Earth Over Heaven

Genichirou was deeply relieved when Yukimura started to hit his stride again, at practices. Renji had assured him it would happen, but that hadn’t stopped him from worrying—not least because he could tell Yukimura himself was worried. Worried that after all the pain, and all the risk, he wouldn’t be able to regain that last, vital edge. Genichirou had seen it, shadowing his eyes like mist, as Yukimura stood, after practice when he thought no one was watching, flexing his hand open and closed.

So, when that last, gleaming, precision, that whipsnap of muscle and speed, returned and burned away the fog of doubt, Genichirou was deeply thankful.

Even if it meant that Yukimura, finally convinced of his own recovery, had spent the entire practice running the team absolutely ragged in an attempt to keep up with his burst of delighted activity. He had declared it a day for singles practice, and proceeded to cycle through the entire team twice, leaving one after another panting in the dust. It reminded Genichirou of the first time he had played Yukimura, shocked by a brilliance that had defeated him without humbling his pride, fascinated by a charisma that offered genuine respect whether he chose to follow it or oppose it, stunned by a passion that promised to match his own.

Today, it was Akaya, in their second game, who gave in to that passion, and came closer to matching his captain than anyone on the team but Genichirou ever had. Yukimura met him at the net, when they ended, thrilled to laughing, catching Akaya’s face in his hands to tell him how superb he had been. Akaya seemed barely able to take it in. Genichirou smiled, remembering the first time it had happened to him, and guided Akaya to a bench afterwards, detailing Jackal to keep an eye on the dazed boy and turning to his own second game before Yukimura’s momentum dropped.

He was wearily amused that, by the end of practice, having driven everyone else into the ground and left his team draped over the benches like so many towels, Yukimura was still light on his feet, almost dancing, almost restless.

“Hold still for a moment, Seiichi,” Renji admonished, running his hand over Yukimura’s forearm as the rest of the team dispersed. Niou and Akaya were leaning on each other, staggering and laughing in a slightly punch-drunk manner, while Marui, not in much better shape, upbraided them for being wimps. Jackal herded them along, shaking his head, but Yagyuu paused to cast a small smile back at the three who remained. Genichirou returned a nod.

“Your muscles are going to seize up tonight, if you’re not very careful,” Renji informed their bright-eyed captain. “You should let me do something about it, or you won’t be able to move tomorrow morning.”

Yukimura flexed his limbs carefully, frowning. “It doesn’t feel like it,” he observed.

“That,” Renji told him, “is because you’re still riding on adrenaline. You’ll feel the strain when it gives out. Although,” he admitted, “I’m not entirely sure when it will give out; I would have expected it to happen already.”

Yukimura laughed, softly. “I’ve put you all to a great deal of trouble, today, haven’t I?”

Renji’s mouth curved in a rare grin. “Good trouble.”

Seiichi stepped away, and then spun to face them. “It’s all here,” he said, and Genichirou’s throat closed at the wonder in his voice, “I’m all here, still. Again.”

Genichirou laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let Renji take care of you, so you still feel like that tomorrow, then.”

They wound up in the converted sunroom Genichirou used to practice sword, as they often did when someone needed a massage. Genichirou had started keeping a futon in the closet, there, and helped the other two pull it out, along with a couple old yukata and a stack of towels, before he left them to it and went to wash up. When he returned, he found Seiichi not behaving with his usual decorum under such circumstances, but stretching like a cat under Renji’s hands, and, in fact, purring in low, rough murmurs.

“This would be easier if you lay still, Seiichi,” Renji said, with affectionate exasperation. Seiichi took a deep breath, arching with it, and turned over with a lithe twist to look up at Renji.

“I can’t stay still,” he said, low but distinct. “Not right now.”

Genichirou shook his head, and turned to coax the rather recalcitrant old door shut. As he finally slid it into place with a last scrape and clunk, though, a sharp intake of breath behind him caught his ear. He turned back, and was struck still by the image before him in the dim light.

