Chapter Text
The first thing Junpei sees when he opens the door and spills the light of the hallway into his bedroom is Carlos’s jeans lying in pile on the floor beside Akane’s dress. He comes crashing down from the high of the party. Knots work their way into his stomach.
He thought he was okay with this. He was happy when he found out Akane had feelings for Carlos. He was happy when those two made coy advances towards each other throughout the evening. He can’t wrestle out of his mind the image of Carlos holding her naked body and taking her in the night.
The form of their legs under the covers runs together. They’re entangled so closely that Junpei can’t tell where Carlos ends and Akane begins. He pushes the door further ajar to cast enough light into the room to see Carlos’s bare arm reaching to the left, towards Akane’s side of the bed. Carlos is on Junpei’s side. Carlos took Junpei’s place.
Junpei doesn’t want to feel like this. He wants to be happy, tries to force the feeling back into himself.
He shuts the door behind him so he doesn’t have to see them anymore.
It’s colder in their bedroom than it’s been all season. They turned the heat down for the party to keep the house from getting too warm with so many people inside. Junpei forgot about the thermostat until now, so they must have achieved a perfect balance for the party at the expense of a comfortable night’s sleep.
His drawstring pants should be at the top of his bottom drawer where he left them this morning, but he can’t find them by touch. He figures Akane must have buried them with other clothes as she was tidying. He finds what feels like a T-shirt in his hands and goes over his head and arms like one, too. Goosebumps spring up along his bare arms. He doesn’t want to go to bed without pants in this weather; he barely wants to get into the bed at all. The desire to be under a blanket forces him to shed his jeans and climb onto the bed in his boxers.
There’s not much room beside Akane, but he slides his way in. It’s a cool, soothing touch against his wounded heart to feel her body against him. He runs a slow, gentle hand down her warm back, feeling her silk nightdress, the lilac one he loves seeing her lounge around the house in on a Saturday morning, the same one she wore on their first night together. He pulls his hand back with an involuntary hiss when his fingers hit the hand on her waist.
Just when he decides he’s going to fucking cry, he hears the sheets shift from movement that isn’t his. “Junpei?” asks Carlos in a soft, sleepy voice, and fuck him, because it’s making an even bigger mess of his feelings.
He swallows and coughs once to restore his swollen throat to normal. “Uh, hey,” he says, when he can’t think of anything else to say.
“Party’s over?” Carlos guesses.
“Yeah,” Junpei sighs, trying to expel the weights in his chest. “Everyone’s gone home safe. Uh, well, Light and Aoi are across the hall.”
Carlos lays his head back against the pillow. “Damn,” he mutters. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep here and miss goodbyes. Eric got all of Gab’s stuff?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Junpei says. “It’s fine. It… tires you out, or whatever. Makes sense.”
“I’m usually more energized by stuff like this,” Carlos replies.
He doesn’t voice his yawn, but Junpei hears his heavy inhale and exhale. His hand wanders over Akane’s body and towards Junpei. Junpei pulls back from Carlos’s heat before the hand can touch him. He doesn’t want these feelings anymore, neither the blind love nor the jealous hate.
Carlos raises his head a few inches. “You alright over there, Junpei?”
Junpei folds his arms. He curls his knees up towards his chest. He’s still cold, and he’s on the verge of falling off of the bed.
“I could go sleep on the couch,” he mumbles. He can hear how pitiful he sounds, but he can’t make it stop. “It’s… kind of cramped on the bed with three of us.”
“Hey, no, there’s plenty of room by me,” Carlos says. “Come here.”
“No, that’s… that’s cool.” Junpei slowly slides out from under the covers. “I can… let you two have some time alone, or something.”
“Time alone?” Carlos repeats.
Junpei sits up on the edge of the bed, crossing his legs to keep them warm. “Y’know, to get… acquainted, or something, I dunno,” he says. “You have an easier time getting romantic if I leave you alone, I guess.”
“No, c’mon, Junpei, stay,” Carlos coaxes.
Junpei stays seated, curling his freezing toes, because Carlos told him to, in a quiet, needy voice that he can’t resist, no matter much he wants to go throw up, or cry, or both. No alcohol needed.
