Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s nearing ten at night on a Friday, one of the rare weekends they don’t have any practice lined up, and Rin still isn’t back yet. So Sousuke is half expecting what greets him - a nervous looking Ai with Rin standing behind him, looking oddly proud.

“Sousuke-senpai,” Ai says in that particular soft, lilty voice of his, “Would it be alright if Rin-senpai and Momotarou swapped rooms for the night?”

He has his head half bowed, his cheeks lit up in an embarrassed flush, and Sousuke glares tiredly at Rin behind him. It’s so obvious he set this up, covering his barely restrained laughter with his fist. It’s like he lives to watch Ai get flustered, he thinks it’s cute or something.

“Yeah, alright,” Sousuke concedes, staring at Rin rather than Ai, who only smirks at him.

“Great,” Rin says, quickly tugging Ai and his dreamily relieved face away from the door. “Take him.”

Rin shoves a very drowsy looking Momo into Sousuke’s chest, turning and tugging Ai back to their dorm without even looking back once.

“Uh,” he says.

“I was asleep,” Momo grumbles, rubbing pitifully at his sleep-heavy eyes, “Rin-senpai pulled me out of bed.”

Sousuke laughs a little, pulling him in. He isn’t all that surprised when the kid flops right onto the bottom bunk, limbs all splayed out like a starfish. Momo isn’t usually this tired, but he’s been practicing extra hard with his roommate, the both of them putting in late night hours at the pool. There isn’t even anything going on this weekend, but Sousuke doesn’t doubt that’s why he’s so out of it tonight.

After spending a significant amount of time on his laptop, Sousuke turns his desk chair to face the sleeping asterisk of a boy, and is only a little surprised when he picks his head up to stare lazily back, like he could feel Sousuke watching him.

“Come,” Momo mumbles, reaching out his arms blindly and making grabby hands.

Sousuke only grins like an idiot because Momo’s eyes are already shut again, and because he’s always hoping this will happen.

He’s careful to crawl under the covers, worried that he’ll jostle Momo enough to knock him out of his drowsy stupor. He doesn’t, and Momo ends up rolling half onto Sousuke’s chest, using his left pec like a pillow, nuzzling his face into his skin. He inhales deeply, like the scent of Sousuke is soothing, and Sousuke’s entire body flashes in heat from it.

“Mm, cinnamon,” Momo mumbles, and Sousuke already knows he’s talking about his deodorant, because he’s said it before - even went out and bought the same brand, which Sousuke wasn’t sure how to take at first.

Sousuke runs a delicate hand through his hair, frowning a little when it meets the chlorine crisped tips that frame his face and around his ears.

“Did you even shower after the pool?” he asks.

Momo grunts something like a dismissive yes, nuzzling his face more thoroughly into Sousuke’s warmth, up until the chilly tip of his nose is pressed to his neck.

The room is covered in a blanket of silence, only the sound of the trees outside and the gentle hum of the building and all its inhabitants to be heard. It isn’t the kind of silence that Sousuke feels the need to fill - he doesn’t need to reach down and carefully fish out an errant magazine to pass out to, it feels more like he’s waiting for something, something that he has all the time in the world to wait for.

He finds himself wondering what Rin is doing - the obvious, possibly, but also how different it might be for them behind closed doors, how Rin might allow himself to look at Ai when he knows no one else is watching them. It might be something similar to the way he’s looking at Momo now - at the gentle squint between his brows, the tiny, irritated little frown he wears when he’s pretending to sleep. Sousuke probably looks like a fool, but whatever the expression it must have some weight to it, because Momo catches it again, blearily opening his eyes.

Momo says nothing, but then again this silence never calls for it. He only tips his chin up, touches the side of his nose to Sousuke’s, and it’s as good as asking. Sousuke cups his jaw when he kisses him, parts his lips and lets the sweet, sleepy warmth of his mouth envelope him, washing over his entire conscious being like a bucket of warm water, something to heat you up but leave you shivering after, wanting more.

Sousuke doesn’t mean to, but he ends up waking Momo a little more than he should with how tired he seemed to be. Momo tosses his leg over Sousuke’s hip, his thigh resting heavy and warm against his waist. Sousuke concentrates on the slow, thorough licks into the boy’s mouth, the way he opens up like a flower in the spring for him when he’s less inhibited like this. He’s getting painfully hard, but he’s also perfecting the art of ignoring it. They aren’t ready for that yet, they can only barely do this without talking about it.

