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Tamaki hates these things. This part of the job. The part where he’s forced into being nice by some invisible, arbitrary standard and pretending he understands most of the jokes that fly over his head and just—having to make sense of the fact that people seem to like his face?
They tip extra when he smiles.
And he doesn’t—he certainly doesn’t know how to flirt. God. He just—needed a job that fit his college schedule, that he could do a couple of nights a week and, like, have enough money to add a few vegetables to his instant ramen. Because, obviously, college is a capitalist scam. But—Tamaki likes learning. Always has. Likes things that can be known, because it makes them safe. And the real world is scary. At least he’s still got a few more years of it being okay that you don’t know what you’re doing with your life or how you’re supposed to do it left. If there’s a manual. If your useless degree is even going to ever get you a job you might remotely enjoy. Which, for some reason, appears to be something that you need to live. The money and the enjoyment.
But—
Honestly, that doesn’t matter right now.
The club is, admittedly, a little sketchy. Not, like, coke deals in the backrooms kind of sketchy, but they could be stricter with asking for ID. And the strippers use too much glitter. Which Tamaki genuinely didn’t think he would ever consider a personal problem, since he barely touches his own dick if he can help it, but—
Shouto is touchy. Shouto is touchy and affectionate and he looks at Tamaki like he wants Tamaki to bend him over the bar counter and push his flimsy, glittery underwear to the side as we works him open. Put on a show for everyone. And, as much as it makes his face burn with shame, when he looks at Shouto, Tamaki kind of wants to. Wants to try out all the filthy things he’s involuntarily scrunched his nose at when he heard other people talk about them. They can’t—
Can’t be all that filthy, if Shouto were the one he would be trying them with.
Tonight, Shouto pouts at him, sat at the bar. He’s early for his shift. Sipping on this ridiculous fruity thing with an appropriately suggestive name that’s too complicated to make. That Tamaki learned how to make just because Shouto kept asking for it. At this rate, he’s going to do a lot of things just because Shouto keeps asking for them.
“Don’t make that face,” Shouto says, “you’ll get wrinkles.” And then, without waiting for an answer, he leans over the counter just to smooth a few careful fingers over the scrunched space between Tamaki’s eyebrows.
Tamaki shivers. Can’t help it, with Shouto this close. These are the parts that always get to him. Not Shouto mostly naked and making eyes at him spinning on the pole, although that’s definitely—an experience, but—this. The gentleness of the in between moments. That time after a long shift when Tamaki used his break to go pick up a sandwich for Shouto because he hadn’t eaten in hours, and Shouto tackled him into a hug. Whispered you’re amazing, Tamaki, his mouth too close, sparkly pink from the lip gloss, his body warm and perfect and real. Real like—like they could walk out into the daylight, and be something more than just pressed too close together. Pushed by circumstance.
Because—
Shouto flirts, yeah, but he flirts with Tamaki. Tamaki remembers him refusing to speak to Denki for a week straight after Denki jokingly slapped his butt. And—it’s not much, but it’s something. It’s something, and Tamaki doesn’t care about people often, but he does care about Shouto. Against his will, really. Shouto is just—that easy to want to take care of. To want to keep safe. With all his scars and his perfect mouth and his soft, soft heart.
“Won’t be pretty enough for you anymore?” Tamaki asks. His voice wobbles. He’s never been good at this, at any of it, but with Shouto it’s—that much harder. In every single unfortunate way. Including the literal one. “You won’t like me if I’m wrinkly?”
Shouto shakes his head. “If anyone’s not pretty enough, it’s me,” he says. “You’re—you’re great. I just want—,” He pauses. Sighs. “I just wish you liked me a little.”
A little. Liked a little. Like Shouto isn’t all Tamaki thinks about, like, all the time. Every moment he can’t convince himself to fill up with some other inconsequential thing it’s all Shouto, Shouto, Shouto. After a shitty day he counts down the hours to his next shift, to getting to see Shouto before work. To the parts of it that go like this. Soft and careful and private. Theirs.
“I like you a lot,” Tamaki blurts. “I—I think about you a lot.”
Surprisingly, Shouto goes red. Or—or maybe not that surprisingly, because Tamaki doesn’t know what Shouto’s like when he actually cares. He just knows what Shouto’s like when he’s trying to earn enough tips. And that’s not—he doesn’t belong to Tamaki. Obviously he can do whatever he wants. Obviously Tamaki’s not going to be a giant jerk about it. “Is it because I’m pretty much naked around you most of the time?”