Renji, sitting back on his knees, the yukata he wore to spare his uniform from any oil stains pushed half way down his arms. Seiichi, naked, kneeling over him, hands enclosing Renji’s face and lifting it to meet Seiichi’s kiss. Renji’s hands on Seiichi’s hips, closed convulsively. The straight line of Seiichi’s body, pressed against Renji’s, almost pushing him over backwards, and of Renji’s, arched and tense.

Genichirou shook himself out of his paralysis. So, Seiichi was in that kind of mood. Genichirou couldn’t exactly call it dominant, though both he and Renji found it hard to do anything but give way to Seiichi when he was like this. Genichirou recognized what it actually was, of course. It was the same thing that came on Seiichi when he played a serious match, the same power and focus, turned to a different end.

It was just as overwhelming here as on the court, however, and when Seiichi lifted his head and held out a hand to Genichirou, he came and knelt behind Renji, supporting him. Seiichi met him with a wild, burning smile and a long kiss. Renji leaned back against him with a sigh that was close to relief. That sigh caught as Seiichi pulled loose the cloth around him, and his mouth traced down Renji’s chest and stomach.

Genichirou blinked, and chuckled a little, as Seiichi stretched out on his stomach, propped on his elbows as he licked, delicately, down Renji’s length, waving his feet in the air. Perhaps he hadn’t ever seen Seiichi in quite this mood, before. His full, raw intensity rarely left room for such casual playfulness. The playfulness, however, was clearly not diminishing the effect of his focus, to judge by Renji’s increasingly ragged breaths. Genichirou cradled him, stroking his taut muscles and whispering soothingly in his ear as Seiichi’s hand slipped under him. Genichirou could make a good guess at what Seiichi’s fingers were doing from the way Renji arched back against him, and up into Seiichi’s mouth, eyes blank.

“Seiichi!” Renji gasped, harshly.

“Hmm-mmm?” Seiichi inquired, without releasing him, and Renji cried out, wordless, as that hum seemed to ripple through his entire body.

Genichirou fit his body to Renji’s as Seiichi drove him higher, and higher again, eased the curve of Renji’s spine, caught him when Seiichi swept him over the edge, and held him close as he fell back. Renji lay in his arms, panting in unaccustomed disarray, yukata hanging loose around his slumped shoulders and spread knees.

“You are demanding today, Seiichi,” he murmured, resting his head against Genichirou’s shoulder.

Seiichi stretched upright again, and laughed, pulling both the other two down to the futon. The ensuing tussle was very short, since Renji declined to resist in favor of catching his breath, and Seiichi was moving fast and sure enough that Genichirou couldn’t prevent being pinned without fighting back seriously. They were both laughing by then, but when Seiichi’s hand ghosted over Genichirou’s cheek, down his jaw, and Genichirou saw the soft smile on his lips, he stilled.

The three of them knew each other’s bodies and moods very well, and very intimately. Even though they had barely started to experiment with, as Renji jokingly called it, grown-up sex when Seiichi had fallen ill, Genichirou recognized the desire in Seiichi’s eyes. He reached up to pull Seiichi down against him, and whispered in his ear, “Yes.” He wasn’t ashamed that his voice was hoarse. It had been so long since he had touched or been touched by that brilliant strength, so long when he was afraid it would never return.

“Yes,” Seiichi whispered back, and kissed him. It was gentle, Seiichi was never other than gentle in bed, but it was still very much like being kissed by a tsunami, and Genichirou knew, as if he could feel it already, that when Seiichi slid into him it would be just as gentle and just as wild and just as implacable. Now he understood the helpless edge in the sound Renji had made under Seiichi’s kiss; he heard it echo in his own throat, felt himself drifting in the force of Seiichi’s mouth on his until Renji leaned against him, anchoring him.

Seiichi’s smile was sharper, as he drew back a bit, and fit himself against Genichirou’s other side, leaving Renji room. Seiichi’s hands, passing across his skin, should have seemed lighter than Renji’s fingers as they teased him open, but it was Seiichi’s deliberate, fleeting touches that locked his attention and sped his breath.

