yrindor | Fic Dumping Ground: 2016

This post is a storage spot for all of the fic/ficlets that I want to be able to link to but don't want to post to AO3 for whatever reason. Fandom/pairings/rating/warnings will be marked in the subject of the individual comments.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

yrindor

[1/2]
Kiyoshi opened the door to find Akashi standing outside. He looked as calm and unshaken as ever, but Kiyoshi knew that was a front. Akashi wouldn't be there otherwise.

"Come in, Akashi," Kiyoshi said. When Akashi glanced nervously past him and down the hall, Kiyoshi answered the unspoken question. "Riko and Hyuuga are out for the night. I told them you were coming - nothing specific," he reassured quickly, "just that you would be here. They decided to go into the city proper to see the new Sengoku-period musical that Hyuuga's been talking about for weeks. It's a bit of a trek back here afterward, so they'll stay with Kagetora tonight. It's just the two of us here."

Akashi relaxed imperceptibly. "I apologize for the intrusion," he said as he stepped inside. He sat on the step of the genkan to untie his shoes, then left his coat and scarf neatly by the door and followed Kiyoshi into the living room.

"I'm making coffee, do you want anything?" Kiyoshi asked.

"Only if it's decaffeinated," Akashi replied. "I'd rather avoid caffeine at the moment."

"I think Riko keeps some of decaf buried back here somewhere for Hyuuga when he gets on one of his research marathons and she starts worrying about his caffeine consumption," Kiyoshi said, rummaging around the cabinets in the kitchen. "Ah, here it is."

Several minutes later, Kiyoshi returned to the living room with two mugs of coffee and a bowl, which he set in front of Akashi. "I brought you some soup as well. My cooking, not Riko's, don't worry. Given when you texted, I'm assuming you haven't eaten yet."

Akashi nodded his thanks.

Once Akashi had largely finished eating, Kiyoshi looked up from his coffee. "What brought you out here tonight?" he asked.

"I did it," Akashi replied, meeting Kiyoshi's eyes squarely.

"Did what?"

"I resigned. Or, more accurately, I announced my intention to resign. I didn't expect Father to back down easily, and he didn't. I've been ordered to reflect deeply on what I'm about to do and give him my final answer in two weeks; he won't accept a word of it before then."

"But you've made your decision."

Akashi nodded. "Nothing he can do in the next two weeks, or even four weeks, since it will probably be another two weeks before my resignation is effective, can be worse than the things he's already done. After twenty-seven years with him, I can survive another four weeks. I'm not worried about that."

"But you're worried?"

"Yes. My father is a strong believer in strict hierarchies. He expects them to be followed exactly, but he also follows them himself. So long as I'm here, he may try to make my life hell, but my direct hires are untouchable. Once I'm gone though...then there's no one between him and them. He's not afraid to use that as a bargaining chip."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Kiyoshi asked. Part of him knew what Akashi was implying, but the larger part of him wanted to believe that no one would actually be so cruel.

"It's exactly as you suspect, Kiyoshi. Father has already made it clear that if I leave, not only will he disown me as his son, he also will do everything in his power to make sure no other company in Japan will hire me. I'm looking to change fields anyway, but even if I weren't, I have enough weight of my own that I could probably work around it. But while someone may be willing to risk my father's wrath for someone who was at the top of his class at Tokyo Daigaku and currently manages international relations for one of the largest companies in Japan, no one will do that for a secretary, no matter how highly recommended they may be."

"Does your staff know yet?" Kiyoshi asked, fighting to keep the anger out of his voice.

"Not yet. I couldn't risk Father hearing about my plans from anyone other than me. Not that I don't trust my staff, but you know how office gossip can travel. I'm going to be speaking to them first thing Monday morning."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Most of the staff of my department should be safe. Father can't fire the entire department without it reflecting badly on him, nor would he want to; it might hurt the Corporation's bottom line. It's only my immediate staff I hired directly that I need to worry about. I've already started feeling out options, and once I speak to my staff next week, I'll start pursuing them more actively. The time between now and when I officially submit my resignation is effectively free. Since nothing's official yet, Father can't do anything without it reflecting poorly on him, and possibly on the company as well. I'm hoping to have all of my staff at least unofficially placed elsewhere in the next two weeks, with everything made official by the time I leave. If everyone has transferred before then, they should be safe. My father may be ruthless, but he isn't stupid; he can't do anything against them after I've officially left without it making him look petty and immature."

