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sakon76I really haven't too much of an idea where this came from. When I started it was simply going to be a piece on the possible ramifications of the link, but then it decided it wanted to Go There. And it did. And I still have no clue if it's part of something, or just a PWP. So... not graphic, not vulgar, but not work safe either.
The first time he woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, it took Ryuu a few minutes to realize that it wasn't his panic and fear that he felt.
Mirai? he wondered, trying to calm his breathing and slow his ragged pulse. He almost thought it was impossible; Mirai scared? The idea seemed ludicrous. Serious, yes. Happy, yes. Enchanted and lit up like a lightbulb, yes. Frightened, though? Never. But there was no denying that the emotion wasn't his, was bleeding across the link between them like a seeping wound.
Mirai! he tried, sending the thought in the best approximation he could shape of a sharp shake. But the slow panic continued, unabated.
Disturbed, Ryuu found his shoes and his jacket, key tucked inside his pocket because if he forgot it and ended up spending the rest of the night in Mirai's room George would never let him live it down, and stepped down the hall, wincing at the brightness of the overhead lights, a stab into his dark-accustomed eyes at nearly three in the morning.
And then he stood, feeling like an idiot, in front of Mirai's door. Any knock soft enough not to wake others in the rooms around them wouldn't be heard by Mirai either.
Taking a deep breath and suppressing an annoyed mutter about alien mind links getting him out of his warm bed at indecent hours, Ryuu closed his eyes and concentrated.
MIRAI!!
And he could practically feel the snap of eyes opening as the REM cycle was broken.
Ryuu knocked softly.
A moment later, already brimming with apologies, though under them Ryuu could still feel the disquiet, the edge of retreating panic, Mirai opened his door. The shirt of his pyjamas clung to him, damp with sweat.
"You okay?" Ryuu asked.
Mirai nodded. "Just... a bad dream," he said. "I'm sorry I woke you."
Ryuu shrugged a little. He'd already figured out that even as effervescent as Mirai was, the honeymoon wouldn't last forever and sooner or later they'd have to start making allowances for one another. "Want to talk about it?"
Mirai opened the door a little wider and stepped back in invitation.
"I didn't know you had nightmares," Ryuu said, turning on just Mirai's desk lamp. His eyes were adjusted to the hall lights now, Mirai's still to the dark; the one lamp made a comfortable compromise.
"I try not to concentrate on them," Mirai admitted, sitting back down on his bed. He left space to one side for Ryuu, or there was the desk chair if Ryuu chose. Mirai looked up at Ryuu. "I meant it when I said the heart of an Ultra isn't so different from that of a human. We... I get scared and frightened too, Ryuu-san."
Ryuu could feel the fear ebbing away in Mirai, being buried, subliminated, changed. But a part of him also saw the way Mirai's hair clung damply to the nape of his neck. He sat down next to Mirai. "Just so you know," he said quietly, "if you ever want to talk about anything, I'll always listen."
Mirai's head dropped. He seemed to study his hands where they lay in his lap. "I was trapped," he said softly. "I could see them being destroyed, one by one, and I couldn't run, couldn't move... couldn't save them."
"Who?" Ryuu asked.
"Everyone," Mirai said sorrowfully, and Ryuu knew exactly who he meant. George. Marina. Teppei. Konomi. The team Mirai had brought together himself.
"Where was I?" he asked.
Mirai looked back up and there was something stark in your eyes. "You were going to be last," he said.
To hurt Mirai more, Ryuu knew. That was how things like that always went. "That's not going to happen," he said rashly. Never make a promise you can't keep, his mother's voice reminded him from long, long ago, but he needed to say it and more importantly Mirai needed to hear it. "If anything happens to us, it's not your fault. Not even if it's done to hurt you. It's not your job to save us."
"Yes it is," Mirai argued.
Ryuu shook his head in disagreement. "It's our job to save ourselves," he said. "You said that, didn't you? That Ultra fought for us so that we could learn to fight for ourselves?"
"But—"
"No buts," Ryuu refuted. "Either we're sentient beings responsible for ourselves, or we're pets. Make up your mind."
Mirai smiled just faintly. "You're not our pets, Ryuu-san. More like our children, maybe."
Ryuu blinked. "Children...?" he repeated, not sure he wanted to know.
"Children are the future," Mirai replied. "Ultra look at humans and see what we used to be, and what you'll someday become. And we think and hope both that you'll surpass us. Because you have so much potential...." His smile was distant, and a little sad. "There are some skeptics," he admitted, "who think our time has come and is starting to pass. That we've evolved as much as we can. Our lives are very long, but our birthrate is even lower. They philosophize that we've hit an evolutionary dead end, and they hope that humans might find a different path. A better one."
Ryuu thought about that, about the sparkling stream of light that he knew was Mirai's real form, or at least more real than this one. About the swoops and whorls of golden energy, vaguely reminiscent of Ultra script, that he'd seen more than once. "I can't imagine that," he said. "But then you're so far beyond what I am that it's not really surprising." What did a species do when they'd become something close to gods? "Do you believe that too?"
