#And so often those sensations are associated with sin so it feel closer to it

[hoaxghost]

They're both so insane for different reasons but it results in the same outcome

[pansyp]

you’re what keeps me believing the world’s not gone dead

Over time, Vincent learns how to feel again and Cid learns how to trust. A love story in seven parts.

Commissioned by @strifescloud​ who is in dire need of Valenwind content, hint hint y’all.

(read on ao3 or under the cut)

i. lit up by a machine (more than i can afford)

 Vincent believes that his friendship with Cid could be wholly summed up in two words: comfortable silence. They have a routine, have had one since they first began their association, and it is one that has continued despite all the various disasters and calamities that seem to befall their troupe. Vincent sits wherever Cid is working, out of the way so as not to inconvenience but indisputably present, and he thinks to himself while Cid works. It began as a mutually beneficial arrangement even if the benefits were never voiced – Vincent doesn’t have to be alone, and Cid isn’t bothered by his crewmen (who remain terrified of Vincent, despite Cid’s attempts to convince them all that the looming shadowy figure who stalks through the ship is actually a big softie).

Vincent knows where the routine began, but he doesn’t know where they are now.

He’s in his usual spot, watching Cid spot-weld a fault in some crucial piece of metal. This is nothing unusual, but the feeling – the high, swooping feeling­ – that moves through him as the light from the blowtorch illuminates Cid’s face, making him glow, that is something very strange. He is no stranger to emotions, despite what many people would think of him, but he hasn’t felt this specific one in so long that he had figured on it being gone entirely. He looks at Cid Highwind, who is still welding, cursing and doubtless getting tiny burns from the sparks that are kicking up, and he finds that spark of attraction and blows.

He is under no illusions – the chances of reciprocation are so small as to be negligible, and he does not think he could find it in himself to be a partner to anyone, even if the affection he’s feeling grows into something stronger. But he would be lying to himself if he said that he did not like the warmth, the way his hands get a little sweaty, the way his heartbeat picks up just a touch. He has been coming around to a different way of thinking in the last few years, and there is no harm in basking in the light of a good thing. He won’t say anything – there are some things that he will always keep close to his chest, and matters of the heart are certainly one of those things – but he can enjoy this nonetheless.

Cid has been a good friend to him and he knows that this is where the feeling comes from, and this too is a novelty. He has a few friends now, but none so close as Cid, and it is both surreal and completely sensical that he would come to have feelings for him. He has always been fond of strong-willed people, and of people who understand him well enough to provide him with space. He has never had preferences on gender, or even really on physicality, and Cid is attractive by anyone’s standards. He wants to examine the affection closer, and he will later in the evening, turning over the feeling in his head, but for now he wants to sit in the silence he has come to associate solely with these sojourns with Cid.

He sits in his usual spot, and watches the lights dance over his friend’s skin, and if anyone had seen him there they would have sworn he was smiling.

(and they would have been right)

 ii. you are timeless (i am a fool in love with time)

 When Cid thinks about Vincent, the first thing he thinks of is not any of the things you would immediately notice. He doesn’t think about the hair, or the way that the red of his clothes catches on the eye, the vivid hue of hearts blood. He doesn’t think of the sheer mind-bending terror he felt the first time he watched Vincent fight, because the terror turned very quickly to gratitude that the man was on their side. He doesn’t think of the way every single member of his crew still backs away from the man when he walks the halls, because he’s tried to convince them that Vincent’s not that bad and they just can’t get past how intimidating he is. He doesn’t think of Chaos or of coffins or of how menacing the metal gauntlet is.

The thing he thinks of when he thinks of Vincent is this: there was a moment, when their friendship was new and tenuous, when he’d made a shitty joke that was barely worth a laugh from his crewmen, let alone the man he’d come to think of as humourless. But he’d been on the right angle to catch the expression on Vincent’s face, and he’d seen him smile. Cid is crass, not stupid, and he’d known in that moment that he was probably fucked, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking of that smile whenever Vincent is mentioned. He’ll argue with anyone who derides Vincent in his presence, and he’ll claim friendship as the reason for his defence, but if he’s honest – and he never is – the reason is that smile. Cid is crass, not stupid, and he’s been gone on Vincent for what must be years now, and maybe that actually does make him stupid, because it’s never ended well for him before.

