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If anyone ever asked, Ryuji would never be able to pinpoint when it first started.
One day he’s fighting seamlessly beside his friends, his team, and the next—
The next he can’t stop staring at Joker’s hands.
See, everyone has a tell in the Palaces. It’s like being inside someone’s cognition brings yours out to the forefront as well. Ryuji rocks, he knows he does, but every Palace has a rhythm, and if he starts moving out of time with it, it feels wrong. Queen shakes her hands loose after every fight, even if she hasn’t landed a physical hit. Fox spins his sword casually back and forth, flipping it between his fingers like it’s nothing but a chopstick. Panther twiddles her hair. Oracle scans, and scans, and scans.
Joker?
Joker plays with his gloves.
And once Ryuji notices, he can’t stop.
Dashing through a Palace from one hiding spot to another? Better take a moment to adjust his gloves. Just defeated an enemy? Gotta fix those gloves! Riding through Mementos in Mona? Ryuji’s sat next to him for hours and watched him fiddle with them, adjust the cuffs, smooth down the backs, rub his thumbs against his palms with the softest shushing noise.
It’s driving Ryuji out of his goddamn mind!
It’s a habit that hasn’t carried out into the real world, unlike some of the others—Ann fiddles with her ponytails whenever she’s uneasy, something that’s happened less and less since they’ve become Phantom Thieves, and Yusuke sometimes absentmindedly dances coins and chopsticks across his knuckles—but Akira himself has no tells that Ryuji’s seen.
He’s always so composed. Maybe that’s why Ryuji’s so focused on when he’s not?
Whatever it is, it’s becoming an effin’ problem, and one that Ryuji needs to fix fast. It’s weird, is what it is, there’s no reason he should be so fixated.
It’s throwing off his game, and he doesn’t know why!
It comes to a head one day in Mementos. It’s flu season, and Ryuji’s half-sure he’s coming down with something himself—he’s been woozy and aching all day, but hell if he’d back out of a Mementos trip and let the rest of the group down. He spends most of their travel time with his head pressed against one of Mona’s windows, watching the walls rush past in a dizzying blur.
Mementos is so twisty. There’s so much backtracking. It makes him kinda nauseous, and he’s never been motion-sick before. It’s like the walls throb just outside of his peripheral vision, fleshily.
He almost yelps when something touches his shoulder, twisting away fast enough to make his stomach roil again.
But it’s just Joker, looking at him all sympathetic, this wry little twist to his mouth. “Akzeriyyuth is pretty weird, isn’t it?” he asks in an undertone, low enough that the others can’t hear. “I feel like we’re inside an actual heart. All those growths look like veins. It’s disturbing.”
“Yeah,” Ryuji breathes, “yeah, that’s it exactly. I couldn’t put it into words.”
The twist turns into a brief, genuine smile. “Don’t look, then. Help me with these.” He holds out one red-gloved hand, full of bits of yarn and little metal clasps. “We’re almost out of lockpicks.”
But Ryuji’s barely any use. He spends most of his time watching Joker’s deft fingers as he works, his own share of junk lying uncrafted across his lap.
And something—some wicked voice deep inside—pulls up a thought of those fingers doing something much more interesting than crafting lockpicks.
Before he can do more than register the thought, Mona yowls a battlecry and slams face-first into an oncoming Shadow, and everything but the adrenaline of battle flies out the window.
Everything, that is, but the nagging thought of Joker’s hands in places Joker’s hands really have no business being.
Somehow, the others notice his distraction over the next few weeks. Ryuji’d thought he’d been doing okay—sure, sometimes he misses his dodges and gets knocked on his ass, but that happens to everyone! It’s not just cause he’s been distracted by the way Joker handles his dagger—and shit that’s not how that should be phrased—or by how fluid he is when he rips the masks off of shadows, or—whatever, it’s just….lack of sleep. Or distraction. Or whatever.
Excuses like that don’t fly with Ann, though; she corners him one day after school and all but drags him to her favorite diner, Ryuji grumbling all the way. He had plans for his pocket money!