“Look, I don’t know how we’re supposed to make this work with the three of us,” Carlos says, “but it should be the three of us, together.”
Junpei doesn’t believe him.
“We missed you earlier. When you were still out hosting.”
Junpei wants so badly to believe him. Junpei does believe him with his whole fragile heart, but his mind is acting as a desperate shield for it by casting doubt.
His voice is so broken when he asks, “Was it good?”
The silence hurts.
“Was what good?” Carlos asks.
“The… you know. Whatever… fun you guys got up to while I was gone.”
The silence hurts so much.
“What, the cuddling?”
The silence now sounds like a loud whine of static.
“Cuddling?” Junpei repeats, twisting around to squint at Carlos through the darkness. “You mean, you were just…?”
Then Carlos shoots up like a rocket. “Holy shit, Junpei,” he realizes, “you thought we—?”
“I mean, you were—”
Junpei didn’t realize what a leap he had made to his conclusion until the static of silence starts sounding like it’s laughing at him. His head rolls down into his hands, elbows on his knees.
“Junpei, God, I wouldn’t—I would tell you if I—I would never do something like that without talking to you,” Carlos utters. “At least talking to you. I would… I mean, I would want you… there…”
A flash of heat courses through Junpei’s body, smoothing away the goosebumps for the next thirty seconds. His chest gets lighter as relief sweeps through him, refreshing his anxious body and mind.
“Is it bad that that makes me feel a lot better?” Junpei says shakily. “That’s bad, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I be okay with… with you two being together, without me, sometimes?”
“No, Junpei, that’s a serious boundary. You’d have every right to be mad if I crossed it without talking to you,” Carlos insists. “Relationships are built on communication, right? With three of us, we’re gonna have to communicate three times as much. If you’ve got boundaries, tell me about them. Tell me if you’re uncomfortable. We’ll talk through it. We’re gonna make this work.”
He reaches over and presses a warm hand flat against Junpei’s turned back. Junpei’s smile quivers with elation.
“C’mon, over here. We left room for you on this side,” Carlos says.
“Can I just… have a second?” Junpei whispers.
He doesn’t lie back down all the way, just enough to feel Akane’s body against his skin. It’s the last remedy for the remaining knots in his stomach. Her heat makes her love palpable.
“You’ll wake her up,” Carlos says, a smile in his voice.
“I doubt it. She’s funny like that,” Junpei replies. “She sleeps like a log at night. Soon as she gets six or seven hours, though, she’s the lightest sleeper. The only times I’ve ever heard her alarm, I was already awake. It’s so quiet. But she’s not hearing anything right now.”
“I love listening to you talk about her,” Carlos sighs. “I can hear how much you love her.”
“She says the same kinda thing when I talk about you,” Junpei replies.
Carlos holds back a small laugh. “Man, come over here, already.”
After leaving a soft kiss on Akane’s forehead, Junpei tiptoes slowly around the bed to Carlos’s side. Carlos lifts the covers for him. Once the sheets drift down over Junpei’s body, he realizes this is the most comfortable this bed has ever felt. Both the mattress beneath him and the blankets over him have been warmed well above the ambient temperature of the room, and something even warmer lies deeper in the bed.
“God, Carlos, you’re hot,” Junpei breathes. “I—I mean literally. Okay, also figuratively, but—dude, you gotta stay here for the winter. We’d save so much on heating.”
Carlos chuckles. He slides an arm under Junpei’s neck and around his shoulders to pull him closer. “Come closer,” he says with a smile. “I can get you warmed up in a minute.”
Junpei hesitates only a moment before scooting towards Carlos’s enticing heat. An irresistible magnetism pulls him too close, tangling their legs, squishing their chests together. If he knew where Carlos’s mouth was in the darkness, he would be pressing himself against it. He buries his face in the soft muscles of Carlos’s shoulder to bury that urge.
“Junpei, can I… ask a big favor?” Carlos whispers.
“Yeah?”
“It’s just… You know how Akane is…” He sighs. “Do you get that feeling like you… you want to be perfect for her?”
“Every damn day, man.”
“Okay, so, I… I’ve never—well, before tonight, I guess, I—I’ve never really kissed anyone before.”