He’s got a close and comfortable relationship with jadedness that he’s not quite willing to give up on yet, but he feels like they’re growing apart with every day he spends with Vincent. He knows that everything is changing, even if on the surface all that’s happening is that he’s getting older and gaining more scars. He knows that there’s a softening under his skin that he can’t stop even if he’s fighting as hard as he can. He knows that there are some things he isn’t willing to risk, and that Vincent is now firmly among those things. He knows that he dreams as often as he has nightmares, and that the dreams have been of one thing and one thing only for months. He knows that sometimes, he has to remind himself that there’s a reason he doesn’t do relationships anymore, and that it’s a damn good reason with years of evidence to back him up. He knows that the last time the ship got boarded by pirates (which happens depressingly often) the first thing he’d thought of had been Vincent, which is monumentally stupid because if there’s anyone on the Highwind who can handle themselves in a fight it’s him. And yet he’d felt worried anyway, and wanted to see for himself that Vincent was safe, even as he was dealing with his own situation.

When Cid thinks about Vincent, he thinks of that smile. And he knows, in his heart, that he’s vulnerable, and that all his years of hardening his heart have done nothing to stop what’s happened to him anyway. It’s the worst thing he’s ever felt even as it’s the best thing in his damn life.

 iii. on this dark day (in plain view)

 The first time Cid asks him about his scars, it’s three days out of a terrible little port where two of their crew nearly got arrested and four more got in a bar fight. Cid is in a terrible mood, glaring off into the middle distance, and Vincent knows an attempt at self-distraction when he hears one.

“You know where they’re from, Cid. I’ve told you the story.” he says, because he has, and he’s not entirely comfortable going over it again.

“I know, I know. I just…are you alright with them?” Cid asks. He refuses to make eye contact, and Vincent knows there are layers to this question that he can’t discern.

“Are you comfortable with yours?” he asks.

“Most of ‘em. Some of them I got because I was being an idiot, or someone else was and I didn’t stop them. I regret those ones. Most of the time, though, they’re okay.”

“I…differ, on this. My scars are reminders of a time when I had very little control over my life, and of when I did things that I regret. They are inextricably tied to events that changed the course of my lives and many others, and not for the better. I cannot see myself ever being neutral towards them, let alone positive.”

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once.”

It takes all of Vincent’s considerable self-control not to arch an eyebrow at that.

“Look, I’m not an expert on moving on from bad shit. I suck at it. But have you considered trying to look at them as, I don’t know, maybe more of a reminder that you made it? You had a fucking awful time, and I don’t want to diminish that, but you killed Hojo, you got revenge, you saved the world. I would think that if everyone else who got affected by all that can move on and not blame you, you can too.”

“…I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say to me at once,” he says, and he does raise an eyebrow this time. “I’ll think on it. I appreciate that you’re trying to comfort me.”

“Don’t say it like that. I just –“

“I appreciate it, Cid. Just accept the thanks.”

“Fine. But don’t go spreading word about this, I have a reputation to maintain.”

“And I’m sure it’s well on it’s way to being tarnished, seeing as you forgot to close the door and there are three crewmen outside.”

“Ah, shit.”

He does think on it, later that night in his quarters. He said he would, and so he does. He has forgiven himself for many things, and he knows now that his sins were not the only thing that caused all the ills that have befallen Midgar. He thinks about his history, about history in general, about how Cid has his own scars and sees them as testament to survival. He wonders whether he should tell Cid that when he had gotten the scars, he had not wanted to survive. He looks down at his scars, the marks and red raised lines where the trauma of his past is clearly delineated on his skin. He thinks about Cid, and the way his voice had wavered, unsure of his words, but clearly believing them. He thinks about the way he has gained new scars since Hojo, and how he has never once thought of them in the same way as the scars from his unfortunate rebirth. He sits, and he thinks, and with hesitation he brushes his fingers over the one high on his chest, under the dip of his collarbone. For the first time in years, he focuses only on how it feels physically, on the sensation. It feels just like the rest of his skin.

 iv. i will tell them (i’m with you)

 When it happens, it happens because Cid is many things: bitter bastard, inventor, captain. But he has never been a man of restraint, and he’s loved Vincent for years now but they’re still closer now than they’ve ever been and the lack of distance is making things difficult. He watches Vincent, and it’s distracting now – the way his hair falls in his eyes, the way you can only tell he’s amused most of the time by the way his eyes crinkle at the edges, the way their conversations feel like playful banter half the time and how affectionate it makes him feel even when Cid feels like he’s missing the joke.

