In the months that had followed the near destruction of Spice City, a new kind of ease had settled in Spirits and Such. Mob came around only sometimes, and strictly to chat and catch up—no exorcisms or work required of the teen. Tome was in the office more often now, helping out every so often, but more-so using the job as an excuse not to study. The office felt brighter and warmer nowadays, vibrant with life and peace.
And then there was Serizawa. Serizawa had become his….something. They never put a label on it, first indulging in stolen glances that turned into spending time after work together grabbing a drink. That slowly turned into formal dinners together, late nights talking or playing video games. And eventually it became the touches of their shoulders together as they walked that became intertwined hands quicker than either would admit. But they hadn’t kissed, hadn’t really clarified what it all was.
Reigen was fine with that for now, he was. He knew Serizawa was still figuring out what he wanted his life to be like, and it would make sense if these flirtations were just part of that. It would sting a bit, sure, when Serizawa inevitably found someone who was a better person, someone genuinely good. But Reigen was a grown man and he could deal with it.
But he hoped, though, hoped that his affections weren’t to be lost.
The morning passed fairly uneventfully, only two clients had come in for consultations. A quick shoulder massage and salt for them and they were satisfied and on their way home.
After waving goodbye to the final client and hearing the door click, Reigen let his body collapse in half with an overdramatic sigh.
“It didn’t seem all that tough,” Serizawa commented with the most innocent tone of voice, but Reigen knew better—Serizawa for all of his inexperience with people had somehow managed to tease back at Reigen every so often. The conman would ignore the way that fact made his heart rate quicken and his skin feel hot to the touch.
With a flourish, Reigen was upright once more, ignoring the feeling of his dress shirt becoming untucked as he loosened his tie—no more clients were coming in anyway, what need was there for formality between him and Serizawa? “Ah, what a simple way of viewing things—it only looked easy because those are two techniques I have trained for years. Once you get to my level of psychic awareness, you’ll understand.”
Both of them knew it was a boldfaced lie, and typically Serizawa played his part in this whole charade willingly, nodding along as if anything Reigen was saying had as much value as he claimed.
This time, though, Serizawa’s eyes were locked in on something. Following his gaze, Reigen could see he was looking at the place where his hand was gripping his own tie to loosen—was there a bug there?
Reigen swatted at the tie, hoping whatever it had been that Serizawa was staring at was gone now. Looking back at his colleague, Reigen frowned in confusion—Serizawa wasn’t even looking anywhere near Reigen’s direction anymore and had a feverish look about him.
He remembered the last time something like this had happened, a far too sick Mob coming into ushe office, exhausted and overheating. After Reigen had sent him home, he spent nearly three full days sanitizing the place once more—he didn’t really want to do so again.
Walking over to where Serizawa sat, Reigen leaned over once more and pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, the closeness now making the redness and fever on his face all that more apparent.
He leaned over to meet his colleague’s eyes, frowning, “It doesn’t seem like you’ve got a fever—you ok?”
Once again, Serizawa’s eyes are elsewhere, focused on Reigen’s tie again as it nearly fell into his lap, it had become so undone. He’d check the tie later to see if he had let some ketchup fall onto it at lunch, but that would be important later.
Serizawa opened his mouth to speak but Reigen stood up straight before he could talk, “Go home, get some rest. I can deal with the clients this afternoon—don’t need you getting sick on me.”
The psychic just nodded in response, the heat across his face more prevalent than before. Reigen frowned at the sight, and even if he couldn’t help but notice how nice a flush looked across Serizawa’s face, it would be wrong to ogle when he was so clearly ill.
In quite the hurry, the door was flung open and Reigen was left alone once more. The room seemed a lot less alive without Serizawa around the feeling tugging at Reigen’s chest before he tried to push it aside. He had work to get done, Serizawa would be fine, wouldn’t he?
When the day ended, Reigen had basically bitten through one of his pencils. Without someone to talk to (or more accurately, talk at) the entire day, he had to do something, and he wasn’t going to just talk to an empty room. He’d done that before and it didn’t make him feel better.