But Ann is all but a force of nature when she’s determined. She practically drags him into the booth with her, tossing her bag into the corner with barely a glance. “What’s the matter with you?” she demands, brash and tactless, elbow on the table and chin in her hand.
“Wh—what’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you?!” Ryuji grunts back, slouching further down into the booth seat. “What’s your deal, yankin’ me all the way over here?”
“You’re going to get yourself hurt if you don’t concentrate more,” Ann tells him, the words pinning him to the back of his seat. “You can’t keep spacing off in Mementos! I barely knocked you out of the way in time earlier. Just because we’re not in someone’s actual palace doesn’t mean you get to slack off!”
“Nothin’s wrong,” he grumbles, unable to escape her prying gaze. He drops his own to his glass of the awful fruit tea she orders for him whenever they come here—seriously, it’s almost as bad as Akira’s coffee, and that’s saying something. The beads of condensation on the outside drip down the glass agonizingly slowly as he bites his lip, as Ann taps her fingernails on the table.
“Spit it out, Ryuji,” Ann says, leaning in. “I know that emotionally constipated look on your face. Ryuji Sakamoto is having feelings, isn’t he? Who is she?”
What is it about girls, anyway?! How the hell do they manage to get right into your sensitive bits and squeeze?!
He doesn’t know what sort of expression he’s making, but whatever it is makes Ann lean back and look all satisfied. “Thought so. Who is he, then?”
“Shut up!” Ryuji hisses immediately, pulling his awful tea closer, as if somehow he can make a barrier between the two of them. “There’s no she, there’s no he—“
“You’re full of bullshit,” she says, but kindly. “You’re not subtle, Ryuji. You’ve been staring at Akira every time the two of you so much as pass each other. School, Mementos, at the hideouts—I half thought the two of you were already dating.”
“We’re not—he’s my bro!” Ryuji sputters. “I don’t—“
“You know none of us care, right?” Ann’s grinning at him all smug, and Ryuji’s face feels like it might be warm enough to make his hair catch on fire. “We all look. But you stare. And honestly, if the two of you getting together gets you out of this slump you’re in—“
“Look, there’s no staring, there’s no together, I just—“
“Ryuji—“
“I can’t stop thinkin’ bout his effin’ gloves!” Ryuji all but bawls, and Ann’s jaw drops.
And then she laughs.
Ryuji slaps his hand over his face and gets up to pay the bill.
Ann: Wait, no, don’t leave!
Ryuji: already @ the station leave me alone
Ann: Ryuji, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to laugh that much! It’s just—his gloves?!
Ryuji: have you seen him fiddling w the damn things???
Ryuji: hes always TOUCHING STUFF
Ann: That’s what you do when you’re a thief, Ryuji.
Ann: You touch stuff. And then take it.
Ryuji: yea but
Ryuji: he does it so much
Ryuji: have u not seen him tryin to unlock a chest before
Ryuji: its real fiddly work n he just
Ann: Are you saying you like his hands, Ryuji?
Ryuji: shut up
Ann: That’s adorable.
Ryuji: u dont get it
Ann: I get that you’re probably thinking gross things about his hands.
Ryuji: NO
Ann: “Ooh Akira, your hands are so deft and beautiful!”
Ryuji: STOP
Ann: You’re right, that’s more of a Yusuke thing.
Ann: You’d be more like “ay bby nice hands wanna see what u can do w em??”
Ryuji: I DONT SOUND LIKE THAT
Ryuji: AND ID NEVER SAY THAT TO HIM
Ann: Well maybe you should!
Ann: Akira’s an open-minded guy.
Ryuji: this convo is DONE
Ann: It’s not just his hands though, is it?
Ann: His eyes, too.
Ann: You know the glasses he wears are fake, right?
Ryuji: yea i wore em once
Ryuji: theyre just glass
Ryuji: kinda weird but whatevs
Ryuji: s not the eyes
Ryuji: he’s just
Ryuji: ugh
Ann: Nice, right?