"Can you do that in the time you have?" Kiyoshi asked, then had to fight not to flinch under Akashi's sudden heterochromatic stare boring into him.

"They're mine, Teppei," Akashi said firmly. "If I have two weeks to make sure they don't end up as collateral damage, then I'll do it in two weeks. No one threatens my team without repercussions, not even my father."

"What do you need from me, Akashi?"

"Just someone to listen to me vent who isn't involved in this mess themselves," Akashi said nonchalantly. "I've always managed before, and I'll manage again this time."

Kiyoshi frowned. "You don't come all the way to Tokyo from Kyoto "just to vent." I'm going to ask again, what do you need from me, Seijuurou?"

The change in Kiyoshi's tone was subtle, but the effect it had on Akashi was instantaneous. He took a deep breath before looking back up at Kiyoshi. "Two weeks ago, a man killed several people in a building I was in," he began. "He technically was one of my employees, and I failed to see the warning signs in time to prevent it.

"Now, I have two weeks in which to prevent eight people's lives from being irreparably damaged. Eight people who have done nothing other than have the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm finally breaking free from my father to live my own life, but if I mess up here, then I'll have to live with knowing that I sacrificed someone else's livelihood for this.

"Just for one night, for a few hours, I need to not be the one responsible for everything."

Kiyoshi nodded. "You'll stay here tonight?" he asked.

Akashi hesitated, but one look from Kiyoshi had him agreeing. "Yes," he said quietly.

"Good. Before we go any farther, I want to check in. Is there anything I should know that's changed since last time?"

Akashi shook his head. "Nothing."

"Are your safe words still the same?"

"Yes."

"And they are?"

"Teiko to slow down or pause. Masaomi for a hard stop."

Kiyoshi nodded. "Mine are the same as well. Yellow to slow, white to stop." He usually kept things simple and used yellow and red, but it was far too easy to mistake Akashi's name for the color, especially in the heat of things, and it had become clear rather quickly that he needed to modify his pattern for this particular case.

"And Riko and Hyuuga are still aware of this?"

"Yes, and I have their blessing. Are your limits the same?"

Akashi nodded again; then, he looked up from his nearly-empty coffee mug. "Push me, Kiyoshi," he ordered. "Take everything from me tonight."

"I'll do my best. I don't suppose you brought anything else to wear?" he said, pointing at Akashi's formal suit.

Akashi shook his head. "I came here directly from work; I didn't have time to change."

"In that case, I'll give you a pair of Hyuuga's old pajama pants to borrow. Go change, then come back here; leave your shirt off."

While Akashi was changing, Kiyoshi turned up the thermostat a few degrees and rearranged some of the furniture in the living room. He finished just as Akashi walked back out of the bathroom. Kiyoshi pointed to the rug on the middle of the floor. "Kneel," he ordered.

Akashi knelt, and Kiyoshi moved to stand in front of him. "Hands behind your back," he ordered.

Akashi complied immediately, and Kiyoshi took a length of cord and bound his wrists securely to his forearms. "Release your hands," he ordered, checking to make sure the bonds were secure but not too tight.

"You see too much with these eyes, Seijūrō," Kiyoshi said, running his thumb along Akashi's eyebrows. "Too much that needs to be done, and too much you can't fix. I want to blindfold you tonight."

Akashi stiffened and shook his head violently.

Kiyoshi dropped the blindfold out of sight. "Is there something I should know, Seijūrō?" he asked quickly; he was unused to such a strong reflexive reaction from Akashi.

"Long story, but stress and not being able to see do not have good associations for me."

"Is that a hard limit?" Kiyoshi asked, but Akashi shook his head.

"Do it," he said. "Take it from me. But not yet."

