Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Atsumu has hit a new low.

He would have thought his low point fell somewhere right around when he hit ‘post’ on a Grindr bio about liking it rough. 

If not then, then surely the moment where he stood on a freezing street corner, wearing the most hideous yellow and lime green hoodie in existence, to avoid the man he’s fallen for—the man who just reiterated point blank that he doesn’t care who Atsumu fucks, after being fucked by him—also had to be up there.

Or... down there? Atsumu doesn’t know. 

However, in spite of all that, Atsumu manages to top both of those easily the very next morning, naked from the waist down, fisting his own cock with his nose buried in that very same highlighter-yellow sweater. The irony is that the hoodie, frustratingly, barely smells like the object of his affections at all. No, it smells like the extra strength detergent Sakusa uses to double-wash his clothes on the industrial setting or whatever the hell he does to purge his garments of even the faintest whiff of his own scent. 

Because even if the detergent is familiar, it always takes on a completely different smell once Sakusa puts his clothes on. Atsumu knows that it’s not just the fabric, but the scent of Sakusa’s hair, his sweat —

And it doesn’t smell like this, Atsumu thinks angrily. His fingers curl into the collar and yank it downwards, away from his face. 

He throws his head back and strokes himself faster, deciding to concentrate on something else instead of the scent of the hoodie. He moans and brings his free hand up to find the bruise Sakusa sucked into his throat yesterday. It was already dark against his skin before he went to bed last night; this morning it’s been throbbing gently with his pulse, sore even before Atsumu reaches up to press on it and turn it into a deeper sting that makes him squirm.

“Ah…”  

Fuck, he can’t get enough. Atsumu circles his fingers over the bruised skin, hissing as the pain shifts with his touch, dick jumping in his hand.

As he gets close, Atsumu bites his lip, a perverse need to ask permission stuck at the tip of his tongue. It’s just… it’s always so much more satisfying to come after Sakusa tells him he can. He turns his head into the pillow and tries desperately not to think about how Sakusa would react if Atsumu texted him right now and asked. Sakusa could… fuck, he could tell Atsumu to edge himself a couple times before going over. Sakusa could make him beg for it. 

Or Sakusa could call him . Atsumu moans again when he thinks about what he might say, voice a low purr as he instructs Atsumu how to touch himself, or teases him for how needy he is, or calls him a good boy for asking permission to come and tells him to go ahead, Atsumu, you earned it —

“Shit,” Atsumu gasps, shooting his free hand down just in time to catch his release in his cupped palm.

When he starts to come down, Atsumu reaches robotically for a tissue to clean his hands as reality crashes back over him. Fuck, he feels gross. And a little guilty. It’s more than likely Sakusa would just reply that he doesn’t care what Atsumu does, or worse, that he never consented to any kind of sexual play outside their scenes and to please not ask him that again. 

Shit.

Atsumu yanks the lemon-lime monstrosity off and chucks it in the general direction of his laundry hamper as he stalks towards the bathroom to clean up. 

The restless feeling only worsens when Atsumu is faced with the prospect of climbing into Sakusa’s car only an hour later. His own car is still over at his apartment from the night before. They had a prearranged plan for Sakusa to pick Atsumu up for practice, so it’s not like he can avoid him. 

“Good morning,” Sakusa greets him as Atsumu settles into the leather seat. 

“Mornin’.” 

Atsumu takes a deep breath and resists the urge to yell in frustration when his head is filled with the exact, unique scent that he’d failed to find on the club hoodie he’d embarrassed himself with that morning. 

“Are you feeling alright?” Sakusa asks as they roll onto the street. “Chest okay?”

Atsumu can’t restrain his smart mouth as he leans against the car door, “No lasting damage from yer nip-obliterating clamps, no. I looked those up last night, by the way. Ya sure didn’t hold back, didja?”

Sakusa snorts. 

“Someone with your affection for pain would have found clamps for beginners to be nothing more than temporary nipple jewelry,” he chuckles. “That’s boring.”

Atsumu chuckles in spite of himself. “You really are an asshole, ya know that, Omi-kun?”

Sakusa continues to grin, self-satisfied, under his mask.

“Might have heard that, once or twice,” he murmurs. 

Gosh, Atsumu likes him. He likes this , what they have. It’s in casual moments like this that he realizes what was once played-up but genuine animosity between them has turned into a real friendship. It’s not that he used to dislike being around Sakusa, but most of the enjoyment he previously drew from it was a direct result of them butting heads. At the absolute most he would have called them frenemies. 

Now… while they still talk a lot of shit, it’s different. It shouldn’t be shocking. They’ve spent a lot of time together; of course they’d get more comfortable with one another. He just didn’t expect to like what he found behind Sakusa’s prickly exterior so much. 

It’s not like he’s even this sweet or different dude once you get to know him. Behind his hard jerk walls there’s really just a soft jerk center—but the soft part makes Atsumu’s gut twist and flutter. The times when Sakusa smiles or laughs, a quiet and understated thing, Atsumu finds himself cherishing those moments. While he’s not very observant and doesn’t care that much about inconveniencing people he finds annoying, when push comes to shove Sakusa is actually fairly considerate and even... thoughtful.

He complains about Komori bothering him and sending him dumb texts, but made time to take him all over Osaka when he visited. He gets grouchy when Bokuto and Hinata watch him stretch his freakish wrists, but he’ll stay for hours after practice to help Hinata with his cut shot. Sakusa will insult Atsumu eight ways from Sunday but… well, there are too many things he’s quietly done for Atsumu, while domming or otherwise, to even list. 

The rest of the drive passes in comfortable silence. The drizzle, just on the edge of snow, collects on the windows before running down in streams. Atsumu rests his chin on his palm and watches streetlights diffusing through water. 

He knows he’ll have to deal with things one way or another, at some point—that this isn’t sustainable—but for now he just lets himself relax into the familiar scents and calm companionship inside the protective walls of the car. 

Atsumu is in his bathroom around three hours before game-start, a handful of products scattered across the counter. After the absolutely brilliant move of going into practice with a neck full of bruises, Atsumu realized he needed a real bruise covering strategy. He was only a couple of months late, he supposed. He had the weird color-correcting palette that Sakusa gave him ages ago, but never bothered to pick up the powder to go over it. After trying some drugstore powder and immediately sweating it off the day after the altercation in the stairwell, Atsumu eventually sought out a make-up specific store. It wasn’t difficult to find one in the shopping mall by the practice facility. 

He entered with some amount of confidence which was immediately shattered upon taking in the vast and overwhelming boutique. After wandering the first aisle looking like a fish out of water, an employee found him and took pity.

“Hello, sir. Can I help you find something?”

“Um… I need the stuff that’s supposed to go over color correction makeup. To, uh, cover… some, um, marks on my skin,” Atsumu said, face flaming. “Something that won’t come off easily. I, um, sweat a lot at my job.”

The employee, a young woman with bangs and the sharpest eyeliner wings that Atsumu had ever seen, looked very quickly down at Atsumu’s neck. Her eyes darted away immediately after and she smiled pleasantly. 

“Right this way,” she said, leading him down the aisles, matching a foundation powder to his skin and eventually pressing a small spray can into his hands. “This is setting spray. You put this over your makeup and it’s not going anywhere. I mean it’s not going anywhere. ”

Thank the heavens above for professional, smart, and helpful sales associates.

Still, now that the choking bruises are completely faded, Atsumu hesitates with the setting powder in his hand. He knows he needs to cover up the hickey before being on TV. He knows that. The bruise Sakusa left after they last played is no small thing. Still, he twirls the setting spray in his fingers. 

He reaches up with the back of his palm and rubs at his perfect makeup job. He doesn’t rub it all out, but removes just enough makeup that a shadow of the bruise can be seen. Before it can really sink in how ridiculous he’s being, Atsumu applies the setting spray and heads out of the bathroom.

He pulls his shoes on and grabs his phone. There’s one message.

From: Omi-Omi
>> I saw something in my dom group that I want to try
>> *link attached*
>> I don’t think it’s on any of the lists because it’s kind of specific, so let me know if it doesn’t look interesting to you. Regardless, do you want to meet up this Sunday?

Atsumu clicks the link, brow furrowing as he reads. Based on it not being on the lists, he expected something crazy or hardcore, but it’s just a little… weird. He shrugs. If Sakusa’s into it, he’ll try anything once as long as it’s fairly benign. 

To: Omi-Omi
>> Weird. Sure.
>> Yeah I’m free. We can talk specifics after the game. 

From: Omi-Omi
>> Don’t kinkshame.

Atsumu can’t help but snort at Sakusa’s dry joke. He hefts his bag onto his shoulder and glances at himself in the small mirror hanging on the wall in the genkan. He fixes his hair and ignores the purposefully exposed mark on his neck as he heads out the door. 

As Atsumu drives into the garage under Sakusa’s apartment complex that Sunday, he wonders what it says about him that he can already feel his dick starting to stir. Even pulling into the guest parking area is like a Pavlovian trigger at this point.

He just… he can’t help it. He’s excited. Not just for the scene, but for everything else that comes with it: the careful attention Sakusa pays him during the aftercare, the smile that plays at his lips once everything’s cleaned up and they’re both settled on the couch, the ease of their interactions when it’s just the two of them. 