Tamaki shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I mean—that too I, um, suppose. But it’s mostly—it’s just—I think about holding your hand. There’s this—there’s this cat café near my school, and I think you’d like it there. I want to—I want to watch you smile.”
Like he’s granting a wish, Shouto smiles. Bright. Blinding. Endlessly warm and perfect. “You’re sweet,” he says. “I’m glad I met you.”
And then—
Well. He’s got a job to do. Tamaki does too. And he doesn’t feel brave enough, has never felt brave enough. It feels like an easy leap to take, but still. Falling seems terrifying. Even if he’s got his eyes tightly shut and Shouto’s hand is there to take. He trusts Shouto to guide him out of the darkness. He just doesn’t trust himself to deserve it.
…
Sometimes, during slow nights, Tamaki wonders. Can’t help it. Not much to do with all the clients nursing their drinks and the loud music making it impossible to think. To distract yourself. Shouto’s pretty. He’s so, so pretty, but—it’s like he doesn’t know it. Like he doesn’t realize it beyond the amount of time it takes for a song to finish. Like he’s convinced himself people want him because they would want anyone with dim lighting and enough alcohol.
Which—might be debatably true, for most people. But Tamaki is an idiot and a fool, and he’s pretty sure he would want Shouto in every universe. Even—especially?—in one where he doesn’t regularly take most of his clothes off while Tamaki is trying valiantly not to get hard at work. There have been—incidents. Like spilling entire drinks in customer’s laps, and having to flee to the bathroom after profusely apologizing to take care of, uh, a pressing problem. To rub his dick raw thinking about Shouto on his knees with his mouth open, expectant.
Would Shouto like him then? If he knew Tamaki spends most of the time he doesn’t think about kissing him and holding his hand and maybe doing that cheesy romcom thing where he dips Shouto in for a passionate kiss in the middle of the pouring rain, thinking about—about a version of the world, some parallel universe where instead of being awkward and terrified to breathe Tamaki knows how to ask for what he wants, knows how to make pressing Shouto against the wall at the end of his shift and telling him let me take you home, let me make you feel good enticing instead of sexual harassment lawsuit-worthy.
Tamaki doesn’t know. It’s not like he can walk up to Shouto and ask. Maybe Shouto likes him precisely because he’s non-threatening. Because he doesn’t leer. Because he considers Tamaki utterly unfuckable. God. What is this? Some inherently douchey friendzone thing? Is Tamaki friendzoned? Is he allowed to care if he’s friendzoned? Is this one of those thoughts Nejire would smack him over? Does he need to start talking to his therapist about Shouto? How would he start that conversation? So, hey, there’s this really hot guy at work and I think I want to make him come almost as much as I want to keep him forever and maybe get a cat together? Because he likes cats. He likes cats, and that’s—important. Really important. You know, because—
Tamaki is an idiot, obviously.
“Hey,” Shouto says, snapping him out of his weird crisis. “Could you—help me out a little?” He biting his lip. His eye shadow is smudged. (Tamaki wants. But that’s hardly new.)
“With what?” Tamaki says, like the idiot he’s already given ample proof that he unquestionably is.
“Uh,” Shouto says. He’s embarrassed, Tamaki realizes. “I need you to pay for a private dance.”
“A private—like, with you?”
Shouto nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m sorry, it’s just that—I told him I don’t, um, do that kind of thing, but this one guy is being really persistent, and I already let security know but I need—I’m a little scared. I’m sorry. I know you don’t—I know you’re working, but—people get weird, sometimes.”
“I’ll do it,” Tamaki says, doesn’t even stop to think about it.
Shouto’s expression melts into open relief. “Thank you,” he says. “I owe you one.”
Tamaki can certainly picture worse horrors than a half hour where he’s supposed to be working spent looking at Shouto instead, but he bites his tongue. He’s already in too deep. He just—wishes he were better at this. That he had the vaguest idea what he’s doing.
…
And—
There’s also this part. The part where he’s being offered champagne even if he’s not supposed to drink on the clock and Shouto is—well.
Tamaki rubs at the back of his neck. Tries not to look. For his own sanity, really. “Do you want my hoodie?” he asks, which—
Might genuinely be ridiculous, but he wouldn’t know. He usually misses the mark with these things. Horribly, even. He’s used to it.
“What?”
“My hoodie?” Tamaki tugs on the aforementioned hoodie. The one they let him wear after seeing how awkward and twitchy he was in the standard uniform. “I’ve got a t-shirt under, it’s fine. And you look—uncomfortable.”