Momo’s mouth goes slack when Sousuke pulls back, his pupils so fat it makes his eyes seem black, his lips pink and swollen. Sousuke licks across them slowly, soothes the burns he always seems to leave, and then Momo has his hands wrapped around his neck. If anyone were to look it would seem like he was choking him, or maybe pushing him away, but he isn’t. Momo just keeps his hands there, lax and soft, like feeling the muscles in Sousuke's throat swallow over his thudding pulse is soothing, or reassuring.

“Senpai,” Momo says, or whines rather, in that needy way he gets when he wants something but he doesn’t know how to ask for it. Sousuke just shushes him, helps guide his leg back over his hip to rest on the mattress, and strokes the hair away from his face.

“Later,” Sousuke whispers, a promise, maybe a plea.

Sousuke doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he remembers the feeling of Momo’s long limbs wrapped around him at various intervals in the night, and when he wakes he’s alone, and Rin still isn’t back yet. It isn’t surprising - Rin and Ai are probably up and around already, and Momo has probably traipsed back to bed, in a barely conscious state, still so worried about being caught someday.

It’ll be alright, he tells himself, whatever this is will work itself out. He’s getting better at separating the days and nights, and less irritated whenever Rin kicks his shoe while he’s studying in the room, eyeing the faint reddish marks where Momo’s mouth had been on his neck and his chest the night before and asking, “Something you wanna tell me?”

“No,” he says, and he always will, because it isn’t the right time - and anyways, he’s pretty sure Rin already knows.

Sousuke only barely refrains from commenting on the long, thin red scratches down the length of Rin's back, laughing when Momo looks stunned by them when he sees them in the changing room, looking accusingly at Ai and making him turn the generous color of a beet.

It’s okay, because they all have their secrets, even if none of them are very good at keeping them.

Chapter Text

It’s late enough to be dark out now, the blue glow of the tv making the room seem smaller than it is. Another weekend spent with bad variety shows and a whole lot of nothing, but it’s okay because work consumes most of Sousuke's week now anyway. He settles in the small futon he has near the large windows in his room, leaning on his left elbow on the arm of it, a bag of prawn flavored crisps nestled between his thighs.

And because it’s a studio, it means the front door is only about two feet behind him - so it’s not surprising that he jumps nearly off his seat when there’s an obnoxiously chipper knock on it.

When Sousuke swings the door open, he isn’t exactly surprised to see Momo there.

“Ay, you never pick up your phone!” Momo shouts, looking far more hurt by this than Sousuke had expected.

It’s true, he’d switched it off. Ever since Rin left for school both Ai and Momo have been treating him like an invalid, which is more than a little insulting. Ai's in a local university now, and Momo's in his last year of school - they both have better shit to be doing with their free time.

“Come on in,” Sousuke says to the empty space Momo leaves in the doorway, after he’d already shoved himself past, dropping two shopping bags on Sousuke's kitchenette counter. “Make yourself at home.”

“Have you eaten?” Momo asks. Sousuke shakes his head, sliding into the seat behind the small counter space that separates his kitchen from his living room. Or bedroom, really, since it’s only one room.

“Not unless snacks count,” he says, half-jokingly, wilting a little when Momo frowns angrily at him.

“You need protein, that shit you eat is all carbs,” Momo barks, unloading the shopping bags. Momo’s been training more himself lately, still on the team, one of the best they’ve got now without Rin there. He plops down a bag of frozen chicken breasts, some leafy looking vegetables, and then reveals a takeaway container in the second bag. He slides it over to Sousuke, testily slapping down a pair of chopsticks on top of the styrofoam.

“Eat,” Momo commands.

Sousuke opens the container, smiling a little to himself when he sees what it is. Broiled almond chicken with mayonnaise, steamed vegetables instead of rice. He snaps the chopsticks apart, quietly chewing a small piece as he watches Momo struggle to reach the cupboard above his fridge. He’s still so skinny, never really filled out much, though Sousuke always thought he’d end up taller.