Sometimes he feels like Vincent is waiting for something. Cid looks at him, and the closing distance between them, the way there’s less of a gap every day now when they walk beside each other or talk to each other on the deck. There’s tension where there never was before; he feels like he’s twenty years younger sometimes, the same physical sensations that he felt when he was a teenager and has his first crush on someone out of his league but who he’d still get to talk to sometimes. He trips over his words occasionally – reveals parts of himself he’d thought long buried in conversations that should never have become sentimental. He feels unmoored. He feels like any minute he’s going to fuck it all up and tell Vincent how he feels, and it’s going to turn out that the tension is in his head and that Vincent didn’t reciprocate, that the difference in interactions is all down to Cid crossing lines in the sand that he didn’t see for all the infatuation fogging up his head.

There is so much that he can’t read on Vincent’s face, despite the years being around each other, and there is so much that he thinks he might be misreading, and he’s so damn unsure of his footing that he feels like he’s going to fall over at any moment.

So when it happens, it happens because he’s desperate for something, anything, to happen – it’s because he’s been pining for years and suffering under what may well be a delusion that those feelings are returned for months, and he can’t do it anymore. Inertia is something he’s never tolerated well, and if it isn’t inertia then it’s happening so slowly that it’s unnoticeable, and Cid can’t cope anymore.

They’re on the deck while the crew’s on shore leave, and Cid’s leaning up against the railing while Vincent stares out at the city below them, and there’s only two inches of space between them and all Cid’s been thinking for the last ten minutes is that it would take no effort at all to reach out and hold his hand. His bones are aching and the cold has seeped into his joints and he should have gotten back into the warmth a half hour ago, but instead he’s standing with his best friend and wishing he could hold his hand. Vincent looks down at him, then, and he’s doing that thing where he smiles with his eyes and the left corner of his mouth ticks up almost unconsciously, like he doesn’t know he’s doing it, and Cid is – overwhelmed. He loves this man, knows it like he knows this ship and the maps in his cabin, knows it like air and the wind that’s blowing past them, and this might be the worst mistake he’s ever made but he makes it anyway. He breathes in and then out, summons up the willpower that resides deep in his soul, and instead of using it to fortify all those carefully crafted defences he casts them down. He brushes their hands together, leans up and kisses the left corner of Vincent’s mouth where that stupid smile was forming, and when Vincent kisses back he has never felt so young.

v. like a falling star (i fell for you)

 It is not easy, but it is simple, and Vincent has always enjoyed the challenges that come without puzzles to figure out. They are both men with histories. They are both men for whom time has not been kind, and more than once Vincent has woken from a nightmare to find Cid caught in the midst of his own. Sometimes his old scars ache, and Cid will spend time rubbing ointment into them, soothing the pain that comes when the weather is stormy and cold. He’ll tell stories, to try and distract Vincent from unbidden memories, and Vincent will listen, to try and distract Cid from worrying about Vincent’s traumas. Sometimes Cid will come to bed with burns from his hands slipping while he worked on machinery, and Vincent will hold his tongue, because Cid’s ship is his child and there are some things where his concern will be taken as censorship. Instead he places his hands on the bandaged places and draws him in, embraces him. He is still unused to physical contact – Cid is the first person he has hugged, let alone done anything else with, in many years. This, though, is becoming easier. Giving comfort is one of the many things in their relationship that Vincent thinks of as coming under that category of not easy, but simple. They both struggle with it, and they both do it for each other nonetheless.

He asked, one night while they were lying together, about how long Cid had felt affection for him. Cid had laughed at him, and had explained that his feelings for Vincent had been present if unacknowledged for years. There is a part of him that wants to regret that honesty on both their parts would have given them more time together; there is another that reminds him that his own feelings only arose recently, and that he would almost definitely have not been conducive to a relationship. That is another thing he struggles with, the term ‘relationship’. He doesn’t know the right word for what Cid is to him, but many of the terms he hears others use sounds woefully inaccurate at best and inadequate at worst. He hears crewmen refer to them as boyfriends, and that feels absurd – neither of them are anywhere near the age where they could be considered ‘boys’. Partners is another term he hears, which is better and yet still not right. He resigns himself to not having the language for it, and defines it by his own terms instead.