"Later then," Kiyoshi said as he picked up another long length of cord and knelt in front of Akashi. Then he winced and shifted his position, rubbing his knee. It had healed well after the surgery at the end of high school, but it had never returned to where it had been before, and it still ached sometimes if he put weight on it the wrong way.

"Sorry," he apologized as he pressed his fingers along the scar until the ache passed. Then, he turned his attention back to Akashi.

Akashi swallowed sharply as the first loop of cord settled around his neck. It was an untraditional start, but then again, Kiyoshi's entire technique was somewhat unorthodox. Almost everything he knew, he had learned from a hojoujutsu dojo not far from his apartment, and even that had been a lucky accident more than anything he had sought out.

During Hyuuga's third year of graduate school, he had been writing a paper on the sociopolitical factors influencing the development of restraining techniques in the Sengoku and early Tokugawa periods. Hyūga had stumbled across the dojo while looking for somewhere to gain firsthand exposure to the topic, and Kiyoshi had been dragged along as a practice partner. In the end, Hyūga had finished his paper and moved on, but Kiyoshi had fallen in love with it, and when he had adapted it into the bindings he used in other settings as well.

Kiyoshi's background in bindings may have been purely academic, but that didn't lessen the impact they had. Akashi froze as Kiyoshi looped the first cord around his neck, passing it through itself before wrapping the doubled length around one of his biceps, then running it across his back to the other, effectively pinning his arms to his sides. Then the cord passed back through the first loop around his neck before running straight down his back and attaching securely to the bindings on his forearms.

It was a simple binding, but effective. So long as Akashi didn't try to move, the binding was relatively unobtrusive. If he tried to lower his arms though, then it pulled on the cord around his neck. It was safer than it seemed though. The cord would loosen as soon as he returned his arms to their natural resting place behind him, and even if there were ever a problem, Kiyoshi had a pair of scissors waiting within easy reach, and cutting the one cord would loosen the entire binding.

Kiyoshi took a minute to study him. "Not a bad start, but I want you more secure than this," he said, picking up another length of cord. "Come up on your knees for me."

Akashi did as instructed, leaning against Kiyoshi's shoulder for balance as Kiyoshi quickly bound his thighs together, then continued the pattern down his legs until they were secured from thigh to ankle.

"Sit back," Kiyoshi ordered. When Akashi obeyed, he took the last length of cord and secured the bindings around Akashi's ankles to the bindings on his forearms. Then, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. From the front, most of the ropes were hidden, only the thin cord around Akashi's neck and the bands around his biceps and the tops of his thighs visible, but Akashi could barely move. It was the mark of a good hojoujutsu binding, secure, but unobtrusive.

"I'll be right back," Kiyoshi said. "I'm just need to grab something from the kitchen. Okay?"

"Yes," Akashi said, and Kiyoshi stepped out, returning less than a minute later with a plate of sushi and a pair of chopsticks.

"I know you didn't eat before you came over here, so I want you to eat now," he said. "I made this while I waited for you to get here. You don't eat enough at the best of times, and you're even worse when you're stressed."

"Thank you, Kiyoshi," Akashi said, and he did mean it. He knew he regularly ended up with meetings scheduled on top of meals, and that even when he did technically have time for a break, he often felt too guilty to take a break if he had work waiting for him, and there was always something needing his attention. Kiyoshi was one of the few people who would call him out on the matter though, the only other being Midorima, and Midorima's admonitions were usually securely tucked behind enough layers of medical jargon that they could both pretend that Midorima's comments were professional opinions and not personal concerns.

From:

yrindor

[2/2]
But accepting Kiyoshi's concern didn't make it any easier when Kiyoshi picked up the first piece of sushi and offered it to him. There was nothing sexual, or even romantic in the way Kiyoshi was offering him food, but he was unused to having people attend to him in that way, and it made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable to be accepting food from someone he used to think was below him. He swallowed his pride as he took the food Kiyoshi offered, but he had to look away as he ate, his eyes burning with shame. He knew it shouldn't have mattered, but at the same time, it went counter to everything he had ever known.

"Akashi," Kiyoshi said quietly, "can you look at me?"

