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The others lost their concentration each in turn and focused to varying degrees on the transformation taking place at the center of the room. There was a world unto itself there, a world of paradox where Akashi’s back arched and he cried out loud, eyes watering to drip down his cheeks in sideways tracks and mouth held open as control was, for the only time that any could remember seeing, wrested from him. Or else he gave it, willingly but not easily. Midorima, from the waist up seeming to take everything in stride, face flushed and hair stuck to his forehead, things out of place that were normally never out of place, shoulders slick with sweat and otherwise focused, intent on only the shuddering red-headed vanishing point beneath him, all around him. From the waist down he was relentless, rhythmic, unexpectedly violent and empowered. Aomine had left Akashi just open enough, just ready enough, that when Midorima tore inside (and no mistake could be made, he was bolder than Aomine in this one auspicious way, and bigger to put no point too fine on the physicality of the entire situation), he was greeted by a shattering cry and an animal growl, both noises that caught the interest and the concern of all assembled, all members of a team that felt the inexplicable need to confirm the welfare of their stalwart, immovable captain, the one making noises as if a sudden terrible magic had twisted its way inside of him.
Midorima kept them both there in that moment, hips firing hard, trying to go deeper than possible in that small, resilient body, not really concerned for comfort, but concerned for there, and now, and more. Akashi’s hands scrabbled and grabbed like a dying man’s at anything to brace himself; swallowed air like he was drowning. He held himself open in every way, inviting and challenging but not easy, never easy.
No one else continued in the big open room in Akashi’s otherwise empty home, parents away on family holiday and absolutely unaware of the territory being explored in their absence. Aomine glanced at Kise and Kuroko caught a glimpse of fascination in Murasakibara’s eyes. This seemed sacrosanct, and at the same time like it wasn’t even happening. An illusion of impossibility, a glitch of berserk emancipation.
Akashi made keening and sometimes furious sounds, trapped in the exult of a transcendent experience. Probably not because it felt easy and definitely not because of anything typical. The question in the unmoving eyes around the room was whether his control had been taken by Midorima pounding at him like a man possessed or whether it had been given over like a zealot surrendering to the throes of religious ardor. Was there lowering, was there elevating, or was there just that inexplicable Schroedinger’s moment when they all realized that Midorima wasn’t even wearing a condom, and that Akashi wasn’t telling him to stop.
Watching breathless, daring not to disturb the hunter on its prey when Midorima heaved a sobbing breath, jerked Akashi’s body forward, and delivered the final blow.
The next day at practice Akashi approached each of them separately and, casual as an afternoon breeze, asked “where were you yesterday evening?” They made up separate lies that became truths after only a few moments of remembering the impossible alternative, the limbs tangled at the fluids exchanged and the bodies doubled and tripled together.
Only Midorima was not asked. He was approached while sat on the bench examining his hands. He hadn’t even used them the night before, not on Akashi, only to hold himself when he was hauled up by the hair moments after coming; Akashi was still full, now overflowing when Midorima pulled out of him, when Midorima had no choice. His hands caught the floor as Akashi pushed his face down without a word, silently commanding him, a ghost of a touch away from the orgasm that rocked him in a cataclysm of vibration and energy as soon as Midorima fastened his mouth and swallowed. It seemed they’d done it before. None but the two least likely to ever speak the truth would know the truth.
At the bench surrounded by the squeak of shoes on the gymnasium floor and the loud thump of dribbling, they simply met eyes, neither willing to break contact or back down from the memories. Akashi took a deep breath and prepared to speak, but Midorima stole his moment, pushing his glasses firmly up the bridge of his nose. “Can you even run today? What are you trying to prove?”
The same thing he was trying to prove the night before, that control was a mutable force and power was a construct in the hands of those who perceived others to wield it. That he could arrange pieces as he wanted, off the court just as well as on it, assess situations and take what he wanted. That, collapsed in a wet mess of suddenly useless limbs, aching and numb and leaking come – his own and not his own – he could croak “everyone keep going” and they would keep going, they would still respect him, they might respect him more in fact. Sex was the easiest experiment with the chaos of raw human emotion, he found, and his boys became themselves most potently under its thrall.
Aomine took things like a child unsupervised; he assumed the role of aggressor, but managed to be conscientious enough to stop when told, to give when it earned him favor. Kise gave – Kise always gave. Himself, and his talents. He was so vastly talented but he awaited direction and took it flawlessly, begging for validation, finding the most pleasure in being good at what he was doing. Murasakibara… a strange force of nature, unconcerned with theatrics, choosy about those he preferred, virile and competitive about it but ultimately lazy. There were hints of the same qualities in Kuroko, who seemed most pliable and suggestive but who also had the clearest boundaries. Akashi watched him most intently, when he wasn’t watching Midorima. It wasn’t that Midorima was uninterested, exactly, but if all those qualities combined – aggressor, pleaser, seemingly aloof but intimately aware – Midorima sat at the apex of it all, preening on the attention he received and quietly judging those who assumed he would give back just for the sake of reciprocation.
Akashi feared (because of this, or in spite of it?) he would have no partner by the end of the night, and knew it beyond the shadow of a doubt within minutes. Because Midorima, he feared and then he hoped and then he knew, was his. The others criss-crossed and overlapped and shared themselves with Akashi at the benevolent and literal center of it all. But not Midorima.
Akashi decided he would bite into the diamond and break it in half. He said two words: first “stop,” and he waited for Aomine to pull out of him and go in the direction his twitching finger indicated. Then “Shintarou,” plainly and loudly with a beckoning hand and legs wide open.
They hadn’t even spoken but for howls and scratches and bucking hips, panting and grunting and getting angry at what pain became pleasure became truth.
He throbbed from the waist down whenever he moved and his abdomen was a thousand situps tight, aching, burning. But Akashi set fire to his eyes and replied, “I don’t need to prove anything.”
His eyes never strayed from Midorima, cloven diamond with the beastly entity just below the shine and the majesty, bleeding out through the cracks whenever Akashi prodded him accurately, jerked the lead. “Everyone seems different today,” Akashi said to complement the following silence.
“No they don’t.”
He finally looked away. “You’re a liar,” he said, words hard around the edges of a soft, dilute tone that faded in the cacophony of basketball.