So instead, he just looked at his papers, fixed his online ad, and nearly chewed his pencil apart as he thought about Serizawa. It was out of worry, really, concern his friend was more ill than he had let on. No, he certainly had not been thinking about Serizawa laying in bed, face flushed from the fever. He definitely did not imagine leaning over and pressing a kiss to his forehead and waiting until he fell asleep. That was all far too romantic and domestic for whatever their relationship was right now—not even a relationship, but an intense friendship.
And don’t friends check in on one another when they’re worried? Admittedly, Reigen didn’t know the answer, but it sounded right in his head. And as with most things with Reigen, that was good enough.
After closing up, he picked up some cheap pre-made soup from a nearby store. It wasn’t homemade, but it was the thought that would matter. Besides homemade soups would be for boyfriends or husbands, not ‘your employee that sometimes holds your hand and neither of you talk about it because it would be weird to’.
Reigen already knew the way to the psychic’s home, having helped him pick it out only a few months ago. It was a small apartment building, not fancy by any means, but certainly an upgrade from the first apartment Serizawa had after leaving his mother’s place.
As he came to the top of the stairs, Reigen saw Serizawa’s door left ajar, as if a gust of wind had blown it in. Surely, Serizawa wasn’t careless enough to just leave his door unlocked, right? Tip toeing into the apartment, Reigen noticed the living area had been nearly turned upside down. Had Serizawa been attacked? Was it his own abilities that had done this?
Reigen cleared his throat and was about to call out his friend’s name when he heard a loud sigh from the bedroom, breathing out, “Reigen.”
To the conman this seemed to be confirmation that something really was wrong. Maybe it was his psychic abilities that alerted Serizawa that Reigen was here, that he needed help. Because that husky, breathy voice didn’t sound like his usual baritone.
Reigen slid open the door with no other introduction, only to see what had really been going on.
Serizawa’s eyes snapped open, wide and horrified. Reigen watched as his face lit up a bright red and he scrambled with something underneath the covers.
“Why are you here?” Serizawa asked tensely through a nervous laugh.
Reigen’s mind was running fast at this point, trying to make sure he actually understood what was happening. No…it couldn’t be.
“Why am I here? You seemed sick, thought I’d bring you some soup,” he lifted up the plastic bag as if it were an explanation in itself, “Then you left the door open—really, you shouldn’t leave the door open like that I know you live in a fine neighborhood or whatever, but a lot of robberies are robberies of advantage, not planned out—and anyway, that plus the fact the rest of your apartment is a mess, it seemed like you might be in trouble and then I heard my name and—” his hands gestured outward as if to say ‘and now we’re here.’
The esper seemed to barely be paying attention while Reigen spoke, his mind clearly occupied somewhere else as he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth audibly. It had been a ‘special technique’ Reigen had taught him whenever he felt nervous or anxious on the job—why would he be using it here?
Finally, Serizawa spoke again, more stable and certain than before, “I’m fine, Reigen, and I-I appreciate the concern but I think I just need to rest.”
“Right..” Reigen eyed him suspiciously for a moment, wondering if he should press further on the questions he still had, “I’ll just leave the soup in the fridge?”
Serizawa nodded rapidly, forcing a smile as Reigen turned to leave.
No, this was all too weird and Reigen felt his gut telling him he had to ask, “So did you know I was here?”
“What?”
“Did you know I was here like not even minute ago before I came in and scared the shit out of you?” Reigen kept his voice casual and calm, though beneath the surface he could feel his pulse quicken.
Serizawa blinked a few times, clearly unsure as to why Reigen was asking this, “Uh…no?”
Reigen nodded then asked with more tension creeping into his voice, “Then why did you say my name?”
Silence fell between them and Reigen could see the fear and anxiety creeping into Serizawa, as the esper reached to pull the blanket up a little higher. That all but confirmed for Reigen what he had thought, and though he was shocked himself, he could see that Serizawa wasn’t necessarily handling this well.