During a scene, It’s always been easy for Atsumu to forget that anything else exists beyond Sakusa—to feel totally and thoroughly owned, like Atsumu is Omi’s, plain and simple. But the moments before and after are starting to feel sacred as well; when the two of them are holed up together, hiding away from the outside world, it’s dangerously easy for Atsumu to pretend that Omi is his, too.

Atsumu blinks, staring at the concrete wall of the garage as his car idles.

Fuck. He’s got it so bad, he thinks as he yanks his key out of the ignition .

His heart races on the elevator ride up to Sakusa’s apartment. The self-doubt and insecurity that have been plaguing him since their last scene are melting away by the second, replaced by an intractable giddiness that’s making his toes curl in his shoes. Atsumu did some extra research the other night after Sakusa sent him the link on prostate milking. The first article implied it was easiest if the person receiving stimulation was soft, which had Atsumu a bit worried. Luckily, most posts he read seemed to agree that it can work even if the sub is hard, which—thank god, because he’s more than halfway there already just thinking about it. 

Atsumu bounces in place and bites his lip when the elevator reaches Sakusa’s floor. He takes a deep breath in and out, then lets himself in after a cursory knock on Sakusa’s door, locking it behind him. After taking off his coat and shoes, he finds the other man sitting at the kitchen table, squinting at something on his laptop.

Sakusa looks up and gives him a once-over, making Atsumu blush. 

“Hey.” 

“H-hey.” Smooth. “M’just gonna—um, I should—”

“Do you want a cup of tea first?” Sakusa asks. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem a bit frazzled.”

Atsumu runs a hand through his hair, conscious of the half-chub he’s sporting and praying his jeans are hiding it. He probably does need to slow it down a little, especially considering what they’re about to do. 

“I’m never anything but completely put together,” Atsumu replies, and then nearly trips over a rug. Sakusa chuckles lowly, and Atsumu lets the joke go, chest warm with his goal achieved. “Sure. Thanks, Omi-kun.”

“Of course.” Sakusa stands up and stretches, his thin cashmere sweater riding up and exposing a sliver of skin at his waist. Atsumu’s mouth goes dry. “Motoya always says there are very few things a hot cup of tea can’t fix.”

As Atsumu slinks over to the table and Sakusa busies himself preparing the tea, a small wave of melancholy laps at his feet as Atsumu wonders if he’s found one of those things.

“Which… is objectively ridiculous,” Sakusa adds, and Atsumu thinks there it is.

Atsumu snorts, “And here I was thinking you finally developed an optimistic streak.”

Sakusa shoots him a disapproving glare over his shoulder. 

The momentary feeling of sadness disappears as quickly as it came, driven off by fond amusement and the anticipation of the scene. For now, Atsumu lets himself enjoy the quiet calm of sitting at Sakusa’s kitchen table, staring at his broad back as the other man makes him a cup of tea.

After his shower, Atsumu walks into the bedroom to find Sakusa laying a drop cloth over what looks like some kind of plastic sheet. The faint crinkle of plastic reminds Atsumu of the way Sakusa set things up the time they played with temperature; it made sense then, because between all the water, ice, and the hot wax, things got really messy.

Exactly how messy are things going to get today? Atsumu shivers and grips the hem of the towel wrapped around his waist.

“Ready?” Sakusa asks, turning to look at him.

Atsumu nods, throat bobbing.

“Good.”

Sakusa grabs the collar from the bedside table and beckons Atsumu over to him, one corner of his mouth tugging up in a devastating smirk. As Atsumu closes his eyes and feels the soft, padded leather wrap around his throat, he doesn’t know how to describe the feeling that washes over him as anything other than calm excitement. It sounds like a contradiction, but…

“Open your eyes, Atsumu.”

...but Atsumu knows Sakusa will take care of him.

He lets his eyes flutter open, hyperconscious of the weight of the leather encircling his neck. Sakusa’s hands linger on Atsumu’s shoulders after buckling the collar in place; his gaze is heavy, nearly suffocating as his eyes slide down the length of Atsumu’s body and settle between his legs. His hands follow, wrapping around Atsumu’s wrists and loosening his grip on the towel bit by bit.

“Mm.” The towel falls to the floor and Atsumu’s cheeks flame as his dick bobs free. “You sure you’re going to be able to do this for me, Atsumu? It won’t be easy when you’re this hard.”

Atsumu swallows, the gentle humiliation making his cock twitch as they both watch. 

“I c’n do it, Omi.”

God, he hopes he can.

Sakusa’s smirk grows into a small smile, “Good. Get on the bed and face the headboard.”

He reaches around and gives Atsumu’s ass a little pat for emphasis, making Atsumu duck his head and scramble onto the bed, sitting on his heels and trying to hide the way his blush is spreading down to his chest. The fur-lined handcuffs are already attached to the headboard by a pair of long chains, sending a thrill all the way down to Atsumu’s fingertips as he clutches at his own thighs in anticipation. He feels the bed dip, feels Sakusa slide up behind him, his clean, crisp clothes pressing against Atsumu’s bare skin.

Atsumu sucks in a shaky breath when Sakusa reaches in front of him to take hold of his wrists, wrapping him up in a perverse imitation of a hug. His chest is warm through the expensive fabric of his button-down; Atsumu finds himself tilting his head to the side, baring his throat like it’s instinct.

“Oh, look at you,” Sakusa murmurs, lips brushing the shell of Atsumu’s ear.

Right before Atsumu went under for the very first time, he remembers having a moment of startling clarity. He wondered how on earth he’d gotten to that specific point, letting Sakusa Kiyoomi tie him up so tightly he couldn’t move an inch, then hit him with a riding crop and fingerfuck him until he cried.

Now, the way Atsumu just angled his neck without thinking about it, hoping— praying— that Sakusa will kiss him there, give him more bruises, do whatever he wants with Atsumu’s body… well, Atsumu can’t think of anything more submissive than that.

Oh, god. What has Sakusa done to him?

His self-awareness ebbs away when Sakusa starts to kiss down the line of his jaw, each press of lips hot and calculated, trailing down the soft skin of his throat as Atsumu moans and arches his back. A deep ache blooms when Sakusa sets his teeth into the very spot he marked up the last time they played; Atsumu squeezes his eyes shut and chokes back a whimper, breathing hard as Sakusa worries the little patch of skin until it’s throbbing.

He feels Sakusa guide one wrist into the restraints, then the other, anchoring his arms a comfortable distance in front of him. Atsumu isn’t totally restricted—he subtly moves each arm side to side, confirming that the cuffs only keep him from pulling his hands back to touch himself or interfere with whatever Sakusa chooses to do.

Sakusa’s tongue flicks out to press against the sore skin he’s been sucking.

“Fuck…”

Sakusa unlatches from his throat with a slick sound that goes straight to Atsumu’s dick. 

“Color?”

“Green,” Atsumu breathes, widening his stance where he’s perched on his knees. 

Sakusa lays one more kiss over that bruised spot before he pulls away, cold air hitting Atsumu’s back. “Mmn. Get on all fours, then. You might have to scoot up a little.”

Atsumu exhales slowly and does as he’s told, maneuvering onto his elbows and knees and shifting until he’s comfortable and there isn’t any strain on his muscles. His cock hangs between his legs, embarrassingly stiff, proof of how desperate he is for this. 

“Good, just like that,” Sakusa purrs. Atsumu hears the snap of a glove, the familiar pump of the lube bottle. “I know you’re a little worked up, but you’ll need to stay away from the edge for this. If you feel like you’re getting too close, just tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” Atsumu chokes out.

He shifts a little and hears the crinkle of plastic underneath the dropcloth.

The first touch of warm, slick fingers at his hole makes Atsumu jump. Sakusa makes a quiet noise and strokes his bare hand over Atsumu’s hip, drawing slow, lazy circles at his entrance with the gloved one. Atsumu groans and drops his head, letting it hang in between his shoulders as Sakusa applies just the tiniest bit of pressure, not enough to push inside but enough for Atsumu to crave it.

Atsumu has no fucking clue how he’s going to stay away from the edge. Every other time he’s been in this position, either with a partner or by himself, the end goal has always been to come. How is he just supposed to ignore years of experience?

Then Sakusa slips two long fingers inside him and Atsumu forgets to be worried.

“Hmnngh…”

Sakusa makes a quiet nose and curls his fingers, pulling them out slightly so that they’re comfortably nestled against Atsumu’s prostate. Atsumu whines at the feeling, cock dripping. It’s sooner than he’d normally be touched there, and more direct. It does strange things to Atsumu’s belly, the way it feels almost clinical , the way Sakusa has isolated his touch to his sweet spot. 

“There you go, Atsumu.” Sakusa begins to circle his fingertips gently, pulling another whine from Atsumu’s chest. “Don’t let it build into anything. Just focus on the feeling of your whole body.”

He moves his fingers in a little circle again, and again, varying the pressure as he moves them until he finds an obscene rhythm that seems to satisfy him. It’s not something that Atsumu’s ever experienced before. 

“Ugghhh,” Atsumu groans, rolling his hips unconsciously.

“Shh, stay still,” Sakusa whispers, tightening his grip on Atsumu’s flank. “Make sure you’re breathing… and, I know it’s difficult, but try to relax, hm?”

