I'm tagging this R-18 just to be safe--there's nothing explicit, but the whole scene is pretty obviously post-coital. To quote myself on the subject of Naoki and Chester getting back together ~12 years post-accidental baby-induced breakup any% speedrun:
Anyways, actual writing below the cut. This is just the beginning of a long-running number of conversations on the topic lmao
--
You can’t even guess what time it is at this point. It feels like a whole ocean of sweat’s been dumped directly onto your body, making your t-shirt stick to you in unflattering places. The blanket’s been kicked just far enough away that you can’t grab a corner with your toes to drag it over your freezing feet. An ache’s started up in your hips and jaw.
You lay there, on your stomach in his futon, and find yourself missing him something fierce.
It’s unbearable, all of a sudden, enough to make you flop yourself over on your side. You need to see him, make sure this isn’t the world’s worst-slash-best wet dream. Naoki’s taken his glasses off. Those stupid pretty eyelashes frame a look in his eyes that says he’s not all in there.
“Shit, man,” you sigh. Naoki blinks rapidly, trying to drag himself back out of his own head. He makes a little “mmh?” noise.
“Us. We made it, what, two weeks?” The ridiculousness of it all makes you snort lightly.
“I’m surprised you let me.” His voice is small, murmured out the side of his mouth and into the pillow. You remember what he’d said, when you’d asked him if he’d moved on to someone new: You really think I’d inflict myself on someone else?
“Get your head outta your ass,” you say, and oh, it comes out so tender. You reach over to unstick a sweat-straightened curl plastered over his temple. Naoki flinches away like he’s expecting you to just sock him in the face, like he’d rather you do that instead. He reminds you, absurdly, of how Lyra used to fuss when you wiped her face off with a washcloth in the mornings.
“It takes two to tango, baby,” and wow, you haven’t called him that in a hot minute. You decide you like the way it rolls off your tongue nice and easy. Not quite how it used to be, no, but still good.
Naoki starts at the word, too, like he was expecting something different a couple minutes after reducing your vocabulary down to his name.
“You’re being too nice to me,” he protests weakly. “It’d—I don’t know. I always imagined you being pissed at me, not—” gesturing at the two of you laying side by side, just left of the way it used to be, “—whatever the fuck I’ve dragged you into this time.”
“Don’t you go actin’ like I can’t think for myself—” you cut yourself off the second you register the snap in your voice. No, no, that’s not how you want it to go.
More careful this time, “I ain’t even mad at you, y’know? Shit, I sure was for the first coupla months, but…” you shrug with one shoulder, shifting the blanket even further towards Naoki’s side.
“It can’t be that simple,” Naoki rasps out.
“’M not sayin’ it is”, you soothe, hand in his hair again. This time, he doesn’t shy away.