Ann: He listens. He understands.
Ryuji: he was on my side from the first day we met
Ryuji: stood up for me
Ryuji: didn’t let what everyone else was sayin get to him
Ann: Yeah.
Ann: And his ass is kinda fantastic.
Ryuji: IM NEVER TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING SERIOUS WITH YOU EVER AGAIN
Late that night while he’s huddled in bed glaring at the ceiling (not sulking, whatever Ann might’ve texted him, he doesn’t sulk) his phone vibrates.
He ignores it. He’s not in the mood to listen to Ann laugh at him some more. Girls’re too nosy for their own good.
But then it vibrates again.
And again.
He rolls over with a growl and snatches it off the floor, ready to tell them just what he thinks of their advice.
Akira: Just wanted to check up on you. Make sure you’re okay.
Akira: That hit you took yesterday was pretty rough.
Akira: Ryuji. Stop avoiding your phone and answer me.
He huffs. Just like Akira to know what he’s doing.
Ryuji: well maybe i was sleepin
Akira: You weren’t.
Ryuji: yeah ur right
Ryuji: u know me too well
Akira: Not as much as I’d like.
What?
Akira: You’ve gotten sloppy. Something’s wrong.
Akira: Will you talk to me about it?
Ryuji hisses and rolls over onto his side, curling up almost into a ball. Like that’ll help him keep his vulnerabilities tucked away or something. “Jeez, Akira,” he mumbles, pressing a palm into his eyes. “Go right for the heart of things, why don’tcha?”
But that’s what Akira does. And once he’s onto something, he never rests until it’s through.
Ryuji: ugh
Akira: I see. That’s fascinating.
Ryuji: uuuuugh
Ryuji: dont do that, u sound like yusuke
Akira: Ha.
Ryuji: idk man its just
Ryuji: mementos really drags me down sometimes yknow
Ryuji: the lower we go the creepier it is
Ryuji: just makes me think a lot sometimes too
Ryuji: if i hadnt met you
Ryuji: if i hadnt gotten a persona
Ryuji: would my shadow be down there?
Ryuji: would you guys be comin after me?
Ryuji: n between that n waitin for whatevers next
Ryuji: everyone has all these high hopes for us
Ryuji: everyone on the phansites out for blood it feels like
Ryuji: an everyones always comin to u for things 2 man
Ryuji: idk how you stay so calm
Akira: It’s a lot of pressure.
Ryuji: i miss how things were at the start sometimes
Ryuji: just u, me, ann, n mona goin after kamoshida
Ryuji: things were simpler then
Ryuji: sorry, thats kinda dumb
Akira: I know. I feel the same.
Akira: I couldn’t do it without you.
Akira: How about this. Come to Mementos tomorrow, just you and me. We’ll stay in the upper levels, work on our baton passes.
Akira: I know it’s not quite a break, but I don’t want to go jogging in the rain, and I’m too pent up for the gym.
Akira: And it’s been a while since we’ve been able to hang out, just the two of us.
Akira: What do you say?
Akira: Ryuji? You didn’t fall asleep, did you?
Ryuji: nah bathroom break
Ryuji: sounds great, meet u there
“Great,” he groans, and shoves his phone under his pillow. “Just great.” Just what he needs. Him and Akira, Skull and Joker, and those gloves. All afternoon. All alone.
He’s weak enough that he’d never say no.
Which is how he ends up trailing Joker through skirmish after skirmish, trading blows and enemies until the grin on Joker’s face is burned into the back of his eyes, and the only thing that runs through his mind is we work so good together, we’re so good together, we’re untouchable.
Shadow after Shadow, Joker slaps the baton into Ryuji’s hand, boosting his mood and his morale, making his attacks hit harder and his dodges more fluid. Shadow after Shadow they beat up, knock down, hold up, plow through, until Ryuji’s chest burns with exertion, his legs like jelly, sweat curling the hair at the nape of his neck.