Finally, Renji drew Genichirou over on his side to face him, coaxing Genichirou’s leg up to rest on Renji’s hip, and he leaned into Renji’s arms. That reassurance was the only thing that kept him from starting when Seiichi’s hands stroked over his thighs, between his parted legs, before sliding up his body as Seiichi pressed against his back. Seiichi’s hands touched him like ice on a burn, healing and shocking both. But perhaps it was only that he knew what was coming. He heard Renji whispering to him to relax, as Seiichi entered him, knew that he was tense and shivering with the aching heat of Seiichi’s presence. He welcomed Renji’s touch, firm fingers stroking down Genichirou’s length, that kept him from being lost.

The rhythm of Seiichi moving inside him calmed him, even as it fanned tingling warmth through his body. It took feeling Renji’s chest brushing his as they breathed together to tell him why. Seiichi pressed into him and drew back in the rhythm of breathing, long and deep as the first breaths of a new morning, so familiar, so necessary, that Genichirou could do nothing but move with it. Pleasure wound through him, the pleasure of breathing after being unable to.

This, too, he recognized, this rhythm, this wholeness, and images flickered through his memory. Seiichi across the court from him, flashing under the sun, brilliant and sharp as a killing sword; Seiichi laughing, the day the three of them broke several municipal laws to play in the large, stone fountain at the park, hands lifted to catch drops of spray; Seiichi standing in the doorway of this room, with a faint smile, calling him back from his solitary training.

Seiichi, leaning over him, hair turned to shadow in the lowering light, the line of his body fierce and fluid.

“Seiichi,” he sighed, welcoming that radiant, familiar strength that opened him and called him and roused his body until he wondered how long he could bear it.

“Let go, Genichirou,” that soft, unyielding voice said, “we’ll catch you. Let go for me.”

Genichirou had never been able to resist Seiichi’s voice, not from the day he first heard it, and he let it take him now. Let Renji’s presence and Seiichi’s demand spill through him, fire his blood, snatch him up and hurl him outward, only held by their touch around him, inside him. When the wrenching heat pulsing through him faded, Genichirou was aware that there was wetness on his cheeks. Seiichi touched it, delicately, and tugged him onto his back to kiss it away.

“Genichirou?” he asked.

Genichirou smiled up at him, through the sparkle of his damp lashes. “Isn’t it traditional?” he murmured. He watched puzzlement cross Seiichi’s face, because they all knew this had not been his first time in any literal sense. But it had been, in every way that actually mattered right now, and he saw understanding soften Seiichi’s eyes.

He also felt Renji’s mouth curve, against his shoulder, and knew that Renji had known it already. He turned his head to eye Renji.

“Do you ever get tired of being right?” he asked, as conversationally as he could manage at that moment.

Renji’s answering chuckle vibrated through both of them. “Do you ever get tired of winning?” he returned. Genichirou pulled a half-hearted glower at him, and it was Seiichi’s turn to laugh, the low purr that never failed to make Genichirou shiver.

“A loss here and there keeps the enjoyment fresh,” Seiichi noted, stretching luxuriously against the futon.

The glance Genichirou and Renji shared held relief, only slightly tinged with regret, that Seiichi seemed to have calmed from his earlier euphoria. A few moments rearrangement twined them around Seiichi, and he sighed, drawing them closer, and closer again, until the three of them could feel each other’s heartbeats. They lay there as full dark fell.

Until Seiichi stirred and said, thoughtfully, “I suppose one can’t hang glide after dark, can one?”

Genichirou and Renji both drew back to look, wide-eyed, at Seiichi’s perfectly serious expression.

It lasted perhaps five beats before Seiichi broke down laughing.

“You should see your faces,” he gasped, waving a hand.

The look that passed between Genichirou and Renji this time was a trenchant one of absolute agreement, before they turned back and pounced on Seiichi, ticking him until he squeaked.

Genichirou knew he was smiling in a way he hadn’t for most of a year.

End