Akashi shook his head. He knew he was supposed to obey, but he felt too vulnerable. And he couldn't ignore his father's voice at the back of his head reminding him that an Akashi knelt for no one. That the whole situation was shameful and wrong, but at the same time, he couldn't ignore the feeling that this was what he needed.

"Talk to me, Akashi," Kiyoshi commanded.

"I want it...I want this," Akashi said slowly. "But I can't stop thinking about what my father would say, and I'm ashamed at my reaction."

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to be cared for, Akashi," Kiyoshi replied. "Or with any of this for that matter."

"I know, but..."

"I know. It's hard to fight so many years of habit, especially habit so reinforced as yours is."

"I'm sorry."

"There's no need to be sorry. This is why you're here."

Kiyoshi offered another piece of sushi, but Akashi couldn't make himself take it. "I can't," he choked as he turned his head away.

"Are you safewording?"

"No...I want it. I need it. But I can't do it. What would everyone say if they saw the head of international relations for the Akashi Corporation like this? It's pathetic."

"Akashi...Sei," Kiyoshi said slowly, "I know it's hard for you, but I think the blindfold might help here. If watching it is too much."

Akashi thought carefully about Kiyoshi's proposal before he replied. On the one hand, watching Kiyoshi being so gentle and caring with him made his stomach turn in uncomfortable ways, but on the other hand, having his eyesight taken from him reminded him too much of the dark time at the end of college when his father nearly had succeeded in breaking him.

But the deciding factor was one that Kiyoshi hadn't mentioned. Being blindfolded blocked him from seeing the world, but it also made a barrier between him and the rest of the world, something he could use to hide his shameful reactions.

"Yes," Akashi said eventually. "Blindfold me. But Kiyoshi, don't go."

"I won't Akashi," Kiyoshi said as he traded chopsticks for the length of cloth. "You know that. Even if I need to step away for a minute, I'll always be close enough I can hear you."

Even though he had asked for it, and even though he knew it was coming, Akashi struggled to hold back the reflexive panic he felt when Kiyoshi wrapped the cloth around his head and suddenly he couldn't see anything at all. He couldn't even tell if his eyes were open or closed, and even though he knew it was only the blindfold, it still brought him back to the awful day when it hadn't been.

He tried to bring his hands up to his face, but Kiyoshi's bonds kept them secure behind his back. Any rational thoughts he may have had were lost behind the blind panic that rose behind his eyes. His breath caught in his throat, and his heart started to pound its way out of his chest.

"Akashi, breathe." Kiyoshi's voice cut through the haze of panic in his mind, and Kiyoshi's arms wrapped around him, grounding him. He tried to match his breathing to the sound of Kiyoshi's breath by his ear, letting the even rhythm steady him until the worst of the panic abated.

"Do we need to rethink this?" Kiyoshi asked once he was no longer shaking so badly.

"No," Akashi replied slowly. "I'm okay now. I think it will help; I just needed to get used to it."

"Will you be okay if I let go now?"

"I think so."

"Then here, you still haven't eaten," Kiyoshi said, and Akashi heard the quiet click as he picked up the chopsticks again.

Akashi was glad for the blindfold as he accepted the food Kiyoshi offered. It let him ignore how he looked, being fed like a helpless baby bird. He didn't have to see Kiyoshi looking at him with something akin to pity in his eyes, as if he needed caring for. No one had looked at him like that, had treated him like that, in years. He could only remember one other time when someone had cared for him like that. He had been four years old at the time, and he had caught a bad cold. His father was away on a business trip, and his mother had let him skip his lessons that day and stay tucked up in bed. Even though there were servants everywhere, she had made soup for him herself, and she had brought it up to his room and fed it to him. He had protested weakly at first, but in truth, he had felt too weak and shaky to want to try to wrestle with the spoon himself, and he had put up only a token protest before giving in.

The next day, his father had returned, and he scolded his mother for babying him before scolding him for being soft. It was that day that his father taught him that an Akashi didn't get sick, and if he did, then he certainly didn't let anyone else know that or otherwise allow it to interfere with his duties. That had been the first and last time Akashi had taken a sick day, but despite his father's scolding, he had never forgotten the warm feeling that had filled him when his mother had gone out of her way to care for him. He would never say it loud, but sometimes late at night, he would admit to himself that he missed having someone who would care for him in that way.

