past that. Only Jin’s life played like a shitty movie and of course he would fall for the boy from the other side of the tracks.
One day, laying in bed, filthy and worn out, Maru had lit up a cigarette, stared at the window for long enough that Jin was almost asleep by the time he spoke again. 'My father is a bad man. I need to do something about it.’
Jin told him off, said it wasn’t any of his business, that there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Nakamaru wouldn’t let it drop. It took him months and months, but slowly he began to build up evidence of his own father’s corruption. It got to the point where Jin believed in him, thought that he could change things, expose the cancerous corruption in the police department.
Jin, Junno, and Ueda, it had been raining that day too, and he dashed from the meet point to the car. He had picked up some documents, proof, irrefutable proof, and deliver them to a reporter for Maru. The whole thing was secret, which was why Maru was having lunch with his father and a few other city officials while Jin made the drop. Only it didn’t go down that way.
Jin showed up where he was supposed to meet Maru so he could call his reporter to let him know where to be, having taken the most round-about route through the city to shake any tails. Maru had lectured him on the merits of being overly cautious; his father was a powerful and brilliant man. There was no one there. ‘We should go.’ Ueda said, and Junno agreed with him, but this was important, and Jin had told them both to sit the hell down and wait. Maru would be there. The car that pulled up, wheels splashing through the pot holes and tinted windows was an unmarked police cruiser.
The official arrest record showed that he had resisted, and that the police had needed to use force to bring him in. Boots to his ribs, driving the air from his body in a sputtering woosh, dirty, greasy puddle water soaking into his clothes and hair.
‘What have we here? This is a lot of drugs.’ He tossed the envelope at his partner. ‘You’re going away for a long time. Burn that, I can’t believe this is the guy that has been nosing around in the boss’ business.’
Only Maru knew about the drop point, and Jin had a long time to think about it. Clearly they knew someone was gathering evidence. Either Maru set him up to clear his own name, or he did it for money, because the evidence was destroyed when they caught him.
“Why didn’t you show up? Why did you sell me out to them?” I wanted to trust you.
“I wanted to, Jin.” His fingers tightened around Maru’s slim throat, he could feel his pulse there, hammering just under the tips of his fingers. How many times had be pressed his tongue to that place right there and felt Maru alive and squirming underneath him?
“That’s not good enough.” He growled. “I wanted to be a pop star when I was a kid.”
“He handcuffed me to his car.” Maru snarled. Eyes flashing angrily. “Made me stay there in the parking lot all day. I tried Jin, I tried. I don’t know how he found out, but he did.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He told me that if I continued, that,” Maru swallowed hard, “he said, that people die in prison all the time, fights and stuff break out. If I tried to contact you, or did anything, that he would have you killed.” Maru stared hard at him. “Now I work in a fucking library, Jin. I couldn’t risk you.”
“That’s why you’re fucking Koki?”
“Koki is trying to get into the council office. He wants my contacts and all my research. Four years is a long time to be suspicious of all your friends. It was lonely.”
“Tell me why I should believe you.” Four years was a long time to spend plotting what he was going to do, it wasn’t like there was much else for him to do.
“I can’t.”
A tipping point. It was almost exactly like the first time they kissed, Jin boxing Maru in with his arms, trying to loom over him, and Maru refusing to be intimidated. Just like that time, he knew better but he couldn’t help himself. Jin leaned in, and Maru leaned up and they were kissing. Dry lips unbearably soft under his, Maru’s hands coming around his waist, the tips of his fingers digging into his sides enough to hurt and Jin didn’t want to let go either. Despite everything, this was all he wanted, the taste of Maru on his tongue, opened his lips so Maru could kiss him properly.
One kiss stretched on forever, morphing into a series of smaller ones, breaking apart to smile against each other’s mouths, but never being far enough away to be breathing separate air, resting their foreheads together.
“I missed you.” Maru, his voice was thick against his mouth, words slurred against his cheek. “So much.”
“I’ve spent most of the last four years thinking about all the ways I was going to make you pay.”
“What did you decide on?”
Those close Maru’s face was all blurry, lines and features fuzzy with the lack of perception.
“I didn’t.” Maru kissed him again, soft and lingering, kissed him in a way they didn’t quite understand when they were together. Pressed up so close together that Jin could feel Maru breathing with his whole body, and there was real danger of him crushing Maru into the wall. “I spent so long trying to decide.”
He shifted his grip so that he was brushing his thumb over the wet shine of Maru’s bottom lip.
“Maybe.” The word was pressed against the pad of his thumb, Maru’s tongue touching it like a shy little kiss. “You’ll never decide.”