Mirai shrugged a little. "I think if we continue to evolve, we'll probably end up changed into something entirely different than what we are now. A... different sort of consciousness," he said with a vague twist of his hands. "But I don't know if something like that exists, and I don't think we're anywhere near close to becoming it, if it does."
*
Having an alien for a boyfriend was vaguely disturbing, Ryu decided, but not in a bad way. It meant burbles of happiness, bewilderment, distress, but mostly happiness, in the back of your head, making you feel off-balance, constantly paying attention to a sense you'd never had before. It meant once in a while becoming aware of the extreme difference between an energy being and a human being, worrying about it, and finally shelving it as a problem you weren't going to be able to solve, ever. It meant once in a while wanting to thump your boyfriend's skull for not getting something that was completely obvious to everyone but him. And it meant once in a while having to stop and catch your breath in wonder as he pulled off the impossible and saved the day from the rampaging monster, proved that he loved you in ways that you didn't think you'd ever be loved, or just did something plain magical to humans who didn't have the abilities he did.
It also meant lying awake at night sometimes until his presence in the back of your mind had soothed down into the quietness you'd come to realize meant sleep before daring to reach for the bottle of baby oil and touch yourself.
Mirai was different, in ways Ryuu could barely begin to imagine, and despite what Mirai said about him being "the person who completes me," Ryuu somehow didn't think something as carnal and crude as sex would begin to fit into an energy entity's definition of completion. And then there was the part of his brain that thought about sex and Ultraman in the same sentence and began to have a conniption fit right then and there. So he kept to his quiet ritual and felt all the much better when he fell asleep afterward, Mirai's presence curled up against him as though nothing had ever happened.
*
Mirai first became aware in the depths of sleep of unusual spikings and curlings to Ryuu's presence, and slowly drifted toward wakefulness, curious. A dream? he wondered drowsily, wanting to return the favor Ryuu had for done him so many times and break the nightmare, if it was such, in its middle. But there was no flavor of fear in Ryuu's mind where it touched his; only softness and secrets and a tiny edge of furtive guilt and... oh.
Mirai was fully awake now, his cheeks feeling hot and flushed. Certain things Teppei had said or hinted at started to make sense all of a sudden. He'd known intellectually that humans had a drive, suppressible, toward mating regardless of planetary season, and it had made sense that they would have pleasure associated with it too, but... this intense? He hadn't expected that.
Ryuu's energy flared with a sudden bright spike and then subsided into a low hum of pleasure/contentment/relaxation, seeming almost to snuggle into Mirai's self where he cupped against this one most precious person.
Mirai wondered softly, not wanting to alert Ryuu since Ryuu seemed to think him unaware, why Ryuu kept this from him. Teppei had told him enough that he knew the mechanics of a same-gender coupling weren't forbidden knowledge, if not exactly an approved activity either, on this planet. And he knew better than to think Ryuu disdained his presence or appearance. No, there was nothing but that thin edge of guilt.
Was Ryuu ashamed, somehow, Mirai wondered, of the presence of desire in himself? Hesitant to share it, lest it be rejected?
That Ryuu thought Mirai would ever reject anything that was him....
It was because Ryuu had lost so many people, Mirai reassured himself, somehow shaken by the thought. Ryuu was afraid, even though he should know it was impossible, that he might lose Mirai as well. Mirai curled around that now sleeping presence, so close by and so dear, trying to keep his embrace loose and not as fierce as feeling burned. It will never happen, he thought. I belong with you, and I know that wholly, Ryuu-san, even if you do not.
And as he let himself slowly ebb back into sleep, the fringes of Ryuu's mind gently brushing against the verges of his own, Mirai wove them both into a soft dreaming of human touch, two hands clasped in one another.
*
Ryuu found it almost hard to meet Mirai's eyes that day, having dreamed of... well, what he'd dreamed of, and woken aching in what would have been all the right ways if he'd been with someone else. Mirai's quiet touch of inquiry he'd brushed off with a reply that he hoped had the sense of strange dreams best forgotten and a very cold shower. A cup of very strong hot coffee later, and a hour of strategical work with Mirai's presence calm and warm in the back of his mind, though, restored Ryuu to something that he might have almost called a good mood.
Working with George on new and old strategies was sort of fun, though Ryuu would never admit it to George's face. Where he brought in tried and true military knowledge, George came at it from the game view of a soccer player. Back and forth they bounced possibilities off of one another like soccer balls, and studied the standard protocols, making final suggestions for revisions and new adaptations that they submitted to the captain. A surprising number of them were approved by Sakomizu and would end up added to the GUYS training books.
