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“What in the world are you doing?”
Keigo pauses, self-piercer in place, looking at himself intently in the mirror, but moving his gaze away to look at Endeavour-san, who’s standing in the door way to the bathroom, his massive body filling almost the entire doorway. During his extensive hospital stay, he’d had to go without his ear piercings because of all the scans they’d needed to take. It had been several months after the amount of damage from the fight, just over six months in hospital and another year as an out-patient. Over that time, his piercing holes closed back up.
“Um, piercing my ears,” Keigo answers. There’s still a slight rasp to his voice from all of the damage he took to his windpipe. The doctors have said it might be permanent, but Keigo thinks it makes him sound more masculine, so it’s fine.
Endeavour-san makes a face at him. “Not with that glorified hole punch you’re not.” He walks over, firmly snatching the piercer away. “I leave you alone for 20 minutes to go buy us some food and come back to find you trying to shatter your cartilage.”
“Huh? What would you know about ear piercing anyway, Endeavour-san?” Keigo splutters, finding himself growing unnecessarily defensive in the face of Endeavour’s disapproval.
Endeavour raises a brow at him. “Do you think I never had rebellious phase?”
Keigo’s heart ratchets in his chest, fluttering and clenching as he considers the idea of his idol, younger, maybe a teenager or young adult, with ear piercings of his own.
“Oh, really?” he breathes. “And you did it without a piercing gun?”
Endeavour-san snorts. “Unlike some impulsive young men I know, I did my research and did it properly. Give me 10 minutes. While you wait, decide where you want it and use alcohol to clean the area.”
He walks out of the bathroom and Keigo, shocked, does as he’s told, cleaning off his ear and marking the two holes on each ear with a pen, then he sits on the edge of the tub and waits until Endeavour-san returns with a small plastic box in-hand.
Inside, he has small pieces of cork, large needles of varying sizes, all in sterile packaging with gauges, and some alcohol wipes and gauze pads, as well as a few pairs of gloves.
“Where’s the jewelry you wanted to put in?” Endeavour-san asks. Keigo holds out the small gold studs which used to be in his ears, unable to fully hide his shock. Endeavour opens one of the alcohol wipes and cleans off the earrings before comparing them to a few of his needle gauges.
Then he hums and takes out a needle, flames flickering from his fingertip as he sterilizes the needle, holding a piece of cork on the back side of Keigo’s ear. “Breathe in,” he instructs. Keigo does as he’s told. “And out.” As Keigo exhales, he feels heat, then warm blood as the needle goes in, the earring following after.
“Good,” Endeavour-san says softly.
He gets a fresh needle, heating it with his quirk. “Breathe in.” Again, as Keigo exhales, the needle pierces his ear. Twice more, Enji does this, precise and easy until at last he leans back and says “Done. I assume you know how to care for them.”
“Yes, Endeavour-san,” Keigo answers, feeling a bit dazed. He can’t tell if it’s awe, or if it’s from the fact he just had four new holes jabbed into him.
Endeavour-san grunts, cupping his chin. “Stop looking at me with that starstruck look on your face,” he orders. Keigo can’t stop himself from grinning. Endeavour-san hates being reminded of how much Keigo admires him, adamant that he doesn’t deserve it. Outside of the bedroom, in any case.
Although, they’ve been together for years now but they’ve only managed to fall into bed together a handful of times, their schedules so busy and Endeavour-san so shy around public affection that they’re more like friends than anything else. Keigo still doesn’t hesitate to cup Endeavour-san’s pouting face and kiss him.
“Thank you,” he says softly, and Endeavour grunts at him, turning his head away in embarrassment, flustered to have been kissed. Keigo has no idea how he managed to make so many kids when he’s like this. Did he blush every time he asked Rei-san for sex?
Probably not. It was different between them. Keigo knows that. He knows that he’s lucky to get this Endeavour-san, and not the one who Rei-san married. Keigo knows that his idol isn’t exactly perfect, and maybe Keigo shouldn’t forgive him, but he really is trying his best.
“You’re still doing it,” Endeavour-san, nearly growling now. There’s flames licking at his face. Embarrassment, like many of Enji’s emotions, often manifests as anger because he has no idea how to deal with his own feelings. Even his sexual desire often manifests this way, resulting in some of their time alone involving abrupt, aggressive kissing.
“Mm,” Keigo agrees. He stands up and goes back over to the mirror, looking at his freshly-pierced ears, admiring the clean holes. Endeavour-san comes up behind him, his bigger body pressing up against Keigo’s own.
“How are you feeling? Is there any pain?”
Keigo sighs, meeting Endeavour-san’s eyes in the mirror. “Like I’ve said every morning for weeks now, Endeavour-san, I’m not in pain anymore. There’s more to recovering from injuries than just being in pain and not being in pain, you know.”
Endeavour scoffs. “For that to come from your mouth of all people,” he mutters.
Keigo grins. “You’re right” he agrees. “If my wings didn’t need to grow back, I’d be right back to it. Lucky thing I can’t even fly right now, huh?”
“That’s not how I’d put it,” Endeavour answers, big hands cupping Keigo’s hips, thumbs pressing into his lower back, fingers cupping the paunch of his belly. It used to be that they would lay together with Endeavour’s hands warming his belly, acting as a heating pad, until Keigo fell asleep against him, but it’s been a long time since Keigo’s needed to use the big fella like a heating pad. Due to internal bleeding, he’d been given an emergency hysterectomy almost five years ago.
Still, almost like it’s instinct, Enji’s hands warm against his skin, and Keigo’s eyelids flutter as he lets out a sigh.
“Do you think it’s weird that we don’t sleep together more often?” he asks.
Endeavour gives him a confused look. “We sleep in the same bed whenever we’re both home.”
Keigo laughs. “No, I mean sex. We live together, and we’ve been dating for… I don’t even know, and yet…”
“Do you want to sleep together more often?” Endeavour asks carefully, his fingertips dipping beneath the waistband of Keigo’s shorts.
“Hell no,” Keigo sighs. “I’m tired.”
Enji hides a smile in Keigo’s hair, kissing the side of his head. “Me, too.” Then, “Are you tired right now?”
Keigo grins, reaching back to grab one of Enji’s meaty thighs. “No,” he says. “You?”
“No,” Endeavour agrees. Keigo can’t help the peal of laughter that escapes him as Enji scoops him up off the floor, throwing him over his shoulder as he carries him off to bed.