But even if he knew it was true, it ran counter to everything he had ever been taught, and on some days, perhaps even most days, he couldn't fathom why anyone would want to do that for him. He was an Akashi after all, and to be an Akashi was to be absolute. To be as flawless as a diamond, but also as cold and unbreakable. To be an Akashi meant being perfect and being feared. And above all, to be an Akashi was to be alone. There was no space for anyone else at the top, no one else who was as talented or as capable, at least according to his father. It was the worldview he had been raised on, and it was one he still struggled to break out of even now.

Kiyoshi had never bought into that idea though, and he had never been one to put Akashi on a pedestal, even during Akashi's first year at Rakuzan when even his own teammates had done so.

"I played with the Uncrowned Kings," Kiyoshi had explained when Akashi had asked one day a few years earlier. "I didn't agree with some of them a lot of the time, but I knew what they were capable of. Maybe we weren't as good as you in the Generation of Miracles, but being part of a team like that made me realize that everyone, even those set up as prodigies, are still human in the end. Our first year of middle school, everyone was talking about us; by the end, we were the Uncrowned Kings lost in the shadow of the Generation of Miracles. There was no reason not to expect the same thing to happen with you. Coming at it from that perspective, there was no reason to treat any of you as anything other than rivals; I may have had the advantage having missed seeing you the first part of the season, but my point still stands."

Several years later, Akashi still had the same reaction to Kiyoshi's words as he had had when he first heard them: he wondered if Kiyoshi realized just how unusual he was to have been able to look past the rumors and the myths to see the child side of Akashi and his teammates. Akashi knew it was an unusual skill; his own teammates, including three of the other Uncrowned Kings, had felt that way initially, but what they saw on the court soon overrode anything they may have known rationally before. Out of everyone he had played against, Kiyoshi was the only one to never have seen Akashi as a miracle, and though it perhaps would seem counterintuitive to some, Akashi was glad for it. He couldn't have done what he was doing now with anyone who did or had seen him as something more than human.

"Here's some more, Sei," Kiyoshi said, his voice cutting through Akashi's memories and bringing him back to the present. He offered food slowly, giving Akashi plenty of time to chew before offering more, but he was persistent, continuing until Akashi had eaten everything on the plate. Akashi knew he had started crying at some point, but Kiyoshi didn't mention it, and with the blindfold hiding everything from him, he could pretend that Kiyoshi hadn't noticed. Even when a handkerchief gently wiped his nose, he could pretend that Kiyoshi hadn't noticed, that no one would notice one of the senior executives of the Akashi Corportaion bound and reduced to tears in the middle of someone else's living room.

He thought he had regained some semblance of control by the time he finished eating, but then Kiyoshi said, "Sei, I'm proud of you. I know that wasn't easy for you," and he fell to pieces again.

No one other than Kiyoshi called him "Sei." For most of his life, everyone had called him Akashi. Even at the office now, everyone referred to both him and his father as "Akashi," using "-san" to denote him and "-sama" when they meant Masaomi. Kiyoshi refused to follow that pattern though, choosing instead something that made it clear that the normal hierarchies didn't apply. "Seijūrō," he had said during one scene early in their relationship, not realizing that Akashi's father was the only one to ever have called him that consistently. Akashi had panicked at the thought of his father, and it remained one of the few times he had safeworded for a hard stop. It had taken longer than he cared to admit for him to calm down enough to explain the issue to Kiyoshi, but eventually Kiyoshi had understood. The next time Akashi had come over, Kiyoshi had called him "Sei" when they began. Even a couple of years later, hearing it still hit Akashi hard every time; it was a name that hinted at a level of familiarity that was still largely foreign to him."