“Hey,” Reigen set the soup down and entered into the bedroom fully. He needed to fix this, and fast.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he repeated as he knelt down beside where Serizawa had sat up in his futon. He still remained more than a foot away, though, letting Serizawa have his distance, “It’s okay.”
Serizawa turned to look at him in complete shock and confusion as the words began to blubber out, “O-okay? How is this okay? You trust me and then I—and you don’t know—but then you do—and I don’t know how any of this is okay or how you could ever trust me again or—“
He was cut off by the feeling of a hand over his own and a confident voice just saying, using his first name for the first time, “Katsuya, I promise it’s okay, it’s happens, to all of us.”
Reigen hoped that he sounded more put together than he felt, because inside it seemed like every nerve was set ablaze as he walked the tightrope of this relationship. In any other situation he would have found it embarrassing to admit to imaging how his friend’s large hands would feel digging into his body, how his stubble would leave marks across every inch of him, how they would feel tangled together in the sheets.
He met Serizawa’s eyes finally, and could feel his own cheeks heat up as he watched his friend’s eyes soften from the panic and fear into something more thoughtful, to finally the recognition of what Reigen had meant. Reigen let his hand drop, instinctually finding Serizawa’s own to hold onto.
“Oh,” Serizawa let out, his mouth still hanging agape in surprise.
Reigen gulped audibly and gave the gentle hand in his a squeeze, “Yeah.”
“I didn’t know you…” Reigen could see Serizawa’s mind working behind his eyes, piecing together the past few months now in an entirely new light.
“Well I wouldn’t,” he lifted their conjoined hands with teasing smile and a faint blush, “If I didn’t….you know.”
“Oh,” Serizawa repeated again softly.
“So I don’t mind, it’s just….surprising,” Reigen admitted, still staring at where their fingers interlaced, like Serizawa would escape at any moment from fear of what this all amounted to.
Silence once again fell between them as Reigen waited for Serizawa to say something, anything. Reigen knew that he could continue talking, knowing that it would fill this awkwardness, but also knowing that it would only serve to make this situation even more confusing, to turn this moment of terrifying vulnerability into something else. So he bit his tongue and waited for the other’s voice to break the silence.
“So you want to?”
“I mean yeah,” Reigen admitted quickly with an embarrassed chuckle. Why did he feel like some teenage girl all of a sudden when Serizawa looked at him like that?
He backpedaled, realizing that he may have been pushing for things to move faster than Serizawa wanted? “Not now, I meant eventually but yeah I’ve thought about it.”
“Me too,” the esper admitted as he titled his head down shyly. It was cute to see how flustered he could get despite all that had happened.
“Oh I know that!” Reigen fell into a louder laugh now as he squeezed Serizawa’s hand again, “I think I figured that out a few minutes ago.”
Serizawa’s gażę męt his with a glint in his eyes as he began to laugh as well, “I can’t believe that you—and that’s how we—“
“Realized we we both wanted this?” Reigen finished the sentence, feeling all of a sudden embarrassed himself at how long it had taken the pair to come to that conclusion.
“Yeah,” Serizawa’s face was soft as he looked at Reigen, the gentleness almost overwhelming.
Reigen dropped his head down with a sigh, close enough now for his forehead to be leaning against Serizawa’s shoulder, “Hey, at least we figured it out at some point, right?”
He felt the press of something warm and strong against his back, Serizawa’s hand pulling him in closer, “Yeah.”
Slowly, Reigen disentangled his hand from Serizawa’s and lifted his head, now all too aware of how close they were. Bringing his hands both up to cup his cheeks, Reigen smiled a bit as he felt that stubble he had imagined under his touch finally, “Katsuya, can I kiss you?”
“Please,” was the only confirmation Reigen needed before pressing their lips together, finally.
