The door didn't open so much as surrender. Toji's shoulder hit it first, the handle snapping back against the stop with a crack that rattled the little brass hinges, and then he was inside.

The apartment smelled like Christmas had thrown up in the best way. Cinnamon, clove, something orange simmering on the stove. Fairy lights blinked across the kitchen counter, gilding the cookie tray, the half-carved ham, the two mugs of mulled wine going cold because somebody had been waiting on somebody.

"Don't get up," he said, voice dry as the champagne nobody'd opened. "God forbid you strain something waiting around all day."

He shed the jacket one arm at a time, draping it over a chair like he owned the place, which, in every way that counted, he did. His eyes swept the kitchen, the table, {{user}} standing by the stove with a wooden spoon still in hand, and something in his chest did the ugly little twist it always did—one part guilt, nine parts ego.

Truth was, he'd forgotten. Entirely.

Lost track of the date somewhere between someone else's thighs and the third mission with Shiu, and then, the memory of this kitchen, this body, had ambushed him so hard he'd left his own damn pride halfways.

But he'd die before saying I missed you

"Why are you looking at me like that?" He crossed the room slow, unhurried, shoes marking wet prints on the tile. "You used to be fun... There was a time you couldn't keep your hands off me, {{user}}. Now I walk in and I get the silent treatment and—" he nodded at the stove "—whatever sad little recipe that is."

He closed the last of the distance without asking. His hands found their waist from behind—his palms were big. Warm even through fabric—and he felt the involuntary shiver run up their spine, felt the spoon clatter against the pot edge. He turned them, slow, backing them into the counter until the edge dug into the small of their back and the fairy lights haloed behind his head like he'd planned it, which maybe he had.

"Missed me?" he murmured, mock-sweet, dipping his head so his mouth hovered at their ear. "Don't answer. Your eyes already did."

His fingers went to work on their shirt, buttons popping free one by one—third one skittered under the fridge and he didn't care—until the fabric hung open and the warm lamplight painted their bare chest in gold. He hummed low in his throat, approved. His mouth grazed their earlobe, teeth catching it just hard enough.

"Sorry I was gone so long, baby," he said, and the apology came out like a joke because that was the only way he knew how to carry one. "It's been a nightmare. I spent a two-hour bath today thinking about—" his hands slid down, thumbs hooking into their waistband, dragging it down over one hip, then the other, slow enough to be cruel "—how you look bent over this exact counter."

"Or was it the table?" He glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen table, a candle burning down to a stub, a plate of cookies nobody had touched, too much stuff. He swept an arm across it—fork, candlestick and all. The cookie plate survived. Barely.

"I hope you haven't been waiting for someone else, we gonna be busy..."

Toji hoisted them up onto the cleared wood like they weighed nothing—one hand behind their thigh, the other splayed flat against their back, hauling them forward until their ass hit the table edge and their legs fell open around him without permission. He kissed them once, hard, all teeth and possession, then dragged a chair with his foot like a man settling in for a meal he'd been denied for month.

His fingers made quick, rough work of their lower clothing—pants dragged down their thighs, past the knees, pooled around their ankles with their underwear still caught in the bunch. He pushed their legs wider, palms sliding up the soft inside of their thighs, holding them open, pinning them to the table edge, and looked up at them from below with that infuriating, crooked grin.

"Merry Christmas to me," he said.

Then his mouth was on them. No warm-up, no mercy. He licked a long, flat stripe that made their whole body jolt and their hand fly to his hair, and he groaned against them—low, filthy, vibrating straight through. He worked them with slow, deep drags of his tongue, alternating lazy circles with sudden sharp sucks that pulled cracks and whimpers out of them, sounds he chased hungrily, doubling down every time their hips bucked.

"So good," he muttered into them, breath hot, lips slick. "Knew you missed me. Body never lies. Just the mouth."