“I’m not,” Shouto says, too quickly. Then, softer, slower and more even, “I promise I’m not, it’s just—people forget this is a job. That I don’t—I’m not there for them to get their dicks wet if they feel like it. I’ve never even—done that. With somebody else.”
“Oh,” Tamaki says, face warm. It’s not new, around Shouto. Just—more. Closer. Not close enough. Not really. Not the way— “That’s okay. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Shouto huffs. “Of course you’d say that,” he says, arms crossed over his chest, staring down at Tamaki in a way that’s kind of—equally terrifying and revelatory? Especially as far as his dick is concerned. Tamaki swallows, chokes down the urge to plead for something like step on me.
“Uh, yes? Why wouldn’t I? I’m not—embarrassed about it either.”
Shouto blinks like a cat. “Wait,” he says. “You’re a virgin?”
Tamaki coughs. “Did—something about me give the opposite impression?”
“Um,” Shouto says. He reaches, starts fiddling with Tamaki’s drawstrings. They’re almost the same height, but when he’s this close Shouto feels small. Like his waist was made for Tamaki to put his hands on, the space where his neck meets his shoulder perfect to tuck your face into, to breathe him in, memorize him. “Maybe just—the fact that I thought about it a lot? With you?”
Tamaki’s throat feels dry. His fingers twitch. He wants to touch. And it’s not fair that he can’t precisely because he’s supposed to. Because he paid for this. For Shouto’s time and willingness. “You thought about—,”
“You fucking me, yeah.”
God. What the— “Shouto,” Tamaki says. He’s hanging by a thread. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m—,” What? Generally uninterested in everyone on earth except you? About to pull it out and fuck you right here? Halfway in love? Ready to sell my soul just for you to press your lips to the edge of my mouth? Really, really stupid?
“Me too,” Shouto says, like he knows. Like he gets it. Like he’s maybe half as desperate as Tamaki is. “Me too, so—it’s okay, right?”
He sounds small. Shy. Like a boy. Tamaki forgets he’s barely nineteen, sometimes. That this has to be hard on him. Being away from home for the first time. College and new people and just—having to adapt to it all. Tamaki’s had a couple of years to do it, and he still hasn’t figured it out. How you’re supposed to be a person. But learning how to touch Shouto, how he likes being touched—that feels like it could be easy. “Okay?” Tamaki repeats. “What’s—did you want to…?”
“Not if you don’t want to,” Shouto says. “But—I think you do. Am I wrong?”
Tamaki is a coward. He knows this about himself. Has made his peace with it a long time ago. It’s self-preservation. Evolution demands it. Supports it. Tamaki’s cowardice is necessary for the continuation of the species. “Yes,” he says. This is the cowardly choice too. Baring your throat. Admitting you want things you don’t deserve, reaching for them even when you know damn well that you shouldn’t. “I do.”
Tentatively, Shouto cups his face. Puts both hands on Tamaki’s cheeks and leans close. Too close. His breath tickles. He’s warm and perfect and Tamaki feels like he’s staring at the sun. Like he could swallow it whole. “Please,” he says, and then his mouth presses softly against Tamaki’s, and—
Tamaki has done this part before. A handful of awkward, clumsy times. And he might have the general idea of how kissing is supposed to work, but he doesn’t know how kissing Shouto is supposed to work. Has no idea. Not even the slightest clue. Just fantasies. Flowers in the background. Flushed cheeks and wet mouths and breathy whines.
Instinctively, Tamaki pulls back. “Hey,” he says, kisses the tip of Shouto’s perfect nose, the edge of his scar. “Hey, I want to. I promise. I really do. Just—not like this.”
Shouto is still shivering, a little bit. And it might be melting into pleasure, leaving the obvious discomfort behind, but—no. That’s not enough. Tamaki tugs his hoodie off, hands it over.
“Here,” he says, “you can wear it.”
Shouto stares at it before putting it on. It’s already loose and oversized on Tamaki. Comfortable. Because that’s usually the part that matters when he’s picking out clothes. Cutting out the scratchy tags and making sure there’s enough cotton in the blend that it feels soft. But on Shouto it looks—cute. Undeniably, adorably so. A little bigger, and large enough to cover his tiny, sparkly shorts. Large enough that it looks like he’s Tamaki’s too, not just the faded, worn gray hoodie.