Mirai's newest project, on the other hand, was updating the monster databases with Teppei, sketching softly glowing Ultra characters in the air and studying them to see what new or different knowledge could be gleaned from their names to add to GUYS' information on the menaces from beyond. Ryuu had the feeling that this meant Teppei was learning the Ultra script faster than he was, but didn't let it bother him too much. It wasn't like any of them but George could see the language anyway unless, like Mirai, the writer intended it to be seen.
As though sensing his thoughts, Mirai turned around and gave Ryuu a smile. Ryuu waved back slightly, and returned his attention to the playbook George had brought in.
*
Mirai sat cross-legged on the roof of the Phoenix Nest, feeling the Earth slowly rotate beneath him, turning, turning until just then the sun slipped away beneath the horizon. He opened his eyes to the brilliant pinks of the sunset clouds, now being streaked through with the first hints of purple, and the first star, actually the Earth's sister planet Venus, hanging low in the sky.
He let out a breath for the day that was gone and the warmth that remained. Pushing himself to his feet, he contemplated the evening to come. A small speculative smile crossed his mouth. Assuming, as always, that the alarms didn't blare to life in the middle of the night, alerting them to a monster attack....
*
Ryuu wondered if Mirai ever had good dreams as well as the bad ones. As far as he could tell from his limited peek into Mirai's mind, he didn't think so. Mirai asleep was a smooth, calm surface of shimmering energy. There were no ripples or waves of emotion or images except when there were nightmares. Then it felt like a stormy sea. He then wondered what his mind felt like from Mirai's side. He didn't have nightmares as often, almost never, in fact, but he did dream more. Usually they made about as much sense as chasing rabbits with pocket watches (except the rabbit tended to be Lim-Eleking) or having a tea party on the ceiling with Captain Serizawa, Ultraman Hikari, Ultraman Moebius, and Captain Sakomizu, and realizing that he'd run out of sugar cubes for the tea.
Once in a while, though....
Ryuu closed his eyes and let himself sink into his mattress, trying to recapture the strange sense of the dream that had teased around the corners of his mind all day. There really wasn't much left but the image of hands holding hands, an impression of heat, and the remembered sound of Mirai's voice cracking in the middle of saying Ryuu's name. It felt strange; Ryuu usually remembered his dreams much more vividly than that, but at least this was one where he was pretty sure what his subconscious was trying to tell him.
He touched a hand to the side of his face, where he remembered the beginning of a firm caress that had run down his body and ended up drawing a whorl on his hip. His skin prickled where the touch that had never happened, had happened, and Ryuu gritted his teeth in frustration, giving up. He was going to masturbate thinking of Mirai, get off hard, and fall asleep, with Mirai none the wiser. That decided, he ran a hand down his body, ghostly fire seeming to flow in its wake, and gently squeezed his half-stiff cock through the soft thin fabric of well-worn sweatpants. It sparked pleasure that seemed to flow out in cool, electric currents through his body, tingles of touch, of fire, of love and soft, amused laughter....
Ryuu's eyes snapped open. "Mirai?" he whispered aloud, and got a flurried impression of replies surrounding him like a cloud of butterfly wings: love, slight accusing hurt at this being hidden from him, a yearning to be let in closer, warm reassurance, and an unexpected sweet shyness that asked with a hopeful glance Will you let me do this with you, Ryuu-san? And he suddenly knew, with a breath-taking swiftness like the stroke of a samurai's sword, that whatever he'd dreamed the night before, he hadn't been alone in it.
Mirai, you....
A half-apology, curiosity offered as explanation, and again the gentle, earnest desire to touch.
Ryuu half hesitated, then realized how stupid refusing would be. They were already in each other's hearts, inside each other's heads to some extent too, and there was really not much more he wanted at the moment than to be physically part of Mirai as well.
Yes, he answered.
A swirl of quiet effervescent happiness welled up in the back of Ryuu's head, tempered by a hint of relief that felt like the ending of a fear. And a white-cold fiery touch ran invisibly down his arm.
*
Mirai ghosted around Ryuu, mind and heart and senses focused on this one person, on this one most important person to him, learning the shape and touch and scent and sense of the flesh in ways new and strange. Impressions tumbled forth from Ryuu's vibrant, unrestrained mind as Mirai touched and touched again, gentle strokes of a non-corporeal self setting nerve endings afire. He paid attention to where Ryuu got the most pleasure, reacted the most, and returned to those places again and again, his name spilling in an endless whispered stream from Ryuu's mouth as Ryuu writhed on the bed. Mirai curled up closer against him, warm and steady and soothing.
And was surprised as Ryuu's self began to interlace with him, energy folding into energy. The patterns were simple, but the higher Ryuu's energy spiked, the more he burrowed tendrils into Mirai, lover cleaving unto lover, in some ways almost like a child clinging desperately to a source of comfort. Mirai soothed and calmed, smoothing out the channels, guiding them gently into something more stable, into more even patterns. I'm not going to leave you, he whispered. I'm never going to leave you. It's all right. I'm here. The thin verge of almost-fear panic slowly disappeared as he did so, changing into something more demanding of reciprocity.