Serizawa was stiff at first, but Reigen had expected as much as for all he knew, this was Serizawa’s first kiss ever. But by no means was this Reigen’s, no, he was intimately acquainted with dating apps, rarely ever using it for dating purposes, and always used as an outlet for his sexual frustrations. Reigen wouldn’t push, though, the feelings he held for Serizawa far greater than just a quick and dirty one night stand.
Reigen pulled away finally, intending to look at Serizawa and see if he was comfortable. He couldn’t do that, though, not when he was being pulled in by the tie back into another, more hungry kiss.
Teeth clashed together as Reigen let Serizawa take the lead for a bit, letting the inexperienced man explore what it was like to kiss so desperately and fiercely. After a few moments, Reigen slowed the kiss, letting his tongue glide across chapped lips. If this was the first time that Serizawa had done this with someone, Reigen wanted to make sure it was done right.
Feeling the other’s mouth drop open at the sensation, Reigen followed suit, their kiss messier and sloppier than it had been before. A hand reached up to tangle in the mess of curls, Reigen smiling as he realized they were as soft as he had always imagined those lonely nights in bed.
Suddenly he felt something tugging his tie, tightening it and pulling him in even closer. Feeling the way the large hand gripped onto the pink fabric, Reigen pulled away realizing, “Does the tie do it for you?”
“What?” Serizawa let the tie go immediately as his face heated up again. Well, that was as much of a confirmation as anything.
Before he could let the panic creep in again, Reigen leaned in for a feather-light kiss to his temple, “It’s okay if it does.”
“Actually,” Reigen began to clarify, guiding one of Serizawa’s hands to the knot of his tie again, letting Serizawa hold onto his lifeline again, this time with his hand., “It’s pretty hot.”
He could hear Serizawa gulp at the comment and watched his Adam’s apple move. Was everything about this odd man simply entrancing for everyone or had Reigen really fallen this much for him?
“O-okay,” Serizawa finally got out before using the leverage on tie to drag Reigen back down, still passionate and frenzied, but certainly improving. Either Reigen was a good teacher or Serizawa was a quick learner. For his own ego’s sake, he’d want to believe the former.
Finally they had to separate, but needing to feel that closeness still, Reigen allowed himself to practically crawl into Serizawa’s lap, lavishing soft kisses across his stubbled cheek, “Tell me if this is too much.”
“It’s good,” Serizawa sighed, letting his hands drift up to Reigen’s waist, his palms pulling Reigen closer.
He pulled away at sensation of the hardness now beneath him, letting his hips roll down as he raised an eyebrow, “Just good?”
Serizawa was breathing heavy, but could still laugh nervously through it, “Definitely more than just good.”
This time it was Reigen who felt the trail of wandering kisses across the little skin he had exposed. He felt Serizawa gently pressing his body down onto his length, matching each with a slow thrust of body. Soft moans quietly escaped them both as pleasure coursed through their bodies.
He reached up to undo his tie a bit more, before feeling a force stop him. Now it was Serizawa’s hands that made quick work of undoing it, tearing off his jacket and opening his shirt with a quiet, “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” Reigen was snapped from the desire with the apology. He was about to ask what there was to be sorry for before realizing the state of the room.
Almost everything in the bedroom was either levitating or had just come down from levitating that moment. Reigen stared back in shock for a moment, before capturing Serizawa in another kiss, clearly surprising the other man as he tumbled back down onto the bed.
When the pair pulled back once more, Reigen’s face was grinning as he hovered above Serizawa. Between laughs he peppered kisses across Serizawa’s cheeks, hands beginning to wander to the hem of the tee shirt he must have slipped into coming home, “Not many people can say their boyfriend’s psychic powers get turned on when he’s turned on.”
“Boyfriend?”
Shit.
Reigen’s face was bright red, his hands now playing with the hem of the shirt as he tried as delicately as possible to navigate a way out of this situation. Before he could speak, two hands were firm on his now bare waist.