Junpei’s heart does a somersault. “Never?”
“I—I mean, there was kindergarten stuff, but… I just never wanted to be in a relationship before this, so I…”
“Wait, so, you mean you wanna… practice? For Akane?”
Junpei wants to make a joke about how Carlos must not have gotten enough from Aoi’s prank earlier. Junpei also wants to kiss Carlos so badly that he can’t spare a second for a joke. He slides a desperate hand up Carlos’s neck to find his jaw, then his chin, then his lips, where the anxiety hits him at last. He’s never kissed a man before. His recent daydreams have all been variations on this moment, but this will be when he finds out how gay he really is.
“Nothing to it, promise,” Junpei exhales, and he might be talking to himself.
Carlos is the only taste of champagne he needed tonight.
He’s soft and pliant at first, slowly mimicking Junpei’s motions, but there stops being motion to mimic once he brings a hot hand to Junpei’s face. The firm, warm tip of his tongue glides over Junpei’s lips.
“Fucking liar,” Junpei mutters against his mouth.
Once Carlos slips his tongue between Junpei’s open lips, Junpei determines with complete confidence that he’s incredibly gay. His bare legs curl around the flannel of Carlos’s pants—nope, those are his pants, that’s why he couldn’t find them, Carlos is wearing them. He runs a curious, hungry hand down Carlos’s chest, feeling every chiseled muscle flex and relax as Carlos rises from the bed to climb over Junpei and kiss him down hard. When the tip of Carlos’s tongue traces over the roof of Junpei’s mouth in the way only Akane should know he likes, his contented hums turn into a full-fledged moan.
And that’s when he hears Akane giggle.
He wrenches his face away from the kiss and shoves Carlos off of him. “Both of you, fucking liars!”
“I said before tonight, it wasn’t a lie!” Carlos laughs.
“Goddammit, Akane, you were awake this whole time, weren’t you?! You told him how to—just so he could—”
“It was supposed to happen faster, it was just a little thing,” Akane protests, still fighting through giggles. “We left your spot open on the bed, and Carlos would pretend to wake up and ask you and everything. We didn’t know you would…”
“Yeah, now that all three of us are here,” Carlos says, “you wanna talk about everything, Junpei? You sure this is okay with you?”
“And both of you, what do you mean, you feel like you have to be perfect for me?” Akane demands. “I don’t want you to feel like that! You’re perfect as you are.”
“Yeah, Carlos, why do you feel like that? You are perfect,” Junpei chimes in. “With your perfect smile, and your perfect body, and your perfect hair…”
“Oh, feel his hair, Junpei! He washed out the pomade before bed and it’s so soft.”
Junpei doesn’t need to be told twice. His fingers glide and twist through Carlos’s locks. The strands caress his skin, so fine that they cling to each other at the ends but part with a gentle tug.
“What the hell, why do you even put shit in your hair?” Junpei asks.
“Because most people just look at it instead of sticking their hands in it,” replies Carlos.
“Did you feel the back of his head? It’s shorter there.” Akane takes his hand and runs it up from the nape of Carlos’s neck, against the grain, so that the strands brush against his palm as he moves.
“Really, guys?” Carlos sighs. “I thought we were trying to have a serious conversation.”
“Aw, what a dang shame, looks like that’s not happening anymore.” Junpei pets him again in the way Akane showed him.
“Stop messing around, Junpei.”
He pulls Junpei’s hand away by the wrist. When their fingers lock together, Junpei feels how much bigger Carlos’s hand is than his.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Carlos asks. There’s that lovely, gentle rasp in his quiet voice. “With me being here.”
Akane’s fingers brush his other hand, then fold into his palm. “You said you want to be perfect for me,” she says, “and then you said Carlos is perfect. Are you feeling insecure?”
Carlos holds his hand tight as he hears Akane’s basic and unfortunately accurate deduction. “Junpei, you’re not—you don’t think I’m better than you or something, do you?”
“I don’t think it, I know it,” Junpei says, and as Carlos and Akane both inhale to argue, he adds, “Don’t tell me I’m just as great as you. I know I’m not. You two are literally perfect, and I don’t know how the hell I ended up here with both of you.” He squeezes Carlos back and rubs his thumb over the back of Akane’s hand. “I’m not like you guys. I don’t walk out the door every day being a hundred percent flawless. I just do my best.”