Not this time, Ryuu-san, Mirai replied, touching again in a way that made Ryuu whimper and his hips shoot up off the bed. This is special. This is just for you. He didn't mention that the sheer waves of emotion and pleasure rolling off of Ryuu were almost more than he could handle, even secondhand. There would be enough time for that later.
*
Mirai quickly drove Ryuu higher and higher without being solid and giving him anything to hold onto. His hands were knotted in the sheets of his bed and he doubted he'd be able to release them if he tried. He knew there was something going on in the bond between them as he tried to cling tighter and tighter to that sense of Mirai as the one real thing he could touch. There was no light around him, nothing but darkness, and even the physical sensation of the bed beneath him was starting to get lost under all the other sensations. It was dizzying, and he gasped for breath. And Mirai, the bastard, only laughed softly and cuddled his golden presence closer as Ryuu began to feel his mind fragment from too much pleasure.
He could feel hot wetness streak from his eyes as he begged silently Mirai, please, please, and was only whirled higher in response. Everything was white and infinite and vast and he trembled on the verge, clinging to Mirai. And as Mirai touched him one more time, Ryuu shattered.
Pieces of himself fell all around him as he was there, wet, naked, and blind in that white place, crying, warmth surrounding him. And there was a soft step and the mattress dipped behind him. Blindly, he rolled over, seeking that presence, that warmth. Mirai's arms held him as Ryuu cried for everything, barely knowing who he was. He could feel Mirai deeper now, soothing, further into one another's heads than they'd ever been before, and clung to it like a lifeline. Even if the unthinkable should ever occur now, he realized, he wouldn't be able to fall in love with anyone ever again. There was no other Mirai in the universe. No one else who could ever mean this much to him.
Slowly, everything ebbed back and away. Sanity gradually returned, as did reality, and the awareness that he'd cried Mirai's shirt damp while Mirai had held him. One hand still stroked down his back and up again, no soft words of apology, only being there while Ryuu needed him the most. Speech was slow to return, but in the meantime he explored that deeper sense of Mirai being with him. If what had been there before had been a window into one another, now there was an open door with rooms beyond. He felt hesitant, knowing his touch at these mental things was clumsy, not wanting to accidentally hurt Mirai. Warm indifference met that thought, almost seeming to say that it was impossible for Mirai to be hurt by him.
But there was no need to rush. We have a long time to explore one another, Mirai murmured to him, gentle and cozy, safe. Loving.
Long for Ryuu, perhaps. Not so long for Mirai. But even Ultra had to live day-to-day when they were in human form, so maybe it would be long enough.
Is it always going to be like that? Ryuu asked, fumbling with fitting what was in his head into the overlapping impressions Mirai used like this. It was like learning a foreign tongue, and he wondered at how Mirai had become fluent in Japanese, coming from such a different way of communication.
Only if you want it to be.
Ryuu pushed himself up on one arm and glared down at Mirai through the darkness. "Absolutely not," he informed Mirai. "Next time you're going to be human and take as good as you give."
He could feel Mirai's smile blossom in his head, and couldn't help but smile back a little before clambering off his bed to clean himself off and change into another pair of sweatpants. Mirai was still there when he got back. "Staying?" Ryuu asked as he got back into bed and they shifted themselves around. He tried not to hope.
"If you don't mind." Mirai's voice was quiet, his mind utterly contented as Ryuu drew him closer and ran a slow hand through his fluffy hair.
"Not in the least," Ryuu replied, and closed his eyes again.
*
In the morning, Mirai let himself out of Ryuu's room, closing the door quietly so as not to wake Ryuu. Turning around, he met George's startled eyes, and nodded cheerfully at Teppei, who was just emerging from his room, and headed down the hallway to his own. He didn't see the glance the two of them exchanged behind his back , George's smirk meeting Teppei's wide eyes. Instead he patted down his pockets and realized that he'd left his room key inside his room. Slightly annoyed at himself, Mirai grasped the doorknob and narrowed his eyes, concentrating. He could feel the shape of the lock mechanism, and with a little effort, found what he was looking for.
The door lock clicked open under his hand, and Mirai let himself back into his room to get ready for a brighter new day.
*
Later (omake):
"So, does he last more than three minutes in that body?" George asked, smirking, as Teppei turned to stare at him in horror.
"George-san!" Teppei protested the question.
Ryuu's eyes widened then narrowed. The right hook caught George squarely on the jaw and he staggered back.
"Not your business," Ryuu spat, and turned and stalked away.
Teppei turned to help steady George, knowing already that Ryuu's hit was going to leave a rather nasty bruise, but George was still smiling. "George-san?" he asked, not understanding.
"Those two have it so bad for one another," George answered softly, watching Ryuu's retreating back. He rolled his neck, massaging his chin where Ryuu's punch had landed. "They're lucky, aren't they?"