Atsumu attempts to at least push the tension upward, away from where Sakusa’s touching him; he makes a conscious effort to relax his pelvis at the same time as he flexes his fingers, curling his hands into fists and tugging on the cuffs. Sakusa has shifted to half-circles, focusing on one side of his prostate and then the other, back and forth, back and forth, the sensation deep and visceral.

Inescapable.

Atsumu bites his lip and fails to hold back a whimper, his dick drooling precome onto the dropcloth. “Fuck—oh, fuck…”

His own breathing is loud in his ears, panting in the echo chamber of Sakusa’s room, even louder than the squelch of Sakusa’s fingers inside him. Sakusa rubs his thumb over his hip and Atsumu scrabbles to grip onto the flimsy cloth covering the bed, desperate for something to hold onto.

The focused stimulation is quickly doing what it normally does: pushing Atsumu toward orgasm. He cracks one eye open and peers underneath his body, watching his cock sway and jump as Sakusa massages his prostate. His fingers aren’t even that deep but it feels like he’s touching Atsumu’s very core, probing and pushing as he works Atsumu higher and higher.

“Omiii,” Atsumu whines, eyes fluttering closed again as he tries to keep his pelvis relaxed. “Ugh, it’s—oh god—”

He feels himself clench involuntarily at the measured patterns Sakusa is drawing with his fingers. It’s as if Atsumu’s body is slowly slipping out of his control, muscles jumping at random as Sakusa pets firmly over the little gland. He’s never had prostate stimulation this focused before; it’s getting hard to tell if he needs to pee or if he just really, really needs to come.

“Don’t clench up,” Sakusa reminds him, voice low.

Atsumu groans, rocking forward to try to get away from the relentless pressure inside him. If he relaxes, he’s worried he’ll—he’ll—

Smack!

Atsumu jolts at the sudden hit, a panicked noise escaping him as Sakusa curls his fingers then spanks him again.

“What did I say about staying still—”

“Stop-stop- stop , gonna come,” Atsumu gasps, back bending and squeezing his eyes shut tight. His hands try to flash back, to grab the base of his dick to hold back or touch himself, he’s not sure. They don’t go far though, chains catching and sending Atsumu awkwardly chest first into the bed. He feels Sakusa’s fingers go still and concentrates with all his might on holding back. “S-sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Sakusa murmurs. His hand returns to Atsumu’s hip, soothing; something loosens in Atsumu’s chest. “Thank you for telling me. You did what I asked you to, so don’t apologize.”

Atsumu grins stupidly against the dropcloth, still trembling. Sakusa’s fingers feel heavy inside him, sitting right up against where he’s most sensitive.

“Plus, that was partially my fault. No matter how many times I see it, it always surprises me just how much of a masochist you are.”

It’s followed by a quick pinch to Atsumu’s inner thigh that sends him gasping. 

Shit. Atsumu’s dick twitches and he squeezes around Sakusa’s fingers as his blush returns full-force. Sakusa’s quiet chuckle seems to invade all his senses. It’s embarrassing how fuzzy his head gets whenever Sakusa talks to him like this, when he treats him like this. 

“You have to try to stay still, though,” Sakusa continues, petting the small of Atsumu’s back soothingly as he starts to rub careful fingertips over Atsumu’s prostate once more. “The more you move around, the more mixed signals you’re sending your body.”

Atsumu sighs, trying to gather whatever small scraps of his resolve haven’t already crumbled. He can do this. He can be good. He surrenders completely to Sakusa’s relentless fingers as he lets his body go limp, a groan leaking out of his throat.

“Omi…”

The pressure is all encompassing, but softer when Atsumu stops fighting it. Without his muscles tensed, Atsumu finally stops feeling like he’s swimming against the tide of his own pleasure. It feels somewhere between embarrassingly detached and uncomplicatedly good for a while. He feels himself getting more and more hazy. 

After a few more moments, Atsumu feels his abs start to twitch, then his thighs. It’s involuntary this time, and unrelated to the usual feeling of his lower half tightening in preparation to go over, or to resist it. These are just spasms, almost like the ones he occasionally feels right before he falls asleep, completely unconscious. Atsumu curls his fingers tighter in the drop cloth as Sakusa shifts a little closer, plastic crinkling under his knees. 

The sounds Atsumu is making are truly shameful but it doesn’t matter —the only thing that matters is not coming. He can’t let the feeling swell, can’t let it take root. Atsumu’s doing it, but he’s starting to feel strange and almost unfamiliar sensations blossoming between his hips. Sakusa keeps going, too, one steadying hand on his tailbone as he insistently palpates Atsumu’s sweet spot. 

“Pl-please…”

Sakusa makes an amused noise. “Please what?”

Atsumu doesn’t know. Pressure is building right behind the base of his dick, a familiar heaviness that’s always brought intense pleasure once Atsumu’s been good enough. He’s babbling now, begging just for the sake of it because something in him is that desperate. He just needs to be good.

The pressure has become overwhelming. It doesn’t feel exactly like an orgasm, or an edge, but even though it’s unfamiliar, Atsumu suddenly realizes he’s not going to be able to hold it back. He lets out a sound like a sob at the realization, his body slipping away from him. 

“Ugghh— fuck—”

Don’t come. Don’t come. Don’t come don’t come don’t come—

Drip, drip, drip.

Atsumu knows he’s not coming. He feels close, he feels really close, but they’ve played with edging so often that he’s gotten used to that feeling, learned to separate it completely from the sensation of actually going over. There was no flash of pleasure, no moment where he felt like he snapped under the mounting pressure. 

So why does he feel like he’s… 

“Oh, there you go,” Sakusa purrs. “Look at that. What a good boy, getting it on your first try.”

Distantly, like his ears are stuffed with cotton, Atsumu hears the sound of more liquid hitting the dropcloth. He’s trembling, paralyzed by the foreign sensation of ejaculating without any of the pleasure or intensity that normally comes with it. 

It almost feels like he’s peeing. The thought is like a bucket of cold water over his head and he peeks hurriedly between his legs, skin crawling as he imagines the disgust Sakusa would feel if he couldn’t control himself like that—what good is Atsumu if he can’t control himself—

Looking down the length of his body upside-down, Atsumu sees that it’s definitely come dripping from the slit of his cock, not anything else. It should be a relief, but as he watches the slow, steady flow dribble onto the cloth below, Atsumu irrationally starts to panic. He realizes he’s watching his release slip away.

Sakusa’s fingers press a little more firmly and Atsumu whimpers again. “How does it feel, Atsumu?”

Atsumu can’t speak. His body is still waiting for the feeling between his legs to crest, suspended in devastating frustration as his lips shape around words that won’t come.

“Haah… ”

“That’s what I thought.” Sakusa sounds smug. 

It makes a wave of heat roll down Atsumu’s body, stopping abruptly at the base of his dick as the sluggish drip of come continues. He’s let Sakusa force his body to do so many things, but he’s never felt so completely controlled by another as he does now. 

Atsumu has no idea how long Sakusa keeps him like that, draining him with every cruel circle of his fingers. He can’t stop groaning, shivering as a feeling he can’t name consumes him; his eyes roll back at some point, then flutter closed. He can’t look at himself anymore. 

Drip, drip, drip.

Finally, “You gave me so much. Were you backed up? Poor thing.” Atsumu lets out an inhuman noise, which makes sense since he feels like— “I think you’re all done.”

Sakusa draws a few more agonizing strokes of Atsumu’s prostate, as if he wants to be sure.

Done? Atsumu starts to panic all over again at the word, feeling empty in more ways than one. The scene can’t be over so soon. It feels like they’ve barely started—does Sakusa not want to—

Atsumu groans in relief when Sakusa squeezes a third finger inside and starts to stretch him, finally laying off his most sensitive spot. Sakusa’s not done done with him, just with the… milking. 

A strange feeling has settled in Atsumu’s bones. No longer is he consumed by the desperate arousal he’s gotten used to during scenes; instead, every sensation is muted, like he’s gone numb. Atsumu squirms, wondering if Sakusa will admonish him for moving, but Sakusa just tightens his grip on Atsumu’s hip and fucks him harder with his fingers. 

“Omi…”

“What’s your color?” 

Atsumu freezes for a moment. What is his color? He feels like a stranger in his own skin. He feels off balance . But… he can still be good. He can still make Sakusa feel good.

And god, does he want to make Sakusa feel good.

He swallows hard, “Green.”

Sakusa makes a low noise and pulls his fingers out; Atsumu squirms and gasps in response, heart fluttering as he wonders what Sakusa sees in him right now.

“Shhh… I’m here, Atsumu. You’re doing so well for me,” he hears Sakusa murmur.

The praise is like a balm for his frayed nerves, keeping Atsumu calm even in the absence of Sakusa’s touch. Sure enough, seconds later he hears the sound of a foil wrapper being ripped open. He feels… relieved.  

Atsumu shifts, automatically moving to wipe the drool from his face before he remembers that his arms are restrained. He whines and pulls at the cuffs, shoulders aching as Sakusa smears more lube over his hole before pulling the glove off with a snap.

He needs this. He needs this.  

“Oh fuck,” Atsumu chokes out, deepening the arch of his back as Sakusa starts to press inside.