That was, that was, Jin thought about it, an attractive idea. “I think I like that.” Jin was too stupid to stay away from dangerous things. After all, if he wasn’t he would have been gone a long time ago.
“It won’t be easy,” Maru sighed, they were pressed so close together that there wasn’t even a sliver of space between them but Maru was trying to pull himself closer, tight, trying to worm himself inside of Jin’s chest.
“It’ll be like the old days.” Jin pressed a kiss against Maru’s hair. “You and me babe, against the world.”
Maru made a soft amused sound. Yeah, maybe it was a little cheesy. That was okay. Then nothing else mattered because Maru was sinking to his knees in the narrow space he made for himself between the door and Jin.
“It’s been awhile,” Maru murmured, looking up at Jin through his bangs.
“Speak for yourself,” he joked, running his hands through Maru’s thick dark hair.
Maru hummed, pressing his face against the roughness of Jin’s jeans. It had to be scratching at the smoothness of his cheek, but he didn’t seem to care pressing his face against Jin’s hip and breathing deeply. Jin cradled the width of his skull with his hand, letting his head come to rest against the door so that Maru was caged in. It was ironic, or symbolic, or something, Jin wasn’t sure but he wanted to keep Maru here forever. Just like this.
The words were there, all caught behind his teeth. Proclamations, confessions, everything he never said to Maru when he had the chance. Of course, Maru would mock him mercilessly if he actually said any of it, he had this way of mocking him with his eyes when he was blowing him. Couldn’t shut him up even with a dick in his mouth.
“You miss this? Missed me?” Jin murmured into the odd silence that settled between them while Maru toyed with the loops of Jin’s stolen jeans. “Tell me now.” Jin pet through Maru’s hair, all dull brown now, missing those rebellious little blond streaks Jin put there and Maru had kept because he liked the way they made him look more bad ass.
“Missed your dick maybe,” Maru mumbled into the arch of his hip, tugging the jeans as far down as they would go with the button still done up. The rough weave scratched at his skin, and Jin twisted up into it. Maru had surprised him the first time he nodded, looking serious, curious and most of gorgeous when Jin told him he could be as rough as he wanted.
Jin fucked like he fought, hard and fast, take no prisoners. When they first met Maru looked like he was made from spun glass, delicate with too many fragile parts.
Maru was looking up at him, eyes smirking even as his mouth remained pressed in a not-quite pout.
“I’m surprisingly okay with that.” Jin murmured and Maru gave him a small quirking smile, thumbing the button on his jeans open. “Watch the zipper, I didn’t bother with underwear.”
Maru mumbled something, easing the zipper down.
“Hm?” Jin tipped his head up, and Maru shrugged a bit.
“Sure you didn’t come to fuck me?”
“Not really, no.” Brushing his thumb over the angle of Maru’s cheek bone, he wondered if he actually had the stomach to do it. He liked to think he did, and maybe if Maru really had betrayed him he could.
“You’re psycho,” Maru hummed, pushing Jin’s jeans off his hips, they caught around his knees, Ueda’s stupid hipster pants too tight to just slide to the floor. Jin stepped out of them, making an annoyed sound when it caught on his shoe instead.
Maru laughed, pressing it against his bare hip, tugging on Jin’s shoes while Jin tried to toe them off with his pants caught low on his leg. Between them they managed to get the whole mess off and draped across Maru’s shoe rack. Jin’s dick was half-hard and rising hopefully against Maru’s chin. He didn’t disappoint either, licking at the head with a delicate flick of his tongue as a warning before he took the head into the warmth of his mouth.
Jin hissed softly, carding his fingers through Maru hair twisting the coarse strands between his fingers.
Slick heat, playing over just the head of his cock. Maru sort of ruined blowjobs for him, he doubted the most accomplished career sluts in prison could suck cock like Maru could. And yes, he fucking missed this part, the part where Maru’s eyes slid closed and he just moved, sliding down as far as he could, and pulling back up, getting the whole thing nice and wet.
“Fuck, babe,” Jin groaned, Maru pulling off slow and dirty, impossible suction, and tongue, tongue flicking across the underside on the pull out. “You’re so good for me.”
Maru looked up at him, running his short nails through the wiry hairs on Jin’s thighs. Tickly scrapes down from his hips to his knees that really could mean anything. Jin jerked forwards, and he was slick now, and Maru didn’t have any trouble, dick sliding along the cradle of his tongue deeper still. Jin groaned, letting the sound vibrate from his throat low and deep. Chin pressed to his chest, so he was watching the shadow of Maru’s head as it shifted and bobbed under his hands, slowly getting the length of his dick all wet.