Teppei turned to look after Ryuu as well. The anger wouldn't last; Marina was right in that Ryuu was hot-headed and impulsive, but his anger was always like a summer storm, brief and violent and then gone. He and Mirai were almost the perfect counterbalances for one another. "Yeah," Teppei softly agreed.
The first time he woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, it took Ryuu a few minutes to realize that it wasn't his panic and fear that he felt.
Mirai? he wondered, trying to calm his breathing and slow his ragged pulse. He almost thought it was impossible; Mirai scared? The idea seemed ludicrous. Serious, yes. Happy, yes. Enchanted and lit up like a lightbulb, yes. Frightened, though? Never. But there was no denying that the emotion wasn't his, was bleeding across the link between them like a seeping wound.
Mirai! he tried, sending the thought in the best approximation he could shape of a sharp shake. But the slow panic continued, unabated.
Disturbed, Ryuu found his shoes and his jacket, key tucked inside his pocket because if he forgot it and ended up spending the rest of the night in Mirai's room George would never let him live it down, and stepped down the hall, wincing at the brightness of the overhead lights, a stab into his dark-accustomed eyes at nearly three in the morning.
And then he stood, feeling like an idiot, in front of Mirai's door. Any knock soft enough not to wake others in the rooms around them wouldn't be heard by Mirai either.
Taking a deep breath and suppressing an annoyed mutter about alien mind links getting him out of his warm bed at indecent hours, Ryuu closed his eyes and concentrated.
MIRAI!!
And he could practically feel the snap of eyes opening as the REM cycle was broken.
Ryuu knocked softly.
A moment later, already brimming with apologies, though under them Ryuu could still feel the disquiet, the edge of retreating panic, Mirai opened his door. The shirt of his pyjamas clung to him, damp with sweat.
"You okay?" Ryuu asked.
Mirai nodded. "Just... a bad dream," he said. "I'm sorry I woke you."
Ryuu shrugged a little. He'd already figured out that even as effervescent as Mirai was, the honeymoon wouldn't last forever and sooner or later they'd have to start making allowances for one another. "Want to talk about it?"
Mirai opened the door a little wider and stepped back in invitation.
"I didn't know you had nightmares," Ryuu said, turning on just Mirai's desk lamp. His eyes were adjusted to the hall lights now, Mirai's still to the dark; the one lamp made a comfortable compromise.
"I try not to concentrate on them," Mirai admitted, sitting back down on his bed. He left space to one side for Ryuu, or there was the desk chair if Ryuu chose. Mirai looked up at Ryuu. "I meant it when I said the heart of an Ultra isn't so different from that of a human. We... I get scared and frightened too, Ryuu-san."
Ryuu could feel the fear ebbing away in Mirai, being buried, subliminated, changed. But a part of him also saw the way Mirai's hair clung damply to the nape of his neck. He sat down next to Mirai. "Just so you know," he said quietly, "if you ever want to talk about anything, I'll always listen."
Mirai's head dropped. He seemed to study his hands where they lay in his lap. "I was trapped," he said softly. "I could see them being destroyed, one by one, and I couldn't run, couldn't move... couldn't save them."
"Who?" Ryuu asked.
"Everyone," Mirai said sorrowfully, and Ryuu knew exactly who he meant. George. Marina. Teppei. Konomi. The team Mirai had brought together himself.
"Where was I?" he asked.
Mirai looked back up and there was something stark in your eyes. "You were going to be last," he said.
To hurt Mirai more, Ryuu knew. That was how things like that always went. "That's not going to happen," he said rashly. Never make a promise you can't keep, his mother's voice reminded him from long, long ago, but he needed to say it and more importantly Mirai needed to hear it. "If anything happens to us, it's not your fault. Not even if it's done to hurt you. It's not your job to save us."
"Yes it is," Mirai argued.
Ryuu shook his head in disagreement. "It's our job to save ourselves," he said. "You said that, didn't you? That Ultra fought for us so that we could learn to fight for ourselves?"
"But—"
"No buts," Ryuu refuted. "Either we're sentient beings responsible for ourselves, or we're pets. Make up your mind."
Mirai smiled just faintly. "You're not our pets, Ryuu-san. More like our children, maybe."
Ryuu blinked. "Children...?" he repeated, not sure he wanted to know.
"Children are the future," Mirai replied. "Ultra look at humans and see what we used to be, and what you'll someday become. And we think and hope both that you'll surpass us. Because you have so much potential...." His smile was distant, and a little sad. "There are some skeptics," he admitted, "who think our time has come and is starting to pass. That we've evolved as much as we can. Our lives are very long, but our birthrate is even lower. They philosophize that we've hit an evolutionary dead end, and they hope that humans might find a different path. A better one."
Ryuu thought about that, about the sparkling stream of light that he knew was Mirai's real form, or at least more real than this one. About the swoops and whorls of golden energy, vaguely reminiscent of Ultra script, that he'd seen more than once. "I can't imagine that," he said. "But then you're so far beyond what I am that it's not really surprising." What did a species do when they'd become something close to gods? "Do you believe that too?"