Simple, but not easy. Comfortable silences, giving and taking affection and support where it is needed. The way Cid tries to distract Vincent when he is hurting. The sharing of nightmares in a dark room at three in the morning, sleeping the rest of the night with a dim light on and lying face to face so if they wake they’ll see each other before any of the strange shadows the light can cast. Finding flowers in a vase he’s never seen before when they leave from another shore town in another country, and knowing they’re for him. Cid kissing his scars in hazy morning light, and refusing to care about where they came from. Reading when he can’t sleep and waking up with the book on the bedside table, bookmark carefully placed. The realisation that there is someone, now, who knows everything and loves him still. The realisation, at three in the morning after a nightmare, that he is not alone in this anymore.

 vi. i will always love you (taking it in stride)

 Sometimes, when Cid wakes up in the morning, he can’t believe that this is his life. He has always believed, after a certain point in his history, that he would be jaded and bitter for the rest of his time on the planet. That by being the way he is, he had given away his chances at happiness. That he would remain what he has always been: a failure. And now, he wakes up, and he feels the weight of someone beside him. He turns over and sees the face of the man he loves, and in the morning light he looks soft and untouched by the things in his past, and he loves him. He loves him when he is awake and laughing, he loves him when he has nightmares and Cid has to spend hours distracting him. He loves him when he’s cold and calculating and insulting someone through thin lips, he loves him when he turns quiet and angry and needs time alone, he loves him when he buys Cid things and pretends it doesn’t mean anything. He loves him, this impossible man who has decided that his time is best spent with Cid, and he may still be bitter and jaded but it’s getting harder to hate the world when the world has Vincent in it.

He doesn’t think he’s ever going to be the man he could have been if everything in his life had gone well, but he’s pretty sure that man wouldn’t have met Vincent, and he’s pretty sure Vincent wouldn’t have loved that man anyway. He asks, one day, why him of all people, and Vincent had told him that there will always be a certain kinship between people who have been through awful things and lived in spite of it, out of spite.

And there are times when he wishes he could have done more, done better, and then Vincent reminds him that he helped save the fucking world (without the expletives, of course), and if that’s not good enough for Cid then he’s holding himself to standards no one could ever reach.

It amuses Cid, a lot, that Vincent helps him stay positive and that he helps Vincent do the same, because everyone they know who finds out they’re together immediately assumes that so much misanthropy in a partnership would just inspire more. That they’d feed into each other’s anger and just become angrier. He doesn’t know why they think that way. It seems obvious to him that any relationship has to be founded on affection to work, and if he’s honest that’s why all of his have failed in the past, and misanthropy doesn’t tend to jive well with affection.

This is what Cid’s life is now, captaining his ship with the man he loves by his side, and every morning that he wakes up and remembers what he’s waking up to, he can’t quite believe it. But he tries.

  vii. it’s all for you (cause that’s what you do)

 They settle down, after a while, in a town not far from the sea. They eventually restart the space program, though under a different heading, and Cid sends off his designs to them in the hopes that he’ll be a part of it even at his age. They accept the designs, use them in a ship, and Vincent and Cid travel to Rocket Town to watch the launch. If anyone had asked Cid how he felt when he watched it he would have played it off, but Vincent knows that he cried when the launch was successful, and they’d stayed in Rocket Town for a week reminiscing so that Cid could be around for the post-launch celebrations.

Afterwards, they go back to their little town, and Vincent starts a garden. The town is nice and sleepy, quiet. They have good neighbours and when they first moved in a lovely older lady from down the road makes cookies for them and brings them over. Cid spends his days inventing, creating designs and sending them off to people who can utilise them, and on warm days they walk on the beach together and look out to the sea.

They’re still a little jaded, and neither of them will admit it to each other but they both feel so lucky that this is something possible in their lives. They’re not used to this – to being allowed to be happy, to feel safe, to feel loved.

There are still the comfortable silences. There are still the moments where it’s simple, but not easy – where the weight of their pasts seems too heavy, where they feel like they could be crushed under all that has not been said. There are still the soft mornings, the unsettled nights.

But there aren’t any battles to fight anymore, and Cid can sit outside and watch Vincent garden and help him tend to the flowers that he’s growing -  beautiful and fragrant things that he can’t remember the name of, though Vincent tells him their names and meanings sometimes, before tucking them behind his ear. It seems silly to Cid – like an indulgence he’s not allowed. But he lets it happen, because he likes the way he feels when Vincent does it, when he smiles like he genuinely has nothing to worry about.