He clenches involuntarily and hears Sakusa hiss. The overwhelming sensitivity that usually accompanies Sakusa’s first thrust is absent, doused by the strange numbness left between Atsumu’s thighs after the milking. Atsumu groans and rocks back, desperate to feel that spark, that twist deep in his gut , but all he gets is a sharp spank that makes him jump and clench again as Sakusa bottoms out with a quiet groan. 

Then Sakusa stretches out over him, pressing his clothed chest to Atsumu’s back, and threads one hand firmly through Atsumu’s hair before giving it a sharp tug . Atsumu gasps and grabs fistfuls of the sheets as his throat is bared once more. Sakusa rolls his hips, grinding his cock impossibly deeper even though he’s already buried to the hilt. 

“Ha- aah—”

“ Fuck , you feel good,” Sakusa whispers. 

Atsumu shivers happily, preening as Sakusa’s lips ghost over the sore, bruised spot on his neck. He feels in danger of floating away. Sakusa’s weight on top of him is the only thing keeping him anchored to the bed. 

As Sakusa kisses just above his collar and rolls his hips again, Atsumu realizes it doesn’t matter that his body has been so thoroughly worked over that he’s gone soft between his legs even with Sakusa’s cock stroking against his oversensitive prostate with every thrust. Sakusa’s groans in Atsumu’s ear are drowning everything else out. Maybe his body doesn’t need to climax. It’s doing exactly what it should, giving Sakusa pleasure.

This is what he wants. This is what matters. 

Atsumu drools onto the dropcloth as he’s rocked forward again and again, trying to keep his back in its deep arch, and glows. 

Kiyoomi shudders as he mouths at Atsumu’s neck. Between the unique, obscene control that prostate milking gives him and the way that Atsumu’s body is twitching around him, this could be over in less than a minute if he’s not careful. 

Atsumu is just so… good. Kiyoomi’s stomach feels warm thinking about it.

He grunts and lets go of Atsumu’s hair in favor of shoving three fingers between Atsumu’s slack lips. Atsumu moans and sucks on them immediately, like it’s fucking involuntary. Kiyoomi is covering him with his body, filling him from both ends, scaring himself with how completely he wants to possess the man underneath him.

“O-mi-i-i,” Atsumu mumbles around his fingers, mindless — his thick tongue weaves loosely around Kiyoomi’s digits.

“What is it, Atsumu?” Kiyoomi breathes.

He doesn’t answer right away, just moans brokenly with his mouth full as Kiyoomi’s hips slap against his ass. He’s hot and pliant inside, squeezing around Kiyoomi’s cock and clinging to him every time he bottoms out like he doesn’t want him to leave. 

Kiyoomi doesn’t want to leave, either. Atsumu lets his fingers fall from his mouth. Kiyoomi rubs them over his lips.  

“Wanna… come…” Atsumu gasps.

“Oh?” Kiyoomi pulls away from his mouth and reaches underneath him to feel for his dick. 

His belly swoops when he realizes Atsumu is completely soft. It’s an entirely new level of orgasm control—not just telling Atsumu he can’t come, but physically making it so he can’t. Atsumu isn’t begging for permission, he’s begging for something his body isn’t able to give him right now. Fuck.

Fuck.

“Oh, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi whispers.

He cups Atsumu’s soft cock in his hand and kisses the nape of his sub’s neck, holding him as Kiyoomi drives into him faster, relishing every quiet groan that falls from Atsumu’s lips. After a few more hard thrusts, Atsumu gasps and turns his face toward Kiyoomi’s, eyes halfway closed and lips parted; Kiyoomi growls and shifts over to kiss him, hungry for it. It’s a sloppy press of tongues and lips more than anything else, and Kiyoomi eats up Atsumu’s little whimpers like he can’t get enough. 

Kiyoomi rolls Atsumu in his palm, teasing him with his fingers even though it won’t have any long-term effect. The chains make a faint metallic noise as Atsumu pulls on them, shoulder blades straining against Kiyoomi’s chest. 

“Keep your hips up,” Kiyoomi breathes into his mouth, his own jumping faster and faster as he nears the edge. Atsumu groans and shoves back against him, shaking. “Good boy.”

Atsumu wails against his lips. Kiyoomi lets go of Atsumu’s cock and braces both elbows on the bed, wanting as much leverage as possible.

“Omi—Omi, fuck—”

“Gonna make me come,” Kiyoomi gasps. 

The headboard is creaking. 

Atsumu makes another desperate sound and rocks back, squeezing so tightly around him Kiyoomi can barely breathe. 

“ Please… ”

Kiyoomi smiles wickedly and bites at his lower lip as Atsumu pants, gasping. “Yeah, you want it? Feel so—fucking—good—”

He abandons speech a moment later, panting against Atsumu’s cheek as he takes his pleasure from Atsumu’s eager body. One, two thrusts later Kiyoomi is tumbling over the edge, burying his face in Atsumu’s neck and clinging to him as his orgasm rolls over him in harsh waves.

Kiyoomi stays like that for longer than strictly necessary, pressed flush to Atsumu’s naked body as he comes down from his high listening to the shaky sounds of Atsumu’s breathing. He can feel Atsumu’s pulse underneath his lips. After indulging in the moment for a few more seconds, Kiyoomi sighs happily and reaches up to unclip Atsumu’s cuffed wrists from the chains binding him to the headboard.

It’s time to take care of his sub.

First, Atsumu is warm. He’s not sure when it changes, but the heat leaches away quickly and before long Atsumu is so… cold. 

He can hear the sound of the tap running in the bathroom as he lies on his side, resurfacing slowly. Over his body is a familiar fleece blanket; beneath is a scratchier canvas sheet. Atsumu shifts, hearing the strange crinkle of plastic below him as he slits his eyes open.

On the other side of the bed is a wet spot, so much larger than Atsumu imagined. His gut swoops; he can still feel the remnants of it on his knees. 

Atusmu shivers, temperature plummeting for reasons he can’t understand. They didn’t even do any pain play, but suddenly it’s like there’s a crater scooped out of his middle, the space left in its wake filled with cold air. His lower half feels strange as well: he’s soft but feels completely unsatisfied, and the pang in his backside which would usually ring with satisfaction is hollow. 

While he felt good during the scene, and was able to push down his insecurities, now, suddenly, he feels… used , he realizes. He blinks in shock. So many times the thought of Sakusa using him has been an absolute fantasy, a source of guilty, delightful pleasure. 

There’s no pleasure now.

He feels empty and, even though he can hear Sakusa cleaning himself up in the bathroom, he feels alone. 

He hugs his arms tighter around himself, desperately trying and failing to fight off the black cloud rolling in above him. He’d be lying if he hadn’t saw it on the horizon, but he thought… he thought if they just kept going…

The sheets crinkle again—soiled, disposable—and Atsumu feels nauseous.

It’s embarrassing . 

Atsumu is suddenly choked with fear at the idea that Sakusa will soon re-enter the room to clean him up. It’s bad enough that Sakusa saw him like this during the scene, a wretched mess without an ounce of control over his own body. The arousal was probably the only thing holding back Sakusa’s disgust. Now that it’s over, Atsumu doesn’t want to be seen this way: a pathetic, desperate, used-up thing. 

It’s that thought that, before he even realizes it’s happening, drives Atsumu to his feet. 

He stumbles towards the door, all of a sudden thrown into fight-or-flight mode. He makes it down the hallway and into the spare bathroom where he left his things after his shower. Atsumu yanks on the comfortable clothes he usually wears after a scene with frantic movements. Unlike he’d hoped, the feelings don’t fade once his skin is covered; the fear of being seen and judged persists. 

And now that he’s already selected the option of flight, the idea of being captured and questioned by Sakusa is terrifying. How can he even explain this deviation in behavior? How can he explain that he doesn’t want to to be touched or cleaned up by him, that the idea of sitting on the couch on display for the man that just took him apart at the seams could only mean exposing the sick, selfish core of himself—the part of him that could ruin everything with just a few words—to the one person he doesn’t want seeing it.

No, he has to get out of here. 

By the time that Sakusa realizes Atsumu isn’t in the bedroom, he’s got his coat on, bag slung over his shoulder, and is jamming his feet into his boots.

“Atsumu?” he hears. 

His throat tightens to the width of a straw. He hears footsteps in the hallway as he stands up in the genkan. His heart races so fast that Atsumu is afraid he might faint.

“Atsumu, where are—”

He closes his hand over the doorknob. He yanks it open and sees freedom. All he needs to do now is make sure that Sakusa doesn’t follow him. His mind whirs, survival instincts bringing a lie to his lips. 

“‘Samu called, there’s a little emergency. Everyone’s okay, but it’s urgent. Sorry!” 

It’s a small miracle his voice doesn’t shake. The sorry slips out unbidden, just a bit discordant with the rest of the message, but then the door falls shut and Atsumu’s moving down the hallway, refusing to look back.

He doesn’t wait for the elevator, instead immediately going to the stairs. There are tears running down his face before his foot even hits the first step. A sob slips out of this throat as he realizes how colossally stupid he’s being, how much he probably just fucked everything up.

He reaches up to scrub the heel of his hand over one eye, which is when he realizes that he’s still wearing cuffs. Around his neck still sits the thick, black collar. He gasps and begins to claw at them, desperate to get them off and hidden away in his bag.