And then Shouto straddles Tamaki’s lap where he’s sitting down. The couch is soft, spacious. Probably meant for the strippers to really earn their tips. And, God, that’s not helping. The thought and the image of Shouto working hard. Doing his very best, determined to make sure Tamaki feels good.
“I know you said we can’t,” Shouto says, “but I—please don’t laugh, okay?”
Tamaki nods. “Tell me,” he says. “I won’t laugh. Promise.”
“I’m lonely,” Shouto says. “Like, really lonely. At least back home I had friends. My family is—not the best with expressing affection, but ever since my parents divorced we’ve been better. We do these movie nights. Take turns picking out a movie. Sometimes we all end up cuddling. And it’s—I miss it, now that it’s gone. And you obviously don’t have to—fuck me out of pity, or whatever. But can we—cuddle?”
Tamaki blinks. Finally, his hands settle on Shouto’s waist, tug him closer. “You want to cuddle,” he says, incredulous. God, he loves him. This is it for him. Todoroki Shouto. Forever. For the rest of Tamaki’s life.
Shouto nods fervently. Cute. Cute, cute, cute. “Yes,” he says. “Please.”
“I wouldn’t be—wouldn’t fuck you out of pity,” Tamaki says. “I’d fuck you because I wanted to. Because I want to. Because you deserve to feel good. Because I want—I want to be the one to do it. Okay?”
Shouto looks at him. “Okay,” he says eventually, and then he’s kissing Tamaki again, all slow and soft. Comfort. Sharing a breath. The safety of knowing you’re being held.
Tamaki runs a hand through his hair. There’s not much product in it, and it’s softer than it looks. Which Tamaki previously didn’t think possible. But that seems to be the overarching theme, with Shouto. Always softer than you expect. Better than you deserve. Warm and kind. The sun. And Tamaki finally understands Icarus. He’d plunge gladly into the coldest depths of the sea for this. For the warmth of Shouto’s body, even fleeting.
“You’re so good,” Tamaki says. “So perfect. So smart and so pretty and so—I just. I look at you and I wonder if you’re real, sometimes. You can’t be. Like—like that one time you were playing with that stray cat on break. How you spent half you tips to get her decent food. You didn’t have to. You didn’t have to, but you did anyway.”
Shouto tucks his face into Tamaki’s neck. Warm. Embarrassed, probably. “I just know what it’s like,” he says. “When you’re cold and alone and nobody cares.”
“I care,” Tamaki says. Selfish. “So—so you don’t have to anymore. To feel cold or alone. Just—tell me. Tell me, and I’ll—,”
Shouto arches a teasing eyebrow. “Come keep me warm?”
Tamaki can’t even look at him. Can’t tear his eyes away. Wants everything. Can’t remember what the unshakeable moral conviction keeping him from laying Shouto out and fucking him on the carpeted floor was. The music is loud, but Shouto is in his lap. Seeking comfort instead of putting on a show. His instead of—
“Sure,” Tamaki says, drunk on it. The proximity. The intimacy. “Anything you want.”
Shouto shifts a little, and when he speaks again, his mouth brushes against Tamaki’s earlobe. “Even you?” he asks. “Even if—even if I want to know what it feels like to have you inside?”
“I think about it a lot,” Tamaki confesses. “God, you’d hate me if you knew.”
Shouto laughs. “No, I wouldn’t,” he says. “Or I would have to be a huge hypocrite.”
“But you—,” Evidently, Tamaki doesn’t know what he’s doing. “You could have anyone. Everyone. And I’m just—me. I used to cry because I knew I’d have to die someday as a kid. Like, I had this—I realized, on some level, that I would have to watch everyone I loved go away first, and I kept thinking it would be really dark, and I would be alone, and—oh God, I’m talking about death while you’re sitting in my lap.” He puts both hands over his face, groans. “Fuck me.”
Shouto laughs. Tugs Tamaki’s hands off his rapidly overheating face. “I’m trying,” he says. “But you’re kind and honorable so I have to settle for sitting on your dick. Or, um, you know, directly above it.” His pout is exaggerated. Tamaki wants to kiss him again. Contemplates the feasibility of spending the rest of his life just—kissing Shouto, making him smile, keeping him happy.
“Don’t talk about my dick,” Tamaki says. Begs. Desperately pleads.
“Why not?”
“You know why not.”
“Because you’re going to come in your pants?” Shouto says this, and wiggles pointedly, and—oh. Yeah, actually. Tamaki is going to come on his pants because the prettiest boy in the world sat in his lap and mentioned his dick.