His nickname alone wouldn't have had that effect on him though, but it was magnified by Kiyoshi's praise. He wasn't used to praise. In his father's worldview, anything less than perfect was unacceptable, and meeting expectations was a minimum requirement, not something worthy of praise. Growing up, he had never heard praise from Masaomi, and since his father had hired tutors for him who all shared the same mentality, he had never heard real praise from them either.

The business world was a bit different, but not by much. He heard more praise there, but it was always about business decisions and the company's bottom line; none of it ever came back to him as an individual.

When Kiyoshi praised him though, it was for something that he had done, and something that mattered to him, rather than something that mattered to the company. As with so much that Kiyoshi did, Akashi could never fully decide whether he enjoyed it or hated it. He wouldn't deny that hearing Kiyoshi say things like that always gave him a sudden warmth across his chest, but it was always quickly followed by the voice in the back of his head in his father's tone that demanded to know why he was proud of being praised for such a simple task and argued that he should be ashamed that he had struggled with it, and should be even more ashamed that he had struggled visibly enough that someone else had noticed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. It was a phrase he seemed to utter with alarming frequency around Kiyoshi, and one that he rarely used elsewhere.

Kiyoshi rested a hand on his thigh. "There's nothing to apologize for," he said. "It's safe to let everything out here; it's what I want you to do. Let me see you as you are. Not the mask you show everyone else but the real Sei—the one who's flawed and more beautiful for it."

"I'm afraid," Akashi said quietly.

"And you have every right to be," Kiyoshi said as he tangled his fingers in Akashi's hair, "but that's not for tonight. Tonight you don't need to be responsible for anyone, not even yourself."

He frowned as he ran his hand down the back of Akashi's neck. "You're tense," he said, "and your legs have to be getting stiff from sitting in seiza for so long." As he spoke, he cut the cord connecting Akashi's ankles and wrists.

"I'm going to help you up now," he said. "Take it nice and slow, and I want to move to the other room. You need a massage."

Akashi groaned. He had in fact been planning on scheduling a massage the next time his schedule permitted it, but getting one from Kiyoshi was even better. He let Kiyoshi help him to his feet. He was used to sitting in seiza for long periods, but even so, both of his feet had fallen asleep, and he was glad Kiyoshi was supporting most of his weight.

Kiyoshi picked him up, carried him across the apartment, and set him down on the edge of what he knew was the massage table set up in the bedroom.

"I'm going to undo these bindings now," Kiyoshi said as he ran his hand along the ropes on Akashi's chest and arms, but Akashi shook his head. He liked the security of them; he didn't want that to go away just yet.

"I'll bind you to the table," Kiyoshi promised, "but I can't get at your back like this." This time, Akashi didn't resist as Kiyoshi untied the knots and methodically removed the ropes. His arms protested as Kiyoshi slowly lowered them back to his side, and he bit his lip.

"Breathe through it, Sei," Kiyoshi ordered as he rubbed the stiff muscles. Once the worst had passed, he helped Akashi lie down on the table and then bound his wrists to the underside of the frame.

"I'll leave your legs as is for now, but I'm going to undo them and cuff your ankles to the table individually when I get there, okay?" Kiyoshi asked as he tied down the cord currently holding Akashi's ankles together.

"Mmm," Akashi mumbled in confirmation, already starting to relax in anticipation of what was to come.

He didn't have to wait long before Kiyoshi turned on soft music in the background and began the first long strokes down his back. Akashi didn't even try to hold in the moan that escaped as the heel of Kiyoshi's hand pressed into an especially large knot near his spine. It was just past the edge of painful, but the sort of pain that promised that he'd feel looser and more relaxed than he'd been in months, and he lost himself in the sensation.

He floated as the smooth pressure of long strokes mixed with the bright pain of an elbow digging into a stubborn knot and washed over him. He was already half-asleep by the time Kiyoshi switched out the bindings on his legs, and he was even farther gone when Kiyoshi finished over an hour later.

He barely stirred as Kiyoshi undid the last of the bindings, removed the blindfold, and gently washed away the tears that had dried behind it. Kiyoshi managed to rouse him just enough to coax him to drink some water before he carried him to the bed and climbed in beside him. It wasn't until he woke the next morning that Akashi was finally able to say, "thank you."