Looking down, Serizawa was flushed all over, but smiling up shyly, “If you want me to—”
“Yes!” Reigen responded, realizing that it wasn’t coming across suave as he had hoped. Clearing his throat he tried again, “I mean, if you really want to, I guess so.”
Thankfully, Serizawa simply laughed at that, gazing up now at Reigen with an expression that could only be described as adoration, “I want that. I want you.”
Something in the air shifted as Reigen watched Serizawa’s eyes trail down his own bare chest. He took the opportunity then to follow suit, inching the tee shirt until it had bunched up above his pecs. Smoothing his hands down across the hairy chest, he could feel the softness of his skin. In all the parts of his own body where Reigen was bony and gangly, Serizawa felt plush and warm.
Frankly, he wanted nothing more than to bury his face into the other’s chest and fall asleep happily. But the lust clouding Serizawa’s eyes and the feeling of something larger and hard still beneath his lap made other ideas far more interesting.
“Then you have me,” Reigen responded, leaning down and letting his lips fall to where Serizwa’s neck met his shoulder. It was low enough that his usual suit would hide it, so he felt less guilty for suctioning his mouth there and nibling until all that was left was a dark mark.
Pulling a few soft sighs and moans from beneath him, Reigen pulled back to admire his work, to admire Serizawa. Rough fingertips danced across his skin, until he was eventually was helping his lover wriggle out of his tee.
He groaned at the sight, how blown out Serizawa’a pupils were, how the flush from his cheeks was covering his broad chest now too. Hands reached out to grab onto his pecs, steadying Reigen as he let his hips roll back, settling him on Serizawa’s clothed cock.
A whimper fell out of his parted lips, delicate and soft, but desperate all the same. Grinning, he repeated the motion once more, dragging out increasingly louder sounds from Serizawa. In its way it became Reigen’s own challenge to see how much he could unravel the man.
Reigen continued to press down, his own chest heaving as he tried to memorize the feeling of the hardened length beneath him. Memorize the way it felt underneath his hands as Serizawa’s chest rose and fell. He could feel the power thrumming beneath the surface, a power that with each grinding of his body he could feel bubbling to the surface.
“Please,” Serizawa finally found his voice strong enough to plead softly and who was Reigen to deny him such a request.
Peeling himself off of his lap, Reigen made quick work to unbuckle his pants, stopping before he tore them off to meet his lover’s eyes. One enthusiastic nod later, and his trousers were haphazardly tossed to the wayside.
Even though wasn’t naked, there was still a part of him that felt bare and vulnerable in front of Serizawa like this, and it certainly didn’t help that the other’s eyes were staring at the tent forming in his boxers.
Kneeling back down again with a red face, Reigen inched his fingers to hook onto his sweatpants. Eyes closed and cheeks flushed, Serizawa nodded again.
“Katsuya,” Reigen said carefully as soon as he tugged the sweats down to his ankles, “Why aren’t you wearing underwear?”
“Oh god,” Serizawa threw his arm over his eyes as it became clear how the embarrassment flooded into him.
Oh god was right. Reigen’s face softened as he admired how sweet and frankly cute Serizawa seemed in this moment. It stood in stark contrast to the lower half of his body, erect and shining with precum. If it were any other time, Reigen would perhaps feel a tad insecure that Serizawa was slightly longer than him and significantly thicker, but right now he only wanted to feel it inside any part of him.
“Tell me if it’s too much or if you want me to stop,” Feather light kisses dotted the muscular, freckled thighs.
Carefully, Reigen brought his mouth to the head, pressing his lips gently to it before swiping his tongue up the entire underside of the shaft. He could feel Serizawa’s thighs tense and hear the sharp inhale.
He wasted no time in taking him fully into his mouth, humming as Serizawa’s back arched and he whined out, “Arataka.”
Looking up through his eyelashes, Reigen could see how bright red Serizawa was, watching the way his chest moved with deep breaths. Determined to see more of it, he slowly began to bob his head up and down the thick length, cheeks hollowing out as he finally popped off.