“Fuck,” he curses, shouldering his way into the parking garage. “Fuck!”  

The drive home is a blur. It’s probably—no, definitely not safe. Atsumu is still reeling from the scene, not drunk but close to it, vision misty from the tears he has to constantly wipe away in order to see any part of the road. He just wants to be home, in his own bed, tucked under his covers where no one can see him.

Being home doesn’t help as much as Atsumu thought it would, past the initial relief of walking over the threshold. Now that he doesn’t have a goal in mind, there’s nothing to protect him from the nasty vortex of his own thoughts assaulting him from all sides as he stumbles out of clothes and into the shower, turning the water up as hot as it will go in a useless attempt to stop the shivering.

He needs to clean up. Thank god he left before Sakusa could do it for him—he’s disgusting.

Atsumu feels a little better after his shower, but it’s short-lived, especially when he opens the bathroom door and the cooler air from the main studio rushes in to lick at his damp skin. He finishes toweling off in a hurry and pulls on a clean pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, digging around in his drawers to find the thickest pair of socks he owns.

Just showering took a ton of energy out of him. It’s actually shocking the way he nearly trips three times between stepping out of the bathroom and his bed. His limbs just feel so heavy. Atsumu stumbles around to gather a few more things—a glass of ice water, some kleenex—before retreating gratefully to his bed, still sniffling and wiping tears away as he pulls the bedding up over his shoulders.

Fuck. He thought… he thought if he was good enough, if he did everything Sakusa wanted and took everything he had to give, that maybe Sakusa would…

But why would Sakusa want to be with someone like him after what he’s seen Atsumu do? Disgusting. Disgusting. Atsumu’s skin crawls thinking about what Sakusa’s seen, how shameless Atsumu’s been in front of him. He curls up tighter and pulls the covers over his head. He’s not sure he wants anyone to look at him ever again.

When Atsumu next opens his eyes, it’s dark in his apartment. He gets a few seconds of peace in that fuzzy, liminal space between asleep and awake; then, when he reaches for his phone to check the time, awareness comes crashing down on him, flooding him with horrible memories.

It’s four in the morning. They have afternoon practice today, but Atsumu can’t picture a scenario where he’s able to leave his apartment and have anyone see him, especially Sakusa. He has a few new texts but doesn’t bother reading them; he just closes his eyes and prays for unconsciousness to take him again. 

It’s light outside when Atsumu wakes up next. This time he has to get out of bed to pee, but he crawls right back in bed after refilling his water glass and closing his curtains tightly. He’s starving, but he doesn’t want to make anything, and none of the food in his apartment sounds good right now. He fights back tears at the predicament.

Maybe he’ll order something from one of his takeout apps. He grabs his phone and finally sees the messages. 

From: Omi-Omi
>> Hope everything is ok. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. 

>> Is Osamu-san okay?

>> Please let me know if you got home alright. 

They’re all time stamped a few hours apart. Atsumu really sucks. Here Sakusa is trying to be a good dom and Atsumu can’t even text him back after recklessly driving home mid-freak out. The least he can do is respond.

He types out a simple message, numb as his fingers move over the screen. He opens another to Coach Foster and spins a similar lie. By the time he’s done with that, there’s another message from Sakusa.

From: Omi-Omi
>> Understood. Good to know. Again, let me know if there’s anything you need help with.

Atsumu’s face starts leaking again. It hurts, wanting to take the words at face value and knowing they come from a place of responsibility and politeness. He forces himself to type two words and hit send.

From: Miya Atsumu
>> Thanks, Omi. 

By the time he’s done, Atsumu feels sick and not even the slightest bit hungry any more. Before he can work through that and force himself to get up, Atsumu falls into a fitful sleep again.

It’s after noon on Monday before Atsumu is awake enough and builds the motivation to get up and throw together something vaguely edible. He doesn’t even remember what he ate by the time he gets back to bed, absolutely exhausted. He strips down to his underwear and slides between the sheets. 

He tries to sleep, but the light coming in the side of his blinds cuts through his eyelids and he stays painfully conscious.

Atsumu is caught in between and the thoughts that have been attacking him over and over return once more, in full force.

Practice will begin soon. Guilt swirls in Atsumu’s chest at missing it, but he can’t imagine Sakusa will want to see him either, not after he finds out that Atsumu lied. There’s no way he’ll want to stick around and keep doing what they’re doing. Atsumu’s always known deep down that’s kind of a baseline fact about himself. His life is pretty much defined by the times he can allow himself to forget before the reality comes crashing back down: people don’t want to stay with Miya Atsumu.

His dad left before he even gave Atsumu a chance. What must he have seen in Atsumu to be with their Ma for years and then up and leave when the twins came along? Did he already sense something horrible and twisted in Atsumu? Did he know?

He wouldn’t be the last. Atsumu’s teammates and schoolmates hated him until he became useful to them, after all. Even in middle school Atsumu knew that. It didn’t matter then. He had Osamu. 

But even Osamu didn’t stay with him. Osamu left, too. 

He vaguely remembers words from a sports therapist he saw in his final year of high school, when everything was getting too much. Osamu was quitting and the mounting pressure of scouts approaching him, of making decisions about his future, made him feel like he was cracking. He knows it was helpful at the time. That she said a lot of things that helped Atsumu make peace with Osamu’s decision and made him feel prepared for what was coming.

That seems really far away right now. 

Atsumu flips the pillow over to the dry side, and digs his fingernails into his arms. 

Is it really a shock that Sakusa wants to leave him, too? No, he made it clear this wasn’t a long term thing. Once again, Atsumu is tolerated as long as he’s useful.

“Why?” Atsumu mumbles, for once, into the dark. “Why don’t you want me? Why don’t any of you want me?”

His brain provides far too many answers. 

Osamu goes to Atsumu’s on Tuesday morning. It’s the only day of the week he has someone else open the store, and Atsumu rarely has practice or a game until the afternoon or evening. It’s become their standard weekly meet-up day.

Not completely out of character, this week he forgot to text Atsumu the previous night to nail down specifics, so he’s not exactly surprised when he doesn’t receive any response after firing off a message over his coffee. The lazy bastard without a day job is probably still asleep. So, as he’s wont to do, Osamu swings by Onigiri Miya to make sure everything is running okay and grabs a half dozen onigiri to-go. 

He uses the memorized codes to enter Atsumu’s building as well as the electric door lock on his apartment. 

Osamu takes off his shoes and hangs up his coat in the genkan, juggling the plastic Onigira Miya bag. He’s only a little surprised to see the lights are still off in the studio as he comes out of the dark hallway into the main room.

“Get outta bed, you oaf,” Osamu says as he heads into the kitchen. “I even brought ya food. An athlete takin’ advantage of the hospitality of a poor restaurant owner. Ma would—”

It’s in that moment, as Osamu finally finds the lightswitch and illuminates the room, that he realizes something is wrong. 

First, the kitchen is a mess. They’ve both known how to clean up after themselves from a young age, but Osamu will admit to pulling the I cooked you clean move on more than one occasion. Osamu doesn’t let anything get dirty, but he has a decent tolerance for clutter; Atsumu, on the other hand, has always been rather... fastidious. 

A significant portion of their fights as teenagers started because Osamu left socks on the floor or magazines on Atsumu’s bed, triggering a huffy tantrum from his twin. So seeing remnants of quick-made meals, dishes, and cooking utensils, not just left in the sink but on the counter as well, is weird. 

He looks over to the newly moving lump on Atsumu’s bed, a tuft of blonde hair poking out from beneath the covers. Osamu thinks he hears something that sounds like oh fuck it’s Tuesday coming from that direction. 

“Yep. It’s Tuesday,” Osamu says as Atsumu rises. “Did’ya have a party or somethin’ last night?”

A horrible thought occurs to Osamu as Atsumu sits up, revealing his bare chest and an absolute monster of a fading hickey on the side of his neck.

“Aw, hell, please tell me yer alone over there.”

The last thing Osamu wants is for another head to pop up out of that bed. He closed the shop last night. He’s too tired for this. 

The last thing he expects , though, is for Atsumu to flinch like he’s been hit and then for his face to crumple. His mouth curls, eyes filling up with tears as his brow furrows deeply. 

“I’m always alone, Samu!” he shouts, whipping something fluffy and yellow across the room at him. Osamu catches it before it hits him in the face. “You’d fuckin’ know that, wouldn’t ya?” 

“The fuck is that supposed ta mean?” Osamu spits out before he can even process what the hell is going on, the energy in the room going from zero to sixty. 

He looks down at his hands to see a stuffed, dog shaped tissue holder. Their ma bought a pair for them when they both got a terrible cold in their first year of high school. Osamu’s had been grey, though he’s not sure where it is now. Trust Atsumu to be sentimental enough to keep his. 

Osamu is half-way through concluding that Atsumu got dumped by someone Osamu doesn’t even really know about, which would be out of character, when Atsumu absently reaches up to rub at his eyes. When he touches the tears leaking out of the corners, he yanks his palm back like it’s been burned and stares down at his own hand, seemingly baffled. 