It wasn’t quiet, or even the most elegant, Maru was making these soft little sounds, sometimes drowned out by the louder wet messy sounds.
Desperate, Maru dug the tips of his fingers into Jin’s hips and slid down his cock, just going and going like he didn’t know he was supposed to have a gag reflex. Jin whined, mouth working around the sounds of Maru’s name without saying anything that made any sense at all, because Maru’s nose was pressing against his hips and the muscles of his throat were cradling the head of his cock. He couldn’t help the shallow jerk of his hips, didn’t even try.
Maru made this sound, muffled by his dick, a desperate little hungry keening sound, digging his nails hard into the skin of Jin’s hips, creating a tiny pinpricks of pain in the wake of the wet slide. “You slut.” And that was it, he was rocking his hips shallowly, fucking Maru’s throat.
He slid his hands through Maru’s hair over and over, thumbing the sweet skin behind his ear, cupping the curve of his skull and running his nails over the back of his neck. He wanted to hold Maru everywhere, sit him in the palm of his hand and secret him away. They would fuck later, and Jin would bite at the edges of him, he’d bite and kiss until he forgot Koki was ever here. They would forget the world, and it would be just like the old days.
“Maru.”
Maru made some sort of sound, and Jin couldn’t hear it through the rush of blood in his head, it vibrated around his dick, a sharp spike of sensation and Jin grit his teeth against it hissing.
“Fuck.” Maru did it again, and Jin’s knees shook, leaning hard on the door. He was teetering, balls tight and spine straight, tense. Maru slid back, slowly sweet drag of friction, and Jin groaned the sound tangling with the tightness of his throat, and spilling everywhere. It washed through him, tingling pleasure in waves coming in Maru’s mouth, as he pet him through it. He was still feeling shaky, leaning heavy on the door while Maru slowly tongued him clean all the while making contented little sounds.
“Stop,” Jin groaned, the last shocks were almost painful making his whole body shiver with the sweetest agony. “Enough.”
He pulled away, and Maru was licking his swollen lips, chin shiny with saliva. He was smiling a little, eyes curving and teeth flashing between his red lips.
“You,” Jin said, sinking to his knees and Maru was gangly and their legs were not tangled in any way that was comfortable, but it allowed him to press closer Maru folding into his chest.
His lips were hot and his jaw had to be sore, but their kisses were so wet and deep, like Maru was trying to lick into him, desperate and hungry for more. He was mumbling something between kisses, sounded like Jin’s name mixed with random curses. His shoulders were sharp under his fingers, his palm curving around Maru’s shoulder and eclipsing it.
Their fingers kept tangling together when they both grappled with the button to his jeans. Eventually one of them got it, impossible to tell who. It didn’t matter because they managed to get them out of the way but only just. Maru gasped slick in his mouth when he wrapped his palm around it. The angle was all wrong, not enough movement, but Maru didn’t seem to mind. Groaning into the space between them, and clinging to Jin’s shoulders.
Shallow, but it was enough, and Jin pulled back to watch, Maru’s eyes going closed and biting down hard on his lip, one hand helping Jin, the other digging into his shoulders. He shivered, groaning low in his throat as he came sticky and warm all over their stomachs.
He breathed hard against Jin’s neck, hopelessly tangled together with Maru’s clothes and the shoes. Jin kissed Maru’s warm temple and kissed his dreams of a quiet country life away. He really hoped Kame got it, if only for both of them because he wasn’t letting Maru go. Maru laughed against his skin, like maybe he was listening in on Jin’s thoughts. “You’re psycho.”
“Probably,” Jin agreed, and they really needed to move out of the front hall. “But I can still make you come.”
Eventually Ueda or Koki would come to look for them, probably. Eventually they would need to leave this apartment. Eventually time would catch up with them, but for right now the clock was stopped and he was trapped in an entirely different place. Jin kissed the end of Maru’s nose. “How about we fuck?”
Maru tipped the kiss so he could bit Jin’s bottom lip, eyes shining. “Yes,” he hissed.
They would deal with his father later. Maybe you didn’t always need to lose things; maybe you could find them too.
-- 'Cause if you're not really here, then the stars don't even matter
Now I feel too tall, we all fear
But it's all just a bunch of matter
'Cause if you're not really here, then I don't want to be either
I want be next to you—Ellie Goulding – Black + Gold
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Date: 2011-10-13 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-16 12:15 am (UTC)