With a wry expression Reigen leaned back enough to meet Serizawa’s gaze, “Sounds nice when you say my name.”
“I like saying it,” Serizawa said simply, sitting up onto one elbow, the other arm reaching out cup Reigen’s cheek. He smiled sheepishly and repeated, “Arataka.”
“Geeze Katsuya,” Reigen leaned into the touch with a nervous laugh, “If you keep saying my name like that I’m really going to want to suck you off.”
The esper’s eyes went wide with concern and panic, “Wait do you not want to? Did I pressure you because you came in when I—“
“What? No!” Reigen interrupted loudly with a shake of his head, “No not at all I mean trust me—“ his gaze turned surprisingly, “Trust me that I have thought about doing this for a while.”
“O-oh.”
“So can I?” Need and lust clouded the blonde’s vision as Serizawa nodded.
Returning to where he had left off, he slowly lowered back down, savoring the weight and taste of it in his mouth. He savored even more the feeling of Serizawa’s hand threading through his hair, not pulling or pushing him down but simply being there.
Reigen couldn’t remember the last time he had been with someone so gentle in bed, so kind and genuinely caring. Most of the hookups were quick and dirty, rough and filthy. It left a feeling in his gut of both satisfaction from being fucked so hard int hurt to walk and feeling used by men who never cared to learn his full name.
Serizawa was different—of course he was. No, he knew Reigen, knew the lies and the exaggerations, had seen his flaws laid bare and still wanted this. Wanted him. And even in the heat of the moment, even though it was his first time, he was still the same gentle giant Reigen had come to love so much.
He wanted to make Serizawa feel as good as he possibly could, focusing hard on drawing out more sighs of pleasure from his lips, wanting to bring him to release.
It took far less time than Reigen thought it would, though, he recalled his own first time being quite short.
“Arataka I—” was all the warning he received before Serizawa came hard.
Swallowing it, Reigen crawled back up until his face was resting on Serizawa’s chest, eyebrow raised and grinning, “Well?”
All he got in return for a moment was a shy smile and nod. He could feel how heavy Serizawa was breathing, and it took a minute or two before he found the breath to speak, “You next?”
He looked so eager it made Reigen’s heart flutter. Instead of responding immediately, Reigen rolled off just to the side and guided one of the esters’s large hands to his hip, “Look I’m pretty close considering well,” he left unsaid the considering you haven’t even touched me part as that felt too embarrassing to even say, “And you seem pretty tired so you can just….” He trailed off, wondering why it was so hard to use his words—it was so easy to tell others that he had been with what he wanted and how he wanted it.
Thankfully, though, his lover understood and moved his palm to wrap gently around Reigen’s own length, enough pressure to make his breath catch in his throat but not so much it was painful.
“Yeah,” Reigen nodded and burrowed his head into Serizawa’s neck, leaving light kisses across it as he felt the other glide up and down his shaft.
As the pace increased, Reigen found himself practically panting into Serizawa’s sweaty skin, shivering as he heard the soft voice whisper to him, “I pictured what you would look like like this, but it’s better than what I could have ever imagined.”
Somehow that little bit of praise, coming so genuinely from someone who offered his compliments so freely was the last straw. Hands dug into skin as Reigen shuddered in Serizawa’s arms, the only thing on his mind how much he adored the man.
It could have been seconds or minutes before Reigen refocused his mind again, feeling Serizawa’s hand drawing patterns on his back, feeling the way their breaths became one.
“Well,” Reigen broke the silence, “That was the best happy accident of my life.”
The silence stayed for just a second longer before both men started giggling, tugging each other closer. It was as if the happiness had bubbled over, Serizawa unable to stop kissing the top of Reigen’s head, Reigen unable to stop laughing and grinning.
“Hey,” Serizawa said softly, and Reigen looked up to meet his eyes, both men’s expressions completely love-struck and filled with adoration, “Do you want to stay for dinner? I hear this handsome man brought me soup.”