They stand in the garden that they’ve grown from nothing, in the warm sunlight with the smell of flowers in the air, and this? This is both easy and simple. This is as easy as breathing.

[simplychemistry-blog]

Good Morning

Fandom: Tokyo Ghoul Pairings: Amon/Sasaki Notes: Read on AO3, too!!! It was lovely amoneki verses by @verrottweil that inspired me to write and dedicate this to them, so I just had to start my first tgre fic featuring morning bliss, morning fluff, mild morning smut, body worship, and an annoyed Quinx squad. I hope you enjoy and please forgive me for unnecessary spiritual references to Amon and Sasaki worshiping each other. Ok, I admit it. I'm trash for Amon and Kaneki having some religious kinks in actions and thoughts together  

Life was far from perfect, an undeniable truth like Sasaki misplacing his round framed glasses now and then, but even so he certainly didn't mind turning a blind eye to fact this morning. It was a more or less a habit, after passionate nights and secret days, both of them had fallen into a rhythm. Snug in a warm bed with Amon, his boyfriend whom was set and ready to go offer his bare body their entire attention, Sasaki soon found his reality smoothly sailing towards paradise.

As to their morning rituals requiring doses of pure affection along with attachment, unsurprisingly so, Amon loved to initiate, such as now he traced the contours of Sasaki's back with his lips. From west to east and north–on purpose in regards to passion–Amon had set out on pilgrimage to every region unkissed, save for the south where rinkaku ghouls were wont to arch and whimper. All incapable of acting indifferent to their waist-situated kakuhou, which provoked a rare, unapologetic Amon to take advantage of more often than not.

Lust, naturally, may well be one of the prime urges in his ministrations, but Amon's devotion outshone it even so. Whispered, archaic lines of Latin flowed out his mouth, spread out evenly between soft kisses, adoring. Human intimacy brought about an unstartled but stirred mind. A pair of eyebrows drew together, muscles tensed then relaxed, now familiar with slow, sweet movements sensed below.

With affection showered along his shoulders now, Sasaki deeply exhaled through his nose, the corners of his mouth lifted the while. Stolen moments with Amon like so reminded him of what he may adore more than sleep. Yawning, humming, he then rolled his body over to face Amon, untangling their legs in the process. His fluttering grey eyes greeted teal with an intimate hello before they fused.

It only took seconds and yet it seemed time stood still for them. It was similar to the moment the sun and moon–only during an eclipse–could deeply kiss another, similar to the ephemeral birth of steam between fire and water. Their own human affinity; however, hopefully, was never to be as fleeting as nature.

Soon, sensual and seductive corners of Amon's mouth held Sasaki in a deep trance, compelling him to entrust his heart, soul, mind, and mouth. He did so at once and drew his head closer, welcoming those lush lips to greet his again and again in closed, chaste care; however, he reveled more in the new direction those lips took in location and execution.

Go easy on me, Koutarou.

Amon made his move and stroked one smooth side of Sasaki's hips, his gaze marveling at hard, aesthetic lines as he pleased till his hands maneuvered his lover on their back again. Trusting Amon as always, Sasaki watched his man above him, his nose wrinkling as Amon dipped down and embraced it with his own one, freeing a laugh shared between them, too. Given the end result–Amon's dimples–a dead sexy sight to behold–it demonstrated why Sasaki let the tips of his own thumbs touch those cheeks, tracing soon after, smitten.

They really are your best features.

Although he was a well known investigator not to be underestimated Sasaki, shortly, squeezed his eyes shut, close to tears over his feelings for the very man straddling him. Amon, single-minded in his pursuit of pleasuring him, was too much. Though, Sasaki had no inclination to return him; as a result, he took it in pride that he was the most hated man at CCG even if the reason differed this time.

Almost breathless, Sasaki still granted Amon more access to his neck, delighted with warm breath fanning over his sensitive skin adorned by a cross necklace, a feeling never getting old. His black lashes shuttered his gaze while his hands were splayed across broad shoulders, then his fingers and thumbs reached down to well muscled, exposed skin of Amon's back, fondling, because they belonged there. How envious some were for Sasaki to claim this all for himself, but Amon, too, claimed him in return so neither of them had any plans to let each other go.

Hell no.  

In the end, Sasaki came to accept the contempt some colleagues–especially women–reserved for him with open arms. It had been hypothesized, sometime at CCG, whether if Amon Koutarou could translate his untapped passion for work to the bedroom. The consensus had been varied. It sounded too good to be true, but it was true nonetheless.

