(I hope it's okay that I've gone for metaphorical wings. This is also the first thing I've written in years, so please be kind.)
He can feel the burning presence behind him.
These days it's not as often and it's not as strong, but occasionally he can still feel the weight of dark eyes on him. The feeling of being watched by someone whose gaze he once blushed under. When they were something other than enemies - colleagues, partners, friends, whatever that strange attraction was when they were teaming together - he'd always relish in drawing that man's attention to him. Only him.
Even now, Shota can feel the hum under his skin whenever Ren Narita is near. And he is.
"Does EVIL know you're stalking me again?" he asks calmly. It hangs in the air.
Initially it seems like Ren will disappear without a word, as he so often does, but eventually he hears the other man walk up to him. He turns his head casually.
"EVIL encourages it, actually," Ren responds. "Though he'd rather I did it for a different reason."
Shota keeps looking at him. "And what reason do you have for always showing up here, exactly?"
He doesn't get a response, just Ren looking at his back.
They're in a random dressing room of a random venue in god knows where and Shota had been changing, so the other man's eyes land on his naked skin.
This isn't new for them - Ren often shows up when Shota is finally alone - but it still causes Shota to heat up. When they were something all those months ago, he'd been naked under Ren's gaze all too often too, but it has been a while since it has been quite this literal.
"What," he grouses as Ren keeps staring.
He feels fingers reach out and he shivers as their tips dance across his shoulder blades. It's intimate in a way they hadn't really been back then. Everything had been new and exciting and kind of scary, so they'd just dived in and it had all been so overpowering that Shota barely has any memories of it all. They had been too much back then too.
Now, though, those fingers touch him like they're curious. Reverent. As he looks back at Ren, he sees a quiet contemplation that he's not used to. House of Torture's Ren Narita hasn't shown the outside world more than the talented, mean trickster side of him for quite a while and though Shota has been looking, this is new.
"I always thought there'd be wings here."
Shota isn't sure what he means. He must have made a sound in his confusion, because Ren looks up. Their eyes meet.
"Golden boy Shota Umino, so good and so perfect, rising above everyone else."
Fingers keep sloping down his shoulder blades and eventually dip even lower. A hand slots around his waist and Shota has to look away to compose himself.
Ren moves ever closer, hovering behind him. His breath fans out across Shota's neck as he continues.
"Maybe the shadow I always felt I was stuck in was cast by those wings."
Shota scoffs. "You're being silly. I don't have any wings."
It's ludicrous. Ren is ludicrous. Somewhere deep down he knows that Ren also makes sense a lot of the time, though, and he doesn't want to think about what that might mean. He doesn't want him to be right, because he's already buckling under the pressure and all of this would add so much more.
Shota gasps as an arm circles around him and he's pushed flush against the solid mass behind him. He can feel the other man's forehead on his neck.
"You should have. You're so good," gets pressed into his skin.
"Why does that sound like an insult when you say it that way."
A chortle of a laugh. It doesn't sound like anything close to joy. More like sadness.
"You're too good. For me. For this place. For yourself. You want to be too good. I don't want that for you. Angels fall."
Like you, Shota wants to say, but he's distracted by lips pressing where his wings would be. Again and again, while the arm tightens around him and almost feels too tight.
He groans softly when Ren straightens and moves to his neck instead, still feather light. A chuckle runs through him and Ren stops him from moving. Shota wants to move.
"What does that make you," he gasps as kisses turn to anxious presses of a mouth against skin. Heat and teeth and more.
By the time Ren finally answers, Shota has forgotten all about his question. He's flushed and a little heady, ready to fight Ren into letting him go so he can turn around and turn this teasing into something more.
It's a shock when Ren actually does.
He looks way too serious when he answers and it turns Shota cold.
"Maybe I am the devil waiting to catch you," Ren says, "if they take your wings from you."
Shota is still standing there long after Ren has snuck out the room. His shoulder blades itch.