Toji pinned their hips down when they arched, tongue plunging deeper, nose pressed tight, devouring with the same arrogant intensity he brought to everything.

The apartment went quiet around two in the morning, fairy lights still blinking their lazy red-and-gold blink, tree shedding needles in the corner like it was giving up on the holidays one at a time. Toji had hauled {{user}} to bed somewhere between the kitchen and round three—dropped them onto the mattress, kicked the door shut with his heel, and collapsed face-first into the pillow without a single romantic word.

He slept like the dead. He always did. But somewhere in the small hours his body found theirs in the dark, pure animal autopilot, arm dragging across their waist, chest gluing to their back, nose buried in their hair.

Six months of other ceilings and other beds and bodies and his brain filed it away in its sleepy, half-conscious way: skin. Warm. Oh. He made a low, contented sound against their shoulder, something almost gentle, and slept deeper than he had all year.

Morning came grey through the blinds, striped across the tangled sheets, across a bare hip, across the wreckage of two people who hadn't bothered with pajamas.

The air smelled like last night—candle smoke, pine, sex, the faint ghost of ham somebody should really refrigerate.

Toji woke before them. Rare. His eyes opened slow, taking inventory the way he did in unfamiliar terrain: warm room, cold floor, soft weight tucked against him, and—

Oh well.

Hard as a plank, aching, the kind of morning wood that came with opinions. His body pressed flush against {{user}}'s back, and the friction alone made his breath catch. He lay still for a second, opportunistic brain already fully online, plotting.

Toji shifted behind them, one big hand smoothing down their side, over the curve of their hip, positioning himself with the lazy patience of a man who'd waited out better targets than this. He nudged their thighs together with his knee, slid his cock into the tight, soft channel where their thighs met—not inside, just... the slick, hot squeeze of skin on skin—and groaned low into the back of their neck.

God, six months of nothing with them and this felt like coming home to a house he'd claimed he didn't want.

He started slow. Shallow rolls of his hips, dragging himself through that silky pressure, his thickness sliding against them, the head bumping free on every forward stroke only to bury itself again. His hand wandered while he moved—palm gliding up their stomach, over their ribs, fingertips finding a nipple and pinching, slow and mean, until it pebbled hard under his fingers. Then the other. His mouth found their ear and he bit the lobe, soft at first, then a sharper graze of teeth.

"Up, sleepyhead," Toji murmured, voice gravel-rough, dirty-soft against their ear. "Don't make me do all the work. Although—" a slow grind of his hips, cock throbbing between their thighs "—I'm not gonna lie, I could. You're warm as hell, {{user}}. Slept like a rock..."

His hand slid up, wrapped loose around their throat—not squeezing, just resting there, a claim, a weight. His thumb stroked their jaw.

"Merry Christmas, by the way. Belated. We're celebrating twice, you're welcome." Another roll of his hips, harder now, the head of his cock slipping through, friction building slick and filthy between their thighs. "You have any idea what you do to me at seven in the morning? Zero decency. Rude, honestly."

Toji pinched their nipple again, twisted gentle-cruel, and rocked against them with a low, hungry sound, his other arm banded tight across their chest, keeping them exactly where he wanted them—pinned, claimed, and about to be very, very awake.

Three weeks.

Twenty-one days of the strangest truce either of them had ever lived in. The apartment had settled into something almost domestic: mornings with coffee gone cold on the counter, nights with takeout containers stacked like modern art, and sex. God, so much sex. Good sex. Lazy noon sex, against-the-shower-glass sex, middle-of-a-movie sex that ended with the movie never finished.

Toji had folded into the routine like he'd been drafted into it, sponging off their groceries, them wearing his sweater because it was soft and theirs now apparently, eating their food, contributing exactly a decorative amount to the household.

It was, in his professional opinion, an ideal living arrangement.

Rent-free. Drama-light. Full board. Sucker.

The racetrack had become their weird little tradition in that span too. Toji's idea originally, framed as a date—according to him.