Mirai shrugged a little. "I think if we continue to evolve, we'll probably end up changed into something entirely different than what we are now. A... different sort of consciousness," he said with a vague twist of his hands. "But I don't know if something like that exists, and I don't think we're anywhere near close to becoming it, if it does."
Having an alien for a boyfriend was vaguely disturbing, Ryu decided, but not in a bad way. It meant burbles of happiness, bewilderment, distress, but mostly happiness, in the back of your head, making you feel off-balance, constantly paying attention to a sense you'd never had before. It meant once in a while becoming aware of the extreme difference between an energy being and a human being, worrying about it, and finally shelving it as a problem you weren't going to be able to solve, ever. It meant once in a while wanting to thump your boyfriend's skull for not getting something that was completely obvious to everyone but him. And it meant once in a while having to stop and catch your breath in wonder as he pulled off the impossible and saved the day from the rampaging monster, proved that he loved you in ways that you didn't think you'd ever be loved, or just did something plain magical to humans who didn't have the abilities he did.
It also meant lying awake at night sometimes until his presence in the back of your mind had soothed down into the quietness you'd come to realize meant sleep before daring to reach for the bottle of baby oil and touch yourself.
Mirai was different, in ways Ryuu could barely begin to imagine, and despite what Mirai said about him being "the person who completes me," Ryuu somehow didn't think something as carnal and crude as sex would begin to fit into an energy entity's definition of completion. And then there was the part of his brain that thought about sex and Ultraman in the same sentence and began to have a conniption fit right then and there. So he kept to his quiet ritual and felt all the much better when he fell asleep afterward, Mirai's presence curled up against him as though nothing had ever happened.
Mirai first became aware in the depths of sleep of unusual spikings and curlings to Ryuu's presence, and slowly drifted toward wakefulness, curious. A dream? he wondered drowsily, wanting to return the favor Ryuu had for done him so many times and break the nightmare, if it was such, in its middle. But there was no flavor of fear in Ryuu's mind where it touched his; only softness and secrets and a tiny edge of furtive guilt and... oh.
Mirai was fully awake now, his cheeks feeling hot and flushed. Certain things Teppei had said or hinted at started to make sense all of a sudden. He'd known intellectually that humans had a drive, suppressible, toward mating regardless of planetary season, and it had made sense that they would have pleasure associated with it too, but... this intense? He hadn't expected that.
Ryuu's energy flared with a sudden bright spike and then subsided into a low hum of pleasure/contentment/relaxation, seeming almost to snuggle into Mirai's self where he cupped against this one most precious person.
Mirai wondered softly, not wanting to alert Ryuu since Ryuu seemed to think him unaware, why Ryuu kept this from him. Teppei had told him enough that he knew the mechanics of a same-gender coupling weren't forbidden knowledge, if not exactly an approved activity either, on this planet. And he knew better than to think Ryuu disdained his presence or appearance. No, there was nothing but that thin edge of guilt.
Was Ryuu ashamed, somehow, Mirai wondered, of the presence of desire in himself? Hesitant to share it, lest it be rejected?
That Ryuu thought Mirai would ever reject anything that was him....
It was because Ryuu had lost so many people, Mirai reassured himself, somehow shaken by the thought. Ryuu was afraid, even though he should know it was impossible, that he might lose Mirai as well. Mirai curled around that now sleeping presence, so close by and so dear, trying to keep his embrace loose and not as fierce as feeling burned. It will never happen, he thought. I belong with you, and I know that wholly, Ryuu-san, even if you do not.
And as he let himself slowly ebb back into sleep, the fringes of Ryuu's mind gently brushing against the verges of his own, Mirai wove them both into a soft dreaming of human touch, two hands clasped in one another.
Ryuu found it almost hard to meet Mirai's eyes that day, having dreamed of... well, what he'd dreamed of, and woken aching in what would have been all the right ways if he'd been with someone else. Mirai's quiet touch of inquiry he'd brushed off with a reply that he hoped had the sense of strange dreams best forgotten and a very cold shower. A cup of very strong hot coffee later, and a hour of strategical work with Mirai's presence calm and warm in the back of his mind, though, restored Ryuu to something that he might have almost called a good mood.
Working with George on new and old strategies was sort of fun, though Ryuu would never admit it to George's face. Where he brought in tried and true military knowledge, George came at it from the game view of a soccer player. Back and forth they bounced possibilities off of one another like soccer balls, and studied the standard protocols, making final suggestions for revisions and new adaptations that they submitted to the captain. A surprising number of them were approved by Sakomizu and would end up added to the GUYS training books.
Mirai's newest project, on the other hand, was updating the monster databases with Teppei, sketching softly glowing Ultra characters in the air and studying them to see what new or different knowledge could be gleaned from their names to add to GUYS' information on the menaces from beyond. Ryuu had the feeling that this meant Teppei was learning the Ultra script faster than he was, but didn't let it bother him too much. It wasn't like any of them but George could see the language anyway unless, like Mirai, the writer intended it to be seen.