“What the fuck? Why can’t I stop—”

Atsumu gets up and nearly pitches himself over his nightstand, sending his lamp clattering sideways. He curses before righting himself. He reaches down to grab a sweater off the ground and almost seems to fall over again. When he looks up, his expression seems more composed but there are even more tears streaming down his cheeks. Osamu feels his jaw has dropped a little. 

“What is wrong with you?”

Atsumu levels a venomous glare at him as he stalks towards the bathroom, “M’just not feelin’ well, okay!”

“Tsumu—”

Osamu tries to intercept him but Atsumu petulantly dodges around him and slams the bathroom door. He does get a look at Atsumu’s face though, leaking, red-rimmed eyes with dark bags beneath them. 

What the fuck. Is he sick?

With the door shut in his face, Osamu returns to the kitchen to dig a thermometer out of the cabinet. He’s ready as soon as Atsumu opens the bathroom door. He’s not crying anymore but it looks like he could start again at any moment by the wobble at the corner of his lips. Osamu grabs his twin by the nose and shoves the thermometer under his tongue when Atsumu opens his mouth to protest.

Once it’s placed, Atsumu seems to give in a little. They just glare at each other in silence in the bathroom doorway for the moment it takes for the thermometer to take its reading. A few more tears leak out of Atsumu’s eyes and he scrubs at them angrily. Then the thermometer beeps and Osamu pulls it from Atsumu’s mouth and lets his twin pass, hearing him stomp down the short hallway.

He vaguely hears the sound of the onigiri bag crinkling as he looks down at the temperature reading, gut sinking.

It reads 36.8 C. Not even a hint of a fever. 

He takes a grim breath as a new theory settles in his head. He has to stay calm, approach this right. 

Osamu heads back into the main room of the studio to find Atsumu has already returned to bed. He’s laying on his side with an onigiri in each hand, staring into space. The tissue-dog is stuffed under his arm. Osamu doesn’t hold back the disgusted expression that rises to his face even as his concern grows. He grabs a cup of water and fills it to bring to Atsumu’s bedside. 

It’s on the way over that something in the room catches his eye. Normally, what with its blaring coloration, it would have stuck out immediately. As it is, Osamu thinks it’s understandable that he’d been too distracted to notice it earlier. 

But now Osamu’s steps falter for just a second as he processes the bright yellow and green garment tossed over the side of Atsumu’s laundry hamper. He doesn’t even need to see the pair of characters peeking out of a fold that read kusa to know to whom it belongs. 

Well, that answers one question, though Osamu isn’t sure if it’s related to the current predicament. By Osamu’s own estimates, Atsumu has been secretly seeing someone on the team since the beginning of the season, or at least close to it. Sakusa was at the very bottom of Osamu’s list of suspects, but Osamu will be the first one to admit he barely knows the other man at all. Though, this presents an opportunity.

It only makes sense that one of Atsumu’s secrets might know about his others. 

A plan, at least for the imminent future, forms in Osamu’s head. He needs more information before confronting Atsumu. 

He reaches the bed and sets the water down on the bedside table. 

“If yer sick, ya better stay hydrated,” Osamu says, and then grabs the corner of Atsumu’s duvet. He yanks it up and over his head, onigiri and all. He ignores the immediate squawking and flailing. “That’s what ya get for chuckin’ things at people.”

Then, in the brief moment when Atsumu’s head is covered, Osamu swipes his twin’s phone from the nightstand and slips it into his pocket. 

He doesn’t wait for Atsumu to even fully untangle himself before turning and heading towards the door. 

“An employee jus’ texted me. I gotta give ‘em a call,'' Osamu lies.

He hears Atsumu mumble something but doesn’t look back as he heads out into the hallway. He walks down the way a bit, towards the fire escape and away from most of the apartment doors. He fishes Atsumu’s phone out of his pocket and holds it up to his face.

One perk of being an identical twin is that he’s an elite hacker for exactly one phone on earth. It registers his face and unlocks.

Osamu ignores the messages. He’s not worried enough to invade that much of Atsumu’s privacy—separate from his general fear at what kind of brain bleach-requiring nonsense he’d find there. No, Osamu simply taps over to Atsumu’s contacts, scrolls until he finds the name and number he wants, and then resolutely hits send. 

Kiyoomi texts Atsumu a couple of times over the twelve hours following his hasty exit after their scene. In spite of the anxious concern that nips at him while he cleans up the bedroom and gets ready for bed, it’s easy to rationalize the lack of replies due to the fact that Atsumu had said that it was kind of an emergency.

He’d prefer a response, obviously, but he understands the lack of contact if Atsumu is helping Osamu deal with something like the basement of Onigiri Miya flooding. Kiyoomi frowns more deeply as he pulls on his sleep shirt. He certainly hopes it’s not anything like that. What if there was a fire or something?

Kiyoomi tries to stop himself coming up with solutions or ways to help with situations that may or may not exist. It would be a lot nicer if Atsumu would at least message him back to tell him what happened. 

To: Miya Atsumu
>> Hope everything is ok. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. 

To: Miya Atsumu
>> Is Osamu-san okay?

After hours of laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, Kiyoomi gets a new spike of anxiety running through his chest. They’d just played, and Atsumu certainly wasn’t all the way back to a normal headspace when he left; when Kiyoomi went down to the garage to check, Atsumu’s car had been gone. He gets that when circumstances are tight, he wouldn’t want to leave it behind, but…

He turns over and grabs his nightstand off the side table. 

To: Miya Atsumu
>> Please let me know if you got home alright. 

It’s a little past two in the morning. It’s totally possible that even if the emergency was dealt with, Atsumu passed out at Osamu’s, or home, or wherever the problem was. He sighs heavily and opens YouTube. He taps his thumb in the search bar and slowly, deliberately types cake decorating. 

The next morning, Monday, Kiyoomi gets up and starts getting ready for practice. He’s still twitchy and feels like he has nowhere to put his anxious energy. Should he call Atsumu? He’s literally never called Atsumu before, though. The only phone conversations they’ve had have been when Atsumu rings him up, usually on his way over and wanting some input about grabbing take out or dinner from the konbini. 

Before Kiyoomi can make a decision, his phone dings. He snatches it up quicker than he’d like to admit, way too much relief flooding him when he sees Atsumu’s name on the screen. 

From: Miya Atsumu
>> Yeah Osamu is good. Still dealing with a few things so I may not be at practice later today.

Even without details, just knowing that Atsumu hadn’t crashed into a ditch somewhere last night loosens the knots that had been tightening in Kiyoomi’s stomach. He’s still concerned, but Atsumu and his brother are okay so that’s enough to give him the privacy he clearly wants. 

To: Miya Atsumu
>> Understood. Good to know. Again, let me know if there’s anything you need help with.

There’s another buzz as Kiyoomi’s tying his shoes. 

From: Miya Atsumu
>> Thanks, Omi. 

His fingers squeeze lightly around the device, unsure how to categorize the simultaneous relief and yet continued concern clouding his head. He takes one more steadying breath and vows to lay it to rest for the day, to give Atsumu the space he needs. 

It’s a good plan in theory, and gets Kiyoomi through Monday, but when their practice-free Tuesday rolls around, he finds himself getting antsy all over again. He works out in the morning, bundling up to go on a run through the slushy park near his apartment in Osaka. It’s still snow season, but they’ve had unseasonably mild weather the past week and it’s opened up the paths enough that Kiyoomi can run until the cold air is burning his lungs. 

He showers when he gets back to his apartment. He’s in a pair of shorts and still towelling off his hair when he hears his phone ringing in the bedroom. 

Kiyoomi makes a bee-line for it, honestly expecting Komori, his mother, or maybe one of the trainers who he’s been trying to set up an extra physio session with this week. He thinks his left knee is tweaked a little. In spite of everything, his eyes still widen when he sees Atsumu’s name on the screen.

He smacks the accept button with his thumb and raises it up to his ear lightning quick. 

“Atsumu, is everything okay?”

There’s a pause that feels much longer than it is, and then a voice speaks. It’s familiar, but it’s definitely not Atsumu.

“Naw, not ‘Tsumu actually. Sorry.”

“Osamu-san?” Kiyoomi asks, immediately identifying the speaker. “Why are you calling? Is Atsumu okay?”

He makes sure to keep his voice level in the face of his confusion. 

“I dunno. I mean, he’s not in the hospital or nothin’. That’s kinda why I’m callin’,” Osamu says, sounding weirdly reluctant. His ambiguous answer makes Kiyoomi’s chest tighten. What is going on? “Got a question for ya.”

“What?”

There’s another pause and Kiyoomi strains to hear any sounds through the line. His own heartbeat is loud in his ears as he tries to think. 

“A question… thought you might know the answer,” Kiyoomi hears a sigh, like Osamu is bracing himself. “Is my brother doin’ drugs?”

Whatever Kiyoomi expected to hear, it certainly wasn’t that . His brow furrows and his fingers curl into the towel around his neck. His eyes drill into the bedspread.

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Well, yer high school hoodie’s in his laundry hamper, which was the last piece of the puzzle f’r who he’s been sneakin’ around with all season,” Osamu says, blindsiding him again. Kiyoomi isn’t sure how to feel about the fact that Osamu knows that he and Atsumu have been meeting up... and, notably, that he didn’t know before. He’s still confused, only getting more so. “Thought if anyone might know what he gets up to in his free time, it might be the person he’s… well, y’know.”