Joker looks unruffled, scooping up the remains of the last battle. Joker always looks unruffled, and Ryuji honestly thinks he’s over himself—
--until Joker meets his eyes and, while he’s pocketing their spoils with one hand, uses his teeth to readjust the glove on the other.
It’s like—catnip, or drugs, or something, the way Ryuji’s eyes can’t help but zero into the motion, the way the blood rises to his cheeks almost immediately, helplessly, and he’s frozen for a moment that feels like it stretches into eternity.
Joker’s still staring at him, his teeth still clamped on the edge of the glove so delicately, and he can’t tell what’s going through his mind with the mask covering his face, and Ryuji prays to any god that can hear him that the same will work for him.
Joker drops his arm.
Joker takes a step forward.
Ryuji takes a step back, and oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck, he’s hard.
Joker moves like he’s prowling, like one of those big cats in the zoos, tall and lithe, every step so deliberate, and Ryuji only realizes he’s trapped against the wall when his back hits it. “Dude,” he says, swallowing. His mouth is so dry. He’s breathing so shallowly. Joker won’t stop moving, he’s five feet away, four, three, two—
“Ryuji,” he says, and that voice.
How has he never noticed—well, of course he’s heard Akira talk before, heard Joker give orders, but has he ever really noticed how smooth it is, like the black velvet shawl his mom used to have, and if there’s ever a time not to be thinking of his mom now is it. Joker’s mouth is tilted up in something not quite his usual grins, there’s something tentative about it even as he steps way into Ryuji’s personal space, even as Ryuji all but flattens himself against the wall.
He’s not trying to get away. He has clear exits to the side. He’d just—just have to push Joker aside, that’s all.
But then Joker says “Ryuji,” more insistently, and takes Ryuji’s chin in his hand, tips his face up to meet his eyes. There’s something dark there, but something warm too, and the feel of leather on his skin is nothing short of sinful.
He really fucking hopes his mask is hiding most of his blush. What he wouldn’t give for Yusuke’s stupid looking fox mask right now.
Ryuji swallows, tries to clear his throat. “Wh-what,” he says, trying for nonchalant and ending up defensive.
The grin on Joker’s face mutates, grows both fond and wicked at once. “You’ve been staring at my hands this whole time. My eyes are up here.”
His thumb slips down Ryuji’s cheek to the corner of his mouth, and Ryuji’s cock throbs in his suddenly way-too-tight pants. “I know that,” he mumbles, feeling the silky slide of the leather with every motion. “Just—just tryin’ to keep track of where they are. So I don’t miss another pass.”
“Mm-hmm.” Joker’s thumb strokes back up his cheek, the fingers under his chin holding him steady. “Ann’s been telling me some pretty wild stories lately.”
“Has she?” Ryuji asks, distracted, before the words sink in. “I- I mean—whatever she says is a lie, she’s a liar and you shouldn’t listen to anythin’ that comes outta her mouth—“
“I don’t know about that.” Joker’s voice is dark and satisfied as he steps even closer, eliminating most of the gap between them. Ryuji feels the tail of Joker’s coat brush against his calf and swallows, keeping his eyes firmly fixed over Joker’s shoulder. “I thought what she was telling me was pretty interesting.”
Don’t look down, don’t move forward, don’t look down—
“A-and what was that?” Ryuji asks weakly. He can’t do anything else. Joker’s gaze has him pinned, a bug on a bulletin board. His eyes drop to Joker’s lips as they curve up into that grin, the one that pops up when they’ve torn through a flurry of opponents like a hot knife through butter.
“She told me,” and Joker leans in, and his gloved hand slips down Ryuji’s neck until it hits the neckerchief of his costume, “that you’ve— grown fond of my gloves.”
Fuck.
There’s no way he’s getting outta here alive.
“What’s not to like? They’re nice gloves.” He tries for casual but misses by miles, though that could be because Joker’s untying his neckerchief, discarding it on the floor. “What are you doin’—“
One red-gloved finger comes up to press against his lips. “Seeing if we can work our way through your distraction.”