Junpei feels a tug on his right hand, the one holding Akane. Her soft, cool lips touch his fingers. “If I like everything about you,” Akane says, “doesn’t that make you perfect to me?”
“Just listen to her,” Junpei jokes, wiggling his fingers in the spaces between Carlos’s. “She’s perfect, see?”
“Junpei, I know you like kidding around when you’re uncomfortable,” she says gently.
“I also like kidding around in general. Kind of unpredictable like that.”
“Junpei.”
He falls back to the pillow with a groan. “Okay, fine, I don’t think I measure up to you guys, and it’s probably gonna keep coming up, and I might be a clingy, needy bitch about it, but I really want to make this work with all of us, I promise. Happy?”
Carlos’s lips barely brush against his temple, just a touch of warmth, but it makes him absolutely melt into the mattress.
“For what it’s worth, I think you measure up just fine, Junpei,” Carlos says, resting his head on Junpei’s pillow. “And I’m happy if you’re happy.”
Akane drapes herself over Carlos to gaze at Junpei. “I’m happy if you’re happy,” she agrees.
They’re a sight to behold: two perfect beings, loving each other and loving him. His face hurts from smiling too hard. He squishes himself up close against Carlos and stretches an arm over to wrap around Akane.
“I’m happy if Carlos steals my pants tomorrow, too.”
His head moves with the jerk of Carlos’s chest after a laugh. “Yeah, thanks, by the way,” Carlos says, rubbing his knee against Junpei’s leg. “But, uh, you’re probably about a size thirty slim-fit. Pajamas are one thing, but…”
“I think I have some thirty-two’s.”
“Because of his pudgy little beer belly last year,” Akane teases.
“Hey, shut up, it’s only two inches,” Junpei protests.
He falls quiet at the touch of Carlos’s warm palm on his cheek. Before he can put together what he wants next and tilt his head forward, Carlos is already kissing him. The soft, calming caress loosens his muscles. His body settles into Carlos when their lips slowly, gently part.
He hears Carlos deliver the same placating kiss to Akane. His eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to see their silhouettes run together, eyes closed, hands drifting to each other’s faces. He feels exactly the way he’s supposed to feel again: excited and bursting with love.
By the size and warmth of his hands, Junpei knows it’s Carlos who coaxes his head off the pillow, but it’s Akane who kisses him. She tastes like Carlos, or maybe it’s the champagne. It makes Junpei giddy either way. On his cheek, her cold fingertips trail between Carlos’s fingers as she covers his hand with hers. Carlos lowers his other hand from Junpei’s jaw. He presses a kiss there in its place.
Junpei doesn’t know where his body begins and ends. A tingling heat washes through him and carries him into another world. Love envelops him from all sides. Their bodies keep him warm.
“I’ll see what I can do about the pants,” Carlos sighs into his neck underneath his ear. “Since it’ll make you happy.”
There’s a lovely thing about sliding from friendship into romance. For all the anguish that comes from not knowing whether to risk the existing relationship by sharing new feelings, there is the reward of skipping those awkward stages of not knowing how to make conversation, of not feeling at ease in each other’s company. So much trust flows among these three lovers. They’re not worried about making this relationship work. They know they can make it work.
“It depends on the model of car,” Light’s phone recites aloud in a synthesized voice that echoes off of the kitchen countertops. “Some have appended on-board computers overriding controls that a human would otherwise be able to operate and those shouldn’t be considered robots in my opinion. Cars designed from the ground up to work with a computer, especially those that don’t allow a human to override its controls, could be called robots. …Received 4:11 A.M., December 30th.”
Though he does borrow a T-shirt, Carlos decides after sitting through breakfast that Junpei’s jeans will cut off his circulation on the drive home. The tight denim grips his ass as he walks to the bedroom to change.
“Light, did you get that?” whispers Aoi.
“Passing it on to Clover,” Light responds, brow knit in concentration.
“God bless your scrawny-ass legs, Junpei,” Aoi utters. “What a way to cure a hangover. Hot damn.”