Kiyoomi rubs his fingers over his forehead, pushing aside processing what it means that Osamu knows about him and Atsumu for later. He’s still missing something. Kiyoomi sits down on the side of the bed. 

“I don’t… I won’t deny that Atsumu and I see each other outside of volleyball, but I don’t understand what’s happening currently,” Kiyoomi says, frustrated, and then pauses, deliberating, before he decides to go on. He normally wouldn’t offer information but this is Osamu. Kiyoomi’s sure his intentions, when it comes to Atsumu at least, aren’t bad. “Atsumu was at my apartment on Sunday night. He left suddenly. He said you contacted him and that there was some kind of family emergency. I texted him after, but he implied that it was still ongoing. I don’t—”

“What the fuck , Tsumu,” Osamu interjects and Kiyoomi refocuses.

“Did something happen? Something has to have triggered this call. Did Atsumu lie about you calling him?”

“Yeah, the bastard lied, though I’ve got as much idea why as you seem ta,” Osamu murmurs and Kiyoomi hears him take a deep breath. After a pause it seems he makes up his own mind about Kiyoomi’s intentions as well. He continues, “I showed up at his place this morning, and he’s a fuckin’ mess. It was almost noon and he was still sleepin’ in a dark apartment… I basically said hello and he started crying. His place looked like he’d done nothin’ but sleep and eat for at least a day or two. I’ve never seen ‘im like that before. I checked if he had a fever, but he didn’t… so, dunno what else I’m ‘sposed to think besides drugs. Cocaine? Ecstasy? I’m not exactly well-versed but if that’s not strung out I dunno—”

It clicks for Kiyoomi so hard that he doesn’t even hear how Osamu finishes his thoughts. He still doesn’t understand everything, doesn’t know why Atsumu left on Sunday night, but he knows exactly what this is. 

“He’s… he’s not on drugs,” Kiyoomi says, unsure if Osamu has actually finished talking, but the words come out on their own. 

“What?” Osamu says. “Like you’ve never seen him do ‘em?”

“No. I haven’t, but also I meant I think I know what this is and it’s not a hangover or a comedown or withdrawal,” Kiyoomi says, though he supposes it’s close. 

It wasn’t caused by drugs, though, so he’s got a pretty clean slate as he prepares a series of lies. 

He wants to assuage Osamu’s fears, but it’s definitely not his place to tell Atsumu’s twin what he’s been getting up to this season. He’ll have to tell a couple lies to calm Osamu down and then Atsumu can choose to tell the truth or not later.

“What is it then?” Osamu presses. 

“It’s a kind of virus or something. Not every illness produces a fever and I got something similar the other week—the fatigue can really make you emotional. One of the trainers had it too,” Kiyoomi says, keeping the lie vague. 

“Huh,” Osamu replies. “Really?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says with his most unreadably neutral voice. 

The silence stretches out again.

“Well, I feel kinda stupid about all this now,” Osamu admits. “M’sorry for botherin’ you, Sakusa-san.”

“It’s no problem. You were just worried about Atsumu.”

“He c’n be a real idiot, but I guess I should’ve given him a little more credit. He cares way too much about volleyball to mess it up for somethin’ as dumb as drugs,” Osamu continues to muse. “Anyway, I’ll let ya go if—”

“I can pick up some medicine for him and drop it off later,” Kiyoomi cuts in. He needs to get over there. “I can bring food and things too if you need to leave to go to the onigiri shop.”

Kiyoomi prays for Osamu’s busy schedule to work with him here. It’d be really hard to help Atsumu with his brother hovering, making it impossible to explain what’s going on. 

“Are ya sure? I didn’t realize it would be like that with you two,” Osamu says, then hums. Kiyoomi doesn’t interrupt to ask what he means by that. There are more important things to focus on. “I was supposed ta go in... an’ if you’re sure he’s just got a weird bug…” 

“It’s no problem at all,” Kiyoomi assures him.

“Alright,” Osamu says. “D’ya have his door codes? I’ll send ya his guest code in case he falls asleep again. He didn’t seem like he’d be up long.” 

“Thank you.”

“Naw, thank you,” Osamu says. “Y’know, yer pretty different than I expected.”

Once again, Kiyoomi has no idea what to say to that. He’s already pulling clothes out of his dresser to get ready to go. 

“I’ll let you know if it’s not what I think it is,” Kiyoomi says. “But I’m sure he’ll be fine before you know it.”

He will, if Kiyoomi can do anything about it at all. 

Atsumu wakes up to the sound of a knock on the door. He’s not sure when he fell asleep but the apartment is dark except for the glow of his bedside lamp. He glances around blearily. He’s got a couple message alerts flashing on his phone but what catches his eye is a piece of paper that looks like it’s from the notebook he uses to write grocery lists sitting on his side table. 

He reaches out to grab it and immediately recognizes Osamu’s scrawl. 

‘Had to head into work. Called your not-boyfriend or whatever and he said you’re sick and he’d bring by some medicine. I’ll check in after close.’

Atsumu blinks. There’s another light knock on the door. His brain feels just as sloppy and slow as it has been since he got home on Sunday night and the words aren’t making sense. 

Before it clicks, there’s the telltale beep of his electric lock opening, which doesn’t make sense because the only ones who have the code are Osamu and his Ma, but she rarely visits and Osamu never knocks. 

“Atsumu?”

Oh. 

Well, not-boyfriend is more right than Osamu knows. 

Atsumu’s first instinct is to pull the blanket over his head and straight up hide. His second instinct, as has been typical of the past few days, is to start full on crying. 

In the end, he doesn’t do anything at all, just lays on his side in shock with his back to the hallway as he hears footsteps approach. 

“Atsumu…?” Sakusa murmurs again, much closer this time. 

He feels a gentle hand on his shoulder and he can’t resist the urge to flinch away, curling in on himself. Well, there goes pretending to be asleep. Or dead. Or whatever would save him from having to deal with this right now. 

“Why are ya here?” Atsumu asks, voice quiet in the dim room.

By the bright outline of his curtains it’s still midday, but he shut them tight yesterday morning when it felt like all he could do was sleep. 

“Osamu called,” Sakusa says, thankfully refraining from touching Atsumu again. “He saw my hoodie here and thought I might know why you were acting unwell. I think you’re in a bad sub-drop, Atsumu.”

Again without fanfare, Atsumu’s eyes start leaking again. He feels a bit of wetness spread between his face and the pillow. He hugs the tissue-dog he apparently fell asleep with more tightly, curling his fingers into the sweater he put on earlier. 

“No shit.”

“Why didn’t you—”

“Why are you here?” Atsumu interrupts. 

There’s a long pause and Atsumu feels a short-lived flash of vindication at catching Sakusa off guard. Then he just feels worse, because it’s not like Sakusa has done anything wrong . It’s Atsumu who fucked everything up. 

“I’m here to help. Osamu said there wasn’t an emergency… though I know you must have had your reasons for leaving so suddenly,” Sakusa says, clearly trying his best not to sound accusatory, even if it’s not natural for him. Even now he’s trying to be a good dominant. “But having no aftercare after a scene like that probably triggered—”

“No…” Atsumu cuts him off, feeling like his blanket weighs 100 pounds. It’s going to squeeze the truth out of him. “‘Spose that probably didn’t help. But… this was probably coming no matter what.”

Thick tears slide sideways over Atsumu’s otherwise impassive face. His brain has clearly made peace with what he has to do, but his body is still rebelling. Sub drop is so weird. 

“Atsumu? What are you…”

Atsumu turns over onto his back and drapes an arm across his eyes. He shouldn’t do this with his back turned, but he can’t make himself look either. If he does, his resolve might crumble. Not that Sakusa will likely want much to do with him after this and what happened on Sunday. At least it’ll be under Atsumu’s own power.

He bites his lip, grits his teeth, and then goes limp. 

“I can’t do this anymore.”

I can’t do this anymore. The words echo, clear and unmistakable, over and over in Kiyoomi’s head. His brow furrows and his mouth opens and then closes again. 

“What?”

Maybe he misunderstood what Atsumu is talking about. The words themselves are simple but what they’re referencing can’t be…

“I can’t sub for you anymore,” Atsumu says, his arm still across his face.

Kiyoomi swallows, leaning back on his heels a little where he’s kneeling by the bedside. Unrecognizable emotions are beginning to leach into Kiyoomi’s body. He’s not processing this correctly. 

“Why?” he says, admittedly sounding like a child. Atsumu has a right to stop for whatever reason, Kiyoomi knows that, but he thinks he has a right to know why, at least. “Is it something that I did?”

His brain is whirring, trying to think back through all their recent scenes at once. Had he messed up somewhere? Atsumu seemed to be enjoying what they’d been doing. Anything Kiyoomi threw at him just seemed to be another sign of their compatibility. Had he crossed any boundaries? They’d been spending more time together before and after scenes, but Kiyoomi thought that had been welcome. It wasn’t his usual relationship with subs, but they weren’t just sub and dom. They were teammates, too. He hadn’t thought it was that weird to—

“No. Omi, ya didn’t do anything wrong. I can smell yer brain smoking, calm down,” Atsumu says, voice so much more flat than usual. 

