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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.
Re: Kuroko no Basuke, Akashi & Kiyoshi, M, BDSM
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."