“It’s good,” Sousuke says, swallowing a mouthful when Momo somewhat timidly comes back to stand on the other side of the counter he’s eating from. He does this all the time now - comes barreling in like a tornado of worry, and then gets embarrassed about it when he sees Sousuke’s world hasn’t ended just yet. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” Momo mumbles, and then quickly leans over the counter to kiss the salted almond taste from Sousuke’s lips. He then walks over to Sousuke’s futon, plops down onto it and eats the remainder of the crisps Sousuke left behind.

“Hypocritical brat,” Sousuke says, his food in hand, carefully lowering himself to sit next to him while Momo's thumb mashes buttons on his remote. Momo is a serial channel surfer, he can never seem to decide on anything long enough watch it all the way through.

“I’m exercising,” Momo says, his mouth crunching around the crisps, even as he speaks, “You’re not.”

The truth of that stings enough to have Sousuke angrily snatching the bag away from his hands, fast enough for the foil wrapper to make a loud snapping sound, leaving Momo’s hands awkwardly hovering in the air.

“Fuck you,” Sousuke grumbles, because this pity party hurts more than his shoulder ever did, and Momo knows that.

“I’m sorry, hey. Hey, c’mere.”

Momo wraps an arm around Sousuke’s neck, pulls them together until their noses are touching. Sousuke only kisses him because he mourns for the prawn flavored powder he was so heartlessly denied.

“How’s work?” Momo asks, gently nuzzling Sousuke’s face.

“Fine. More hours since regionals in this area are close by. They’re only kids, though.”

“Kids are easier to coach, I would think. Besides, I don’t think you’d like having to deal with teenagers.”

“You’re a teenager,” Sousuke says, laughing a little when Momo grins, like he’d been baiting him for that exact response. Sousuke bites Momo’s lip when he tilts his head for another kiss, smirking when Momo’s voice cracks on a quiet moan. Just to be a dick, he lifts another piece of chicken in the tiny amount of space between their mouths, chewing obnoxiously loud. Momo scoffs at him and leans away.

“How’s Ai?” he asks Momo, after he finally seems to have picked something to watch. Some wildlife program, of course, all zoomed in shots of bugs and birds, things only Momo would ever find fascinating.

“He’s, uh. Good? Sometimes I feel like it’s him I should be feeding, ever since. You know.”

“I’m sure he can feed himself,” Sousuke says, withholding the ‘just like I can’, only because he doesn’t like asking Momo to come over if he doesn’t have to - it’s better when he shows up all ruffled and concerned. Rin asks about Ai everytime they speak, and then asks about Momo as an afterthought, as if he doesn’t know where Sousuke gets his information from.

“He can, he’s just a little down. He’ll be fine, Rin sends him letters with… things in them.”

Sousuke quirks a brow. “Things?”

“Like. Animal erasers and stickers and glitter and shit. It’s all over his dorm, I don’t know. He’s a mess.”

Sousuke laughs, his chest shaking enough from the force of it that Momo takes the food container from his lap as a sort of precaution, then sets it down on the table near their feet.

“How’s school?” he asks Momo, petting the back of the boy's hair, tangling his fingers in it. He’s been growing it out now, and it’s almost long enough to tie back. Sousuke would tell him how much he likes it like this, if he wasn’t afraid that Momo would use this information against him and threaten to cut it the next time he caught him eating white rice or chocolate.

“Mm, fine,” Momo responds, settling down on Sousuke’s shoulder. He’s gentler now, even though it’s resting on the bad one, he keeps most of the weight rolled forward onto his chest. He seems engrossed enough in his tv show that Sousuke leaves it at that.

He should tell Momo he appreciates him sometime. He tries to, in not so many words, but it’s hard to tell if Momo ever really gets it, he still seems so naive in a lot of ways. Sousuke would probably be fifteen pounds heavier and a hell of a lot more miserable if Momo weren’t so persistent. Even before they became what they are, back when Sousuke thought Momo’s adoring gaze was more to do with being some kind of a mentor. It only really clicked when he kept looking at him like that, all open and dreamy, even after Sousuke stopped swimming for good.

Momo ends up falling asleep right before the show ends, half curled up in Sousuke’s lap. He’s not as small as he was, even if he never really filled out all that much, so maneuvering him in a spot that’s safe to lower the futon from is a struggle, but the pain is getting better now, more managable. He goes to work in a brace, and his physical therapy isn’t as humiliating as he thought it would be.