“Whaddaya mean by—“ It’s two fingers now, pressing harder, shutting him up straight. Joker’s other hand strokes over his throat, feather-light and slick.
“Makoto gave me some tips.” Joker’s eyes flick up to Ryuji, his smirk widening like he’s enjoying this, the bastard. “About desensitization. We expose you to them enough, it should make your, ah, reactions easier for you to control.”
He moves forward those last few inches, his knee slips between Ryuji’s thighs, and every dirty fantasy Ryuji’s ever frantically suppressed comes barreling into his mind like one of Mementos’ subway trams to hell.
He doesn’t have words. All his words are gone. He’s never been good with ‘em, but he’s usually had some to spare. Not anymore. Not with Joker’s hands sliding down his chest, and not with Joker’s thigh between his legs, and not with the shark-toothed grin he can’t take his eyes off.
He can’t look down. If he looks down he’s gonna embarrass himself a hell of a lot more than he already is. “Joker,” he says hoarsely. “Akira. Why—“
“Why not?” Joker asks, and grinds his palm down onto Ryuji’s crotch. He all but whimpers, shoving himself into the wall to hold himself up. “You know you’re my best friend. I can’t let you get killed down here because you’re fantasizing about my gloves.”
“N-not just the gloves, bro,” he hisses, because in for a yen, in for a thousand, he guesses. Joker stills for a half second, then presses down on him again, his fingers trailing up his length, and Ryuji swallows his moan and squeezes his eyes shut. “Wish it was. Would be easier. Gloves’re just gloves. Wouldn’t be the same if, like, Yusuke were wearin’ em.”
Ohhh man. Oh man. He said it. He said it out loud, and Joker’s hand is still rubbing him, his thigh steady between his legs, balancing him, bracing him, just like always. He’s silent though, silent enough that Ryuji finally cracks an eye open to peek at him.
And, fuck him, Joker’s blushing. Akira is blushing. “Is that so?” he asks, and if Ryuji didn’t know him so well he’d have missed the hitch in his voice. “I think you should tell me just what else we may need to work on.”
And his fingers unsnap the button on Ryuji’s pants and slide the zipper down, the noise like a gunshot between them.
Ryuji can’t help his moan then, and Joker sucks in a sharp breath, the very first sign of his discomposure. “Shit,” he hisses, and then again when Joker touches him glove-to-skin for the first time. It feels better than he ever thought it would, cool and slick and slippery as Joker rubs a single finger across the head of his cock. “Akira. Akira, I—“
“It’s okay.” His voice is so low, so close, Ryuji can feel his breath on his ear as he presses closer. “Tell me. Talk to me. It’s okay.” He takes Ryuji fully in hand, gives him one slow stroke, and Ryuji sorta feels like he’s about to die right then and there.
It’s so much. It’s almost too much, the rough wall behind him and Joker warm and solid in front of him and Joker’s hand on his cock—
“Ryuji,” Joker says again. “It’s okay. I promise.”
“Okay,” Ryuji manages to get out, squeezing his eyes shut as Joker squeezes him. “Okay. I—ah. Idunno. I don’t know. Okay. It’s just—you. Just you. All of you. You ‘n your stupid—hair. Your face. Your—god, Akira—your eyes, why do they have to be so effin’—god, it’s not just that, it’s you, it’s all of you, you’re so—I’m not—I’ve never—with a guy, ever, but you—you know me, you get me, you trust me ‘n believe in me ‘n you’ve always got my back—“
“Yeah, I do.” Ryuji looks at him at that, and Joker’s staring right back at him, deadly serious as his thumb strokes almost tenderly at the head of his cock. “I’ve always got you. No matter what.”
“See?!” He all but yelps as Joker’s hand starts moving faster. “See that? That’s why, that’s it, right there—Akira, please—that’s what I mean, you just, I know where I stand with you, you’re my bro, you’re my best friend, god, fuck, but you do that thing with your gloves and your mouth, a dude has limits—“
Joker lets out a puff of air next to his ear, sorta a sigh and sorta—Ryuji doesn’t know what, but it jolts him right down to his bones, makes him catch his own breath, hold it down, try to—
“Ryuji,” Akira murmurs and twists his wrist just right, and Ryuji comes like a trainwreck.