“Then… why?”

Atsumu sighs again, “I just can’t only sub for ya. It hurts too much, messes with my head when… when I like ya.” 

Kiyoomi rocks backwards a little. Oh.  

It’s... difficult to reconcile. For some reason he just didn’t expect this. People develop feelings for each other after participating in intimate activities all the time. It’s not strange, and yet… he never expected Atsumu to go down that path, or be worried about it in the middle of his athletic prime. Plus...

“I don’t… but you’ve been seeing other people,” Kiyoomi says, probably totally unhelpfully. 

It’s the biggest thing that’s catching in Kiyoomi’s head, though. Just a few weeks ago Atsumu came into practice with bruises on his neck from someone else. 

“God, Omi-kun, watch a movie once or twice,” Atsumu says. “I was tryin’ ta get ya out of my head. I told ya, it was just the one guy. I realized I had it bad and thought if I could just… remind myself what it was like bein’ with someone else... thought maybe I was just too caught up in subbing, ya’know?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to say. He feels stupid; after all, it’s not like he hadn’t done something similar around the time that he and Atsumu started seeing one another. After a moment of Kiyoomi’s silence, Atsumu continues.

“Anyway, that was a royal fuck-up and it didn’t work anyway. Just made me want ya more,” Atsumu says, voice completely raw, hand balling up into a fist. With his other hand he gestures vaguely towards himself, in his bedridden state. “And with this? It’s too hard now to separate play and how I feel about ya. It just makes it so clear what I want but can’t have—dates, kissin’ just because, holidays, bringin’ ya back to Hyogo… all that romantic shit. I already missed a practice ‘cause of this… I j-just…”

His other arm has come up now too, heels of his palms pressed into his eyes. He looks torn-up and it makes Kiyoomi’s chest hurt. Seeing Atsumu like this and being told there’s nothing he can do is distracting, even as he tries to fully understand his words.

“You can’t sub for me and not have a romantic relationship,” he makes himself say, knowing there’s no room for misunderstanding right now. “That’s what’s missing for you.”

Atsumu nods. 

It wasn’t some type of play, or any of Kiyoomi’s performances as a dom. When he sensed Atsumu was looking for more, he’d been right, but just looked in all the wrong places. He’s been so stupid. 

And because of his lack of ability to connect the dots, here they are. The words are finally starting to sink in: Atsumu wants to stop seeing him.

Kiyoomi… doesn’t like that, at all . He chews on the idea of going back to how they were before, just seeing Atsumu at volleyball—no more calm tea breaks in his dining room, no more quiet hours on his couch, Atsumu wrapped a blanket, the silence only broken to observe a game they both love. No more Atsumu letting Kiyoomi break him down to the rawest version of himself, where all he seems to know is pain, pleasure, and Kiyoomi’s name.

His fingers curl into the fabric of his pants. 

He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want this to end. 

The solution is simple, then. Kiyoomi speaks again before he bothers to think much more about it. 

“Well, let’s date, then.”

Silence hangs as Atsumu seems to stop breathing. Then he pulls his arm away from his face, watery golden eyes finally visible. They’re wide, still wet and running, but currently filled with shock. 

“What?”

“If you don’t want to keep doing what we’ve been doing without dating, we can do that. Date,” Kiyoomi reiterates, unsure which part is confusing to Atsumu; he tries to keep his irritation down. 

Atsumu’s brow furrows now to match Kiyoomi’s. 

“I’m not some vending machine you put dates into until shibari falls out, Omi. I want the whole thing. The chance to wake up next to ya, the possibility of havin’ a future with ya. I want a real relationship. You don’t do those. You’ve said, a bunch of times.”

“I said I wasn’t looking for that. I didn’t understand why people in our position were searching for them so badly, but circumstances change all the time, things develop organically, and I know that people have different needs and desires. If this is what you need, I’m okay with that,” Kiyoomi presses, feeling desperate. 

Atsumu sniffs, shaking his head back and forth. It looks like a new wave of tears are spilling over even though the last never really stopped.

“That’s not—I don’t… if it’s not somethin’ you wanted before, how can I be with ya knowing that?” Atsumu says, running a hand through his hair. “No… this alone sucked enough already, ’s messy enough as it is. Yer right about focusin’ on volleyball for now…”

Huh, Kiyoomi’s throat is stinging. It feels like things are sliding down a slope and he can’t catch up to stop them. His heart beats faster in his chest. Atsumu looks away from him; Kiyoomi desperately wants to hold his eyes, but he doesn’t have that power. Atsumu continues.

“I’m flattered that the dick was good enough for you to be willin’ to go on a date with me,” Atsumu says with a humorless, breathless huff of laughter. His eyes slide shut and then open up again. Kiyoomi is so wrapped up in being offended at that concept that he almost misses what Atsumu says next, reaching out to open his side table drawer. “Oh. I should give these back to ya. I was freakin’ out so much I walked out with ‘em. I’m sure they were stupid expensive…”

When he pulls his hand from the drawer, his long fingers are curled around a familiar pair of cuffs and a collar. Sakusa had been so wrapped up in concern while cleaning up he hadn’t even noticed they were missing after their last scene. 

Kiyoomi blinks; he doesn’t reach out for them. Atsumu seems sobered by the sight of them as well. Any trace of laughter is gone from his face. His eyelashes are clumped together and Kiyoomi catches the sight of another heavy tear falling to the bedspread. 

Once again confused, Kiyoomi is irked, both at Atsumu’s failure to understand him and at his own powerlessness. He hasn’t felt so young in a while. Besides…

“They aren’t even mine,” Kiyoomi murmurs. “If you gave them back they’d be useless to me.”

Atsumu’s head tilts.

“What do you mean?”

“These are yours , Atsumu. They were never going to be used by another sub,” Kiyoomi says, sour and sad. “The cuffs are fur. I got them when you mentioned cuffs bruising… they couldn’t be sanitized anyway. The collar… I custom ordered it for you specifically. It’s black and gold. I thought you knew. They’re yours.”

Kiyoomi mostly responds out of petulance now, trying to work himself up to accepting the fact that Atsumu is about to ask him to leave. He’s surprised then, when, after everything else he’s said, that’s what makes Atsumu’s face go blank. His wide eyes stare down at the items in his hands. 

“What?”

They’re yours. Atsumu sets the cuffs down to look at the collar, at its sleek black exterior and rich golden lining. It’s… it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. As far as Atsumu knows, Sakusa is loaded. He could probably purchase a custom collar every day if he wanted. Still… he picked this one out for Atsumu.

He picked it out for Atsumu and apparently doesn’t want anyone else to wear it. 

“Is it like… a BDSM subculture thing not ta share collars or somethin’?” Atsumu finds himself asking.

Sakusa scoffs, “No. I mean, they can be a kind of symbol for people, especially in 24 hour play but—that’s not the point. I just ordered that one for you specifically and it would be wrong to put it on anyone else.”

“Oh,” Atsumu says. 

It’s not about the money or the fact that Sakusa got something for Atsumu specifically. He already kind of knew he did that with the cuffs, though he never thought of them as his own . No, the collar feels different. It’s knowing that Sakusa sat down, thought about Atsumu, and had something made specifically with him in mind. Especially after Atsumu teased him about his all-black aesthetic. 

The width, the colors, the fastenings… This will be good for Atsumu , he must have thought. 

Atsumu’s fingers curl around the leather. Okay . 

Sakusa seems to sense the shift in him, and Atsumu feels eyes searching his tearstained face. 

“Just because I haven’t previously looked for longer-term companionship, or find it necessary to lead a fulfilled life, doesn’t mean I don’t form connections, or...” Sakusa says, speaking slower than usual, for once seeming to think about his words. “...well, like you, Atsumu.”

The collar is lowered to the bed as Atsumu finally looks up into Sakusa’s eyes. What he sees there makes his throat feel thick. He’s not tearing up or begging. It’s understated, not quite glaring—he’s still Sakusa—but his gaze is sincere in the low light. 

“You… like me?”

His mouth opens and closes and Atsumu almost laughs as he can see him call back some kind of sarcastic comment. He looks away. That’s how Atsumu knows he’s serious when he goes on. 

“Yes,” Sakusa says, so quiet. His face smooths and he looks back at Atsumu. His hand comes up, and then pauses, perhaps recalling the way Atsumu flinched earlier. He blinks, mouth seeming to freeze around his words before he goes on. “And… I don’t… I don’t want to lose you.”

Atsumu tips his head forward before he can think better of it, a silent invitation or plea. Long fingers slide though Atsumu’s bangs, gently carding them off his forehead. The touch is familiar and so different at the same time. It sends shudders wracking through Atsumu’s body.

“So… please, Atsumu. Let me stay,” Sakusa murmurs. “Let me start by taking care of you and then… we can try this your way. Please.”

He sounds scared, genuinely fearful that Atsumu will say no, and that alone breaks down the final resistance to which Atsumu’s been clinging. He lets his eyes fall shut, presses into Sakusa’s touch. A wet, shaking exhale is followed by another rush of tears. He’s still fragile, but for the first time in a long time these tears don’t feel pointless. They feel like the hurt beginning to drain away. 

Atsumu inhales, trying and failing to stop his voice from cracking, “Okay. Okay, Omi…. okay.”