As though sensing his thoughts, Mirai turned around and gave Ryuu a smile. Ryuu waved back slightly, and returned his attention to the playbook George had brought in.
Mirai sat cross-legged on the roof of the Phoenix Nest, feeling the Earth slowly rotate beneath him, turning, turning until just then the sun slipped away beneath the horizon. He opened his eyes to the brilliant pinks of the sunset clouds, now being streaked through with the first hints of purple, and the first star, actually the Earth's sister planet Venus, hanging low in the sky.
He let out a breath for the day that was gone and the warmth that remained. Pushing himself to his feet, he contemplated the evening to come. A small speculative smile crossed his mouth. Assuming, as always, that the alarms didn't blare to life in the middle of the night, alerting them to a monster attack....
Ryuu wondered if Mirai ever had good dreams as well as the bad ones. As far as he could tell from his limited peek into Mirai's mind, he didn't think so. Mirai asleep was a smooth, calm surface of shimmering energy. There were no ripples or waves of emotion or images except when there were nightmares. Then it felt like a stormy sea. He then wondered what his mind felt like from Mirai's side. He didn't have nightmares as often, almost never, in fact, but he did dream more. Usually they made about as much sense as chasing rabbits with pocket watches (except the rabbit tended to be Lim-Eleking) or having a tea party on the ceiling with Captain Serizawa, Ultraman Hikari, Ultraman Moebius, and Captain Sakomizu, and realizing that he'd run out of sugar cubes for the tea.
Once in a while, though....
Ryuu closed his eyes and let himself sink into his mattress, trying to recapture the strange sense of the dream that had teased around the corners of his mind all day. There really wasn't much left but the image of hands holding hands, an impression of heat, and the remembered sound of Mirai's voice cracking in the middle of saying Ryuu's name. It felt strange; Ryuu usually remembered his dreams much more vividly than that, but at least this was one where he was pretty sure what his subconscious was trying to tell him.
He touched a hand to the side of his face, where he remembered the beginning of a firm caress that had run down his body and ended up drawing a whorl on his hip. His skin prickled where the touch that had never happened, had happened, and Ryuu gritted his teeth in frustration, giving up. He was going to masturbate thinking of Mirai, get off hard, and fall asleep, with Mirai none the wiser. That decided, he ran a hand down his body, ghostly fire seeming to flow in its wake, and gently squeezed his half-stiff cock through the soft thin fabric of well-worn sweatpants. It sparked pleasure that seemed to flow out in cool, electric currents through his body, tingles of touch, of fire, of love and soft, amused laughter....
Ryuu's eyes snapped open. "Mirai?" he whispered aloud, and got a flurried impression of replies surrounding him like a cloud of butterfly wings: love, slight accusing hurt at this being hidden from him, a yearning to be let in closer, warm reassurance, and an unexpected sweet shyness that asked with a hopeful glance Will you let me do this with you, Ryuu-san? And he suddenly knew, with a breath-taking swiftness like the stroke of a samurai's sword, that whatever he'd dreamed the night before, he hadn't been alone in it.
Mirai, you....
A half-apology, curiosity offered as explanation, and again the gentle, earnest desire to touch.
Ryuu half hesitated, then realized how stupid refusing would be. They were already in each other's hearts, inside each other's heads to some extent too, and there was really not much more he wanted at the moment than to be physically part of Mirai as well.
Yes, he answered.
A swirl of quiet effervescent happiness welled up in the back of Ryuu's head, tempered by a hint of relief that felt like the ending of a fear. And a white-cold fiery touch ran invisibly down his arm.
Mirai ghosted around Ryuu, mind and heart and senses focused on this one person, on this one most important person to him, learning the shape and touch and scent and sense of the flesh in ways new and strange. Impressions tumbled forth from Ryuu's vibrant, unrestrained mind as Mirai touched and touched again, gentle strokes of a non-corporeal self setting nerve endings afire. He paid attention to where Ryuu got the most pleasure, reacted the most, and returned to those places again and again, his name spilling in an endless whispered stream from Ryuu's mouth as Ryuu writhed on the bed. Mirai curled up closer against him, warm and steady and soothing.
And was surprised as Ryuu's self began to interlace with him, energy folding into energy. The patterns were simple, but the higher Ryuu's energy spiked, the more he burrowed tendrils into Mirai, lover cleaving unto lover, in some ways almost like a child clinging desperately to a source of comfort. Mirai soothed and calmed, smoothing out the channels, guiding them gently into something more stable, into more even patterns. I'm not going to leave you, he whispered. I'm never going to leave you. It's all right. I'm here. The thin verge of almost-fear panic slowly disappeared as he did so, changing into something more demanding of reciprocity.
Not this time, Ryuu-san, Mirai replied, touching again in a way that made Ryuu whimper and his hips shoot up off the bed. This is special. This is just for you. He didn't mention that the sheer waves of emotion and pleasure rolling off of Ryuu were almost more than he could handle, even secondhand. There would be enough time for that later.