Toji bet big, bet smart, bet on longshots named things like Golden Thunder because it felt right in his gut, and lost. Every time. In fact, in all three outings, his personal record stood at a devastating zero for eleven, including one horse that simply sat down on the track.

So today—January, grey sky, cold enough that breath showed indoors near the windows—he was doing something unprecedented. Taking them to the track as a thank you.

The bathroom shower ran hot and endless, steam creeping out from under the door, and the muffled sound of them humming something off-key. Toji stood in the living room with his arms crossed, watching TV. Waiting.

Then their wallet happened.

It sat on the dresser, worn leather, fat with bills from the last track win, and Toji's eyes snagged on it the way his eyes snagged on everything of value—automatic, predator-quick, no deliberation involved. The shower was still going. He crossed the room in three quiet steps.

"Hey..." he muttered to himself, "Sounds like a pain to be in there."

His fingers slid out a fold of bills. Then another. Two thousand. Five thousand. Ten thousand, tucked into his pants pocket with the smooth, practiced efficiency of a man who'd been lifting things off countertops since before he could legally do it. Then his hand found the card slot, and he pulled the credit card out too—just to... have it, just for the track, just in case, just—

Suddenly, {{user}}'s voice stopped him.

Toji froze with the card halfway to his pocket, turned his head, and there they stood in the bathroom doorway, wrapped in a white robe, dripping, hair wet, towel between them and the crime scene. Water beaded on their collarbone. Steam curled around the doorframe behind them like a stage curtain.

He looked down at the card. Looked back up. And then—the grin. The full one, the crooked, professionally devastating one that had gotten him out of casino fights and hotel rooms.

"{{user}}," he said, leaning back against the dresser. "funny story."

He tossed the bills onto the dresser in a casual little cascade, like the whole thing had been a magic trick. "I was doing inventory. Very normal. Married couples do this constantly, I've read about it."

Toji crossed the room then, unhurried, dangerous, closing the distance with the kind of patient grace he saved for targets. His hands found the knot of their robe and tugged, slow, and the fabric loosened, sagging open over damp skin that smelled like their soap and heat from the shower. He slipped one hand inside, palm flat against their wet stomach, dragging up over the droplets, up their ribs.

"Listen," he murmured, mouth grazing {{user}}'s jaw, voice dropping into that low register that had a track record, "we've got time before the first race. Hot shower's still runnin'. Wet skin, warm room, actual setup here, and I—" his hand slid lower, fingertips tracing down their stomach, dipping between their thighs, smooth and confident, finding them and stroking slow, deliberate, shameless "—I am so sorry, and I have so many ways of showing it, and I was going to buy you that champagne you like with that card anyway, so technically—"

His fingers worked with practiced patience, curling just right, thumb circling, his other hand splaying across their lower back to keep them close, mouth at their ear murmuring softly. "Look at you, still warm from the shower. C'mon. Five minutes. I'll make it worth your while, I'll let you pick the horses, I won't even bet against you, baby, that's—"

{{user}}'s hand closed around his wrist. Firm. Stopping him cold.

Toji went still. And here was the thing—his face didn't twist into anger, didn't do the defensive snarl that most men would've reached for. Instead, something behind his eyes just... settled. Shifted gears. His mouth flattened into a thin, almost neutral line, and he looked at them the way he looked at a locked door he'd finally decided to pick instead of kick.

Alright. he thought, quiet and almost calm. Here we go. The talk.

He withdrew his hand slowly, reluctantly, and stepped back half a pace, hands loose at his sides, weight settling onto his heels. He glanced at the bills on the dresser, then back at them, and gave a small, humorless exhale through his nose—the closest thing to a confession a man like him could produce for free.

"Okay," he said, and his voice was flat now, honest in a way it almost never was. "Say your piece. I'm listening." He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, waiting, watching them like a man watching a fuse.