(Just ask Sasaki for confirmation and witness how fast he flushed)

Complaints, in forms of curses and grumbling, coming through a floor below his room signaled one thing. The children were awake; the children were hungry; however, Maman et Papa didn't seemed too disposed to care. Granted, both of them paused and reflected briefly, offering their sincere condolences to four peckish stomachs, but once their eyes met and meld anew, the world fell away from them.

(As fully fledged teenagers of the 21st century, surely those four knew the true nature of early worship behind closed doors. At the Chateau, every so often, their ears must have picked up their superior struggling to silence his high praises)

Sasaki's thoughts however–whichever ones remained coherent–were dead to them all, My dear, beloved brats. And of course, the more his lover blessed kisses across his chest here and there, the more his mind was pitiless. You all know the drill when Koutarou stays over. He purred a name then, appreciating a smirk he caught on Amon's mouth instead of questioning it.

His inaction cost him dearly; and even though no bites were marked along the sides of his hips nor across his stomach, heated, wet traces from a tongue were lashed on every stretch of skin Amon searched for low past his chest, especially the sensitive spots between mabdominals. Sasaki gripped the sheets of the bed, panting, a flush crept high on his cheeks the while.

"Koutarou," he gasped, "Koutaraou," as though a faint prayer, "Koutarou," possibly aware of the spiritual yet naughty association Amon would make, possibly praying for Amon to remark something like a pillar of rock demanding his utmost attention.

Amon was indeed getting closer, swaying his lover to bend their legs and spread their thighs wide as an offering. He accepted and bent his head down, like a saint, only a particular kind made to work behind the scenes and on their knees.

Show me some mercy, Koutarou.

Fortunately not, Sasaki's plea went unheard: Amon was no mind reader; therefore, his inner thighs endured a sensuous hell in turns, quivering both like a faithful fiancé trapped in a closet with Eros himself. At first, Sasaki stifled his noises with his teeth, but Amon flashed a glance at him and furrowed his brows. Absolutely not: that would not do, so Amon slid his own fingers behind Sasaki's waist, pinpointed then massaged well a sensitive patch as his own sinful tongue on a thigh slithered up towards the summit, revisiting a shrine which twitched and trickled.

He's punishing me. Again.

Sasaki was poorly prepared. An overkill of double sensation rippled a heatwave through all his tender nerves, forcing his eyes to roll back in head as he snapped them shut and arched into hellish warm moist heat engulfing him.

He'll be the death of me. Just him.

Then, and only then, did Sasaki moan with no shame. His voice echoed, aloud and wanton, meanwhile, Amon grunted with approval and held down rolling hips. Sasaki implored Amon to give him everything. Now, now, now. More, more, more–God, Amon, don't make me beg not again don't you dare–than his body could handle. Layers of his skin burned on the inside out, a pressure building under his abs, an impulsive kagune close to unleashing. Sasaki was overcome, forsaken with pure, unadulterated lust shared between two.

He had learnt his lesson quite well, so he didn't dare hold back a groan when Amon's throat constricted around him, that swirling tongue a gift from above. All Sasaki could do instead was seek some sanity within dark, disheveled hair his fingers were, perhaps, guilty of last night.

Despite no signs of discomfort on either end, Amon changed the pace considerably, as if an apple tree bearing coconuts instead. Next, he withdrew his mouth from the crux of two thighs and left his lover transfixed with bemusement, pulling a stunt Sasaki never thought him capable.

"Ah, I almost forgot." panted Amon, his reddened lips ever so distracting, "Good morning, Haise."

"It certainly was." Sasaki retorted, softly, but eerily calm as his finger tensed in his lover's short dark locks.

It should be noted that, in hindsight, coaxing out Amon's playful side for weeks on end proved to be a miscalculation. His laughter was another story altogether. Near boyish but rich, Amon chuckled and Sasaki's heart skipped more beats than one, enamored, hopelessly so.

I won't last long.

His final thoughts before Amon's mouth fulfilled its duty to him proved prophetic, and not for the first time. Judging by how breathy cries drowned out stubborn then hesitant thumps on a bedroom door–thanks to a grey-eyed ghoul turning the tables on Amon and tasting his tight inner sanctum–Breakfast by Sasaki would have to wait.

This last supper of his morning needed to be lapped up first.