He literally sees stars, his whole body tensing, rocking back on his heels, making Akira scramble to shove his shoulders back into the wall as he slams his arm up over his mouth to muffle his groan. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before, alone and rushed in his bedroom with nothing but his own hand and a couple of filched nudie mags. Joker’s still stroking him through the aftershocks slick and easy, his breath hitching in Ryuji’s ear, arm warm round his shoulders. “Fuck,” he breathes, weak-kneed, and gives into the urge to slide down the wall.
Akira follows him down, helps him not just land flat on his ass as Ryuji tilts his head against the stone wall and pants. There’s still shocks zinging through him every time he breathes, and he’s pretty sure he’s shaking. Akira does something, slides his hand against him once more, root to tip, then tucks him away neatly back into his pants.
When he looks up, Akira is balling up one of his gloves inside the other and tossing them down the subway tracks.
“Dude,” he says, mortified. “Your gloves—“
Akira shrugs, scrubbing his bare hands through his hair. Ryuji follows the motion helplessly, unable to look away. “They’ll come back next time.”
“No, but, will they still be there?!”
Akira’s jaw drops open the tiniest bit as he glances back down the tracks, where the ball of red leather is barely visible. “No,” he says, though he sounds uncertain. “Nothing’s ever the same in Mementos when you leave.”
“Ain’t that true,” Ryuji mutters to himself, and Akira cracks a grin and settles down beside him. It takes every ounce of willpower Ryuji has not to look over, but he manages to keep his eyes fixed forward. “Akira—“
“Afterglow done already?” Akira asks faux-innocently, and chuckles when Ryuji’s shoulder slams into his.
“Shuddup. For real, man.” It’s awkward, but he has to know. “…Why?”
Akira always knows what he’s talking about, no matter how vague Ryuji is. “Does it matter?”
“Uh, yeah?!”
“Mmm.” He hesitates. “You said—“
“Y’don’t have to repeat it,” Ryuji says immediately, dropping his face into his palms with a groan. Of course he’d remember all that. This is what he gets for running his mouth.
“Well, that’s why. Because you’re my best friend too.”
“Best friends don’t usually jack each other off, bro,” Ryuji says in a thin, wobbly voice, and Akira laughs so hard he almost falls over.
“Best friends don’t usually get hard-ons for each other’s hands either,” he says, gently mocking, “but here we are.”
“Yeah,” Ryuji agrees, though he doesn’t know to what. Maybe everything. All of this. Joker’s—Akira is better at putting this sorta stuff into words anyway. “Look—“
“You don’t have to say anything, Ryuji,” Akira tells him, voice gentle. “It happened. Hopefully it helped. That’s all there is to it.”
“Bullshit.” Ryuji knocks him again with his shoulder. “We both know it’s not.”
“Fine,” Akira concedes, then looks down and away. “I wouldn’t mind if it happened again.”
Ryuji sputters. It’s such an Akira thing to do, just throw everything out into the open like that with no warning.
“If you don’t want it to—“
“I never said that,” he says, much too quickly. His face burns bright red again when Akira glances at him. “But… shit, man, what about you?”
Akira hesitates for a second and then shrugs. “I’m good. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to, Ryuji. That’s not what this was about.”
“Okay, well,” Ryuji wets his lips, then bites one. “I would. If it’s you.”
The more he thinks about it, the more the idea sits well with him. It’s Akira. The dude’s already had his hands down Ryuji’s pants, it’s not like they can get much more homo than that. And it’s not like he hasn’t already been fantasizing about Akira, either, it’d just be turning the tables around so he’s in control.
He likes that thought. He kinda wants to see what it’d be like to have Akira lose himself like that.
They don’t talk after that, though Ryuji catches another hint of a blush on Akira’s face as he pulls him upright. They just meander back towards the entrance of Mementos, side by side, brushing shoulders every now and then.