He grabs Shouto by the waist, makes him hold still. For self-preservation, really. So he doesn’t have to finish his shift with damp, sticky underwear. So he can pretend he still has dignity left somewhere.
But then—
Shouto decides to whine. Loud. Needy. Like Tamaki touching him might make him unravel.
And—
Tamaki doesn’t know where it comes from, but he opens his mouth, grips a little tighter, and says, “Are you sure I’m the one about to come?”
Shouto wraps his arms around Tamaki’s neck—tightly, like Tamaki isn’t the only one scared of falling—and presses closer, closer, closer. “Maybe we can both come,” he says. “I know—you don’t want to touch me like this. I get it. But… I could touch you?”
“You want to touch me?”
Shouto nods. “Yeah,” he says, too close, too warm, too much. “Yes, please.”
Tamaki swallows. Balls his hands up into firsts. Ideally, he wants—well. A lot. To lay Shouto out and nip at his thighs until he’s flushed and panting, trying uselessly to squirm. To kiss him all over, just to map out Shouto’s favorite places to be touched. To hold him. To have him. To have everything, with him. To try everything, do everything.
“Okay,” he says, voice shaky. “Yeah, yeah, okay. If—if you really want to.”
Shouto kisses him hard. “I do,” he says. Promises. “I really do.”
Tamaki shuts his eyes. Closes them tightly to ground himself. A mistake. The biggest one. Because when he opens them again, Shouto is pulling away. Is spreading Tamaki’s thighs to kneel between them, and then he—
And then he nuzzles at the prominent bulge. Rubs his face against it like a cat. Spoiled and content to do what it wants. “I like knowing you’re hard because of me,” he says. “I like that I can get you like this.”
“Haven’t—ah, haven’t gotten off thinking about anything but you since I met you,” Tamaki says. “Since that day you almost kissed me. I know you were just teasing, but—I really hoped you would, for a second. That you’d lean in and do it.”
“Ah,” Shouto says, “that. I just thought you were cute. You looked so lost. But you kept staring.”
“People should look at you all the time,” Tamaki says.
Shouto is unzipping his pants.
“You’re too pretty.”
Shouto is unzipping his pants and pushing them down Tamaki’s thighs, clumsy and eager.
“So pretty, it’s unfair not to be appreciated all the time. Like a painting. One of those—you know.”
Shouto is unzipping his pants and pushing them down Tamaki’s thighs, clumsy and eager, and then he’s pulling down Tamaki’s underwear, and Tamaki barely has the time to thank the heavens they’re a perfectly respectable black instead of the Sailor Moon ones Nejire got him as a joke for his birthday that he heavily contemplated wearing this morning before Shouto takes him in hand.
“So—ah, so fucking pretty, Shouto.”
Shouto kisses the leaking tip. It’s embarrassing. It should be gross. Instead, Tamaki fights not to grab Shouto’s ridiculously soft hair and push him down in one go. That would be—bad. Bad and stupid and sure to make him come the second the warmth envelops him. So—overall hardly advisable.
“Tell me nice things,” Shouto says. “I like it when you tell me nice things.”
“You’re perfect,” Tamaki blurts. Wonders if it’s enough. If it still counts with his precome sticky on Shouto’s tongue. “You’re so pretty, and I bet I’m going to—ah, to be one of those people who come as soon as they put it in and you’re just going to coo at me and tell me it’s okay and, like, do your best so we can have a round two. I want—,”
Shouto swirls his tongue, dips it into the slit.
“Oh my god,” says Tamaki, and then spurts come all over his red mouth. Watches Shouto primly wipe it away with the back of his hand and flush red, red, red.
A self-fulfilling prophecy, truly.
“I think,” Shouto says. “Maybe we should have gone out first. You know, before—this.”
Cute. He’s so unfairly cute. It’s so bad for Tamaki’s health. “It’s okay,” Tamaki says. “Come here.”
And—
Sure, yeah, ideally, he’d like a bed and tomorrow off just to spoil Shouto, but—
This is nice too. Really nice. Really—
Well, Shouto likes him.
…
(Shouto looks adorable surrounded by cats. Tamaki takes, like, a thousand pictures. And buys him strawberry cheesecake and watches him nibble on it and tastes it by licking a smear away from the edge of Shouto’s mouth.
And then—
Shouto lets him walk him back to his place. Lingers by the entryway and says, “Aren’t you going to kiss me good night?” and—
Tamaki scrapes together all his lacking bravery and whispers, “Good morning, too,” directly against Shouto’s mouth.
It’s not bad, for a first date.)