Mirai quickly drove Ryuu higher and higher without being solid and giving him anything to hold onto. His hands were knotted in the sheets of his bed and he doubted he'd be able to release them if he tried. He knew there was something going on in the bond between them as he tried to cling tighter and tighter to that sense of Mirai as the one real thing he could touch. There was no light around him, nothing but darkness, and even the physical sensation of the bed beneath him was starting to get lost under all the other sensations. It was dizzying, and he gasped for breath. And Mirai, the bastard, only laughed softly and cuddled his golden presence closer as Ryuu began to feel his mind fragment from too much pleasure.
He could feel hot wetness streak from his eyes as he begged silently Mirai, please, please, and was only whirled higher in response. Everything was white and infinite and vast and he trembled on the verge, clinging to Mirai. And as Mirai touched him one more time, Ryuu shattered.
Pieces of himself fell all around him as he was there, wet, naked, and blind in that white place, crying, warmth surrounding him. And there was a soft step and the mattress dipped behind him. Blindly, he rolled over, seeking that presence, that warmth. Mirai's arms held him as Ryuu cried for everything, barely knowing who he was. He could feel Mirai deeper now, soothing, further into one another's heads than they'd ever been before, and clung to it like a lifeline. Even if the unthinkable should ever occur now, he realized, he wouldn't be able to fall in love with anyone ever again. There was no other Mirai in the universe. No one else who could ever mean this much to him.
Slowly, everything ebbed back and away. Sanity gradually returned, as did reality, and the awareness that he'd cried Mirai's shirt damp while Mirai had held him. One hand still stroked down his back and up again, no soft words of apology, only being there while Ryuu needed him the most. Speech was slow to return, but in the meantime he explored that deeper sense of Mirai being with him. If what had been there before had been a window into one another, now there was an open door with rooms beyond. He felt hesitant, knowing his touch at these mental things was clumsy, not wanting to accidentally hurt Mirai. Warm indifference met that thought, almost seeming to say that it was impossible for Mirai to be hurt by him.
But there was no need to rush. We have a long time to explore one another, Mirai murmured to him, gentle and cozy, safe. Loving.
Long for Ryuu, perhaps. Not so long for Mirai. But even Ultra had to live day-to-day when they were in human form, so maybe it would be long enough.
Is it always going to be like that? Ryuu asked, fumbling with fitting what was in his head into the overlapping impressions Mirai used like this. It was like learning a foreign tongue, and he wondered at how Mirai had become fluent in Japanese, coming from such a different way of communication.
Only if you want it to be.
Ryuu pushed himself up on one arm and glared down at Mirai through the darkness. "Absolutely not," he informed Mirai. "Next time you're going to be human and take as good as you give."
He could feel Mirai's smile blossom in his head, and couldn't help but smile back a little before clambering off his bed to clean himself off and change into another pair of sweatpants. Mirai was still there when he got back. "Staying?" Ryuu asked as he got back into bed and they shifted themselves around. He tried not to hope.
"If you don't mind." Mirai's voice was quiet, his mind utterly contented as Ryuu drew him closer and ran a slow hand through his fluffy hair.
"Not in the least," Ryuu replied, and closed his eyes again.
In the morning, Mirai let himself out of Ryuu's room, closing the door quietly so as not to wake Ryuu. Turning around, he met George's startled eyes, and nodded cheerfully at Teppei, who was just emerging from his room, and headed down the hallway to his own. He didn't see the glance the two of them exchanged behind his back , George's smirk meeting Teppei's wide eyes. Instead he patted down his pockets and realized that he'd left his room key inside his room. Slightly annoyed at himself, Mirai grasped the doorknob and narrowed his eyes, concentrating. He could feel the shape of the lock mechanism, and with a little effort, found what he was looking for.
The door lock clicked open under his hand, and Mirai let himself back into his room to get ready for a brighter new day.
Later (omake):
"So, does he last more than three minutes in that body?" George asked, smirking, as Teppei turned to stare at him in horror.
"George-san!" Teppei protested the question.
Ryuu's eyes widened then narrowed. The right hook caught George squarely on the jaw and he staggered back.
"Not your business," Ryuu spat, and turned and stalked away.
Teppei turned to help steady George, knowing already that Ryuu's hit was going to leave a rather nasty bruise, but George was still smiling. "George-san?" he asked, not understanding.
"Those two have it so bad for one another," George answered softly, watching Ryuu's retreating back. He rolled his neck, massaging his chin where Ryuu's punch had landed. "They're lucky, aren't they?"
Teppei turned to look after Ryuu as well. The anger wouldn't last; Marina was right in that Ryuu was hot-headed and impulsive, but his anger was always like a summer storm, brief and violent and then gone. He and Mirai were almost the perfect counterbalances for one another. "Yeah," Teppei softly agreed.