Sousuke watches the end of the nature program lying down, with Momo curled up against his side, snoring a little. It’s something about stag beetles, and how they’re always on the hunt for female mates. It makes Sousuke laugh sleepily, reminding him of when Momo was a first year. He combs his fingers through Momo’s overgrown hair and decides he’ll tell him about it tomorrow. At least they both have the weekends off.

Chapter Text

This is better than sleep.

This is hearts beating echoes, bouncing between two cages of ribs. This is the closest thing Momo thinks he’ll ever get to heaven, face pressed into the warm curves of Sousuke’s chest, solid yet expanding with every breath. Sousuke is an anchoring weight beneath him, his palm a soothing press of heat against the back of his neck, fingers tracing the flow of muscle and bone.

This is the third hotel they’ve stayed at this week - all funded by the team - and it’s the third night in a row Momo finds himself unable to shut his brain down to rest.

“People will notice you haven’t been staying in your rooms,” Sousuke’s voice rumbles through him, liquid warmth spreading all the way down to his toes.

Momo shifts with a petulant grunt. “Mm’don’t care,” he hums, pressing his face deeper into the glowing heat of Sousuke’s chest, shifting carefully towards his neck.

“You need to straighten your priorities out, then.”

Momo lifts his head to glare but it falters at Sousuke’s soft teasing expression, just the smallest curl of his lips hinting a smug smile.

“Rude,” Momo huffs, and when Sousuke shifts the hand that was on his neck to cup the sharp curve of his jaw, Momo feels his entire body go heavy. It’s like a hair trigger - the deep sleepy rasp of Sousuke’s voice coupled with the gentle brush of his fingers, the relaxed strength of his grip.

Momo’s skin felt like it was crawling earlier, limbs twitching and mind restless. He came to Sousuke with pajamas all twisted around his legs, his hair wild and his eyes frustratingly red and sore.

Sousuke hadn’t said a word, as he usually chooses not to, only ushered him in with a hand pressed to the lower part of his back. Silence seems to be his shield - he’s shockingly timid and wary of saying the wrong things now. Momo doesn’t understand it, but he feels he knows him well enough at this point to get angry whenever Sousuke counters with a casual,“you’re too young to understand”.

“Senpai,” Momo almost whines, shifting his shin until it fits snug between Sousuke’s thighs, “You and Nitori-senpai should swap rooms. He makes noises in his sleep.”

Sousuke snorts a little, sliding his palm up the valley of Momo’s spine, spreading fingers out into his hair. “You are not allowed to complain about anyone being loud.”

Momo tilts his head up, grinning as he noses at the soft underside of Sousuke’s chin, where the stubble doesn’t quite reach just yet. He whispers, “I can be quiet when I want to be.”

Sousuke tugs at his hair, pulls him just gently, enough to break away the threat of Momo’s mouth reaching his skin. He’s too nervous, but Momo knows he will give soon enough.

“How about now, hm? Some of us actually enjoy sleeping.”

“I enjoy it too,” Momo pouts, resisting Sousuke’s hold and leaning even closer once Sousuke’s turned his head to frown down at him. “Just because I can’t sometimes doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

Sousuke’s eyes scan his, and Momo can feel his heart pounding beneath where his palm is laying lax on the curve of Sousuke’s pec. Silence might work for some things, but not all of them.

“Believe it or not, I know how that feels,” Sousuke says quietly, almost a whisper.

Momo whines and lurches forward, tries his hardest to reach what he can, to kiss Sousuke until he’s so out of his mind he won’t have a choice but to finally succumb to rest. At least he thinks that’s what would happen. Sousuke grips his hair again, still not too tight, but enough to control him. Instead he nudges Momo’s nose to the side with his own, kisses the inner part of his cheek, right beneath his eye.

“Go to sleep,” Sousuke whispers hoarsely, sounding somewhat pained, and then he turns his head.

Momo smiles to himself, letting his eyes fall shut as he burrows into Sousuke’s arm, into the soft skin below his shoulder. Sousuke’s hand eventually loosens and slips down the back of his neck, his lips parting on quiet snores, so Momo sneaks the smallest press of his lips, right at the base of the older boy’s throat.

Yep. This is better.