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“Shinji, I love you,” is what Kaworu’s favorite saying seemed to be.
Especially, though, when his excited thighs fit snugly around Shinji’s hips; when Shinji had Kaworu’s skin underneath his hands and his collarbone between his teeth, when Kaworu’s head was too heavy with lust to form a sentence he didn’t already know so, so well--
“Shinji- Shinji, I love you- ah!” He forces the back of his head into the pillow as Shinji grinds his hips forward perfectly.
“I know-” Shinji breathes against his kiss-bruised neck, his trembling hands rubbing down Kaworu’s sides. He knows, and its a mix of giddiness and disbelief that fills his chest every time he hears those words leave his lips.
Throaty re-confessions, “I love you, I- I love you-” He makes small, sloppy movements with his hips, the sound of lube and sweaty skin sticking to them with every part of their rhythm leaves a buzz in his bones.
Shinji swallows a hard moan as Kaworu haphazardly tries to fuck himself with Shinji’s cock, crawling forward and whispering “You said that,” on parted lips before taking them in his mouth.
The shift pushes more pressure between his legs, inside him- “Love… ah, hah, Shinji…” he sobs into the desperate kisses Shinji gifts him. Kaworu rips his hands from the sheets and clings to Shinji instead, an insatiable desire to be closer.
“Kaworu…” The name of his lover tastes holy on his undeserving tongue. Shinji raises himself above him just to drink in the sight of his overheated skin- silvery hair splayed across the pillow, cardinal eyes drunk on sex and love and completely undone. Heaving chest, shaking breath on the exhale, the bedside lamp lights his dampened, pale body. Despite his wrecked state, Kaworu manages a soft smile to acknowledge Shinji’s staring. Fear unfurls somewhere in Shinji when he imagines putting hands around Kaworu’s neck, or biting him until he bleeds. He’s almost certain Kaworu would allow him to mark up his body in such appalling ways. Stop it, Shinji reprimands himself with disgust. I don’t want to hurt him. Let me be gentle. Please.
Shinji traces his fingers up his chest, almost cautiously, brushing passed his neck and landing on the side of his face where he smooths his thumb over a teary cheekbone. Kaworu shuts his eyes, makes a pitiful whimpering noise and nuzzles his cheek into Shinji’s palm. The limbs wrapped around Shinji squeeze a little tighter as he combs stray bangs out of Kaworu’s face and kisses his cheek, searching for some wordless way to say ‘I love you, too.’ He’d said it before, a few sparse times sprinkled throughout their history. Shouldn’t it have gotten easier after each time? After every kiss, after being this close? Shinji feels the words stir in his chest enough to distract him from the sex.
“I… um..” He starts despite his innate reluctance. Kaworu perks towards him and their noses brush- their gaze connects and Shinji drowns in Kaworu’s utmost attention.
“Hm..?” Red eyes curiously search ones that look like oceans. Kaworu drags his hands off Shinji’s back and sweeps them over his lover’s blushed cheeks with that gentle touch he always has. He would wait patiently, forever for Shinji to speak if he could keep looking at him like this.
Shinji’s resolve cracks and he turns what would’ve been a frustrated sigh into another sweet kiss on Kaworu’s lips, who happily keeps holding Shinji’s face to deepen it. Shinji’s hands message the soft body underneath him, pressing on his chest, his ribs, his belly. A few of his fingers trace the path of hair that lead to the base of Kaworu’s cock- enclosing the hot leaking tip in his hand forces Kaworu to gasp out of the kiss and arc his back.
“Is that… I’m… I’m making you feel good, right?” He huffs right below Kaworu’s ear as he starts slapping their hips together again. Shinji pretends this is what he was going to say to begin with, and that the failure to say something else wasn’t hurting him.
Every thrust deems Kaworu more incoherent than the last and he’s choking and yelping and weaving Shinji’s name repeatedly into half-answers, “Yes!” and “So good!” and “Please! Harder!”
Shinji uprights himself to angle further into Kaworu who scream-sobs into the pillow. He keeps a hand pumping his cock, thumbing over the tip, touching all his sweet spots; the other hand is comforting his hip with small grabs and rubs. “Kaworu, Kaworu…” Shinji pants his name because he’s too beautiful and he has to let him know somehow. “Y-y-you’re so pretty, god…”
“Shinji… I’m gonna…” Kaworu spluttered through the sighs.
“M-me too.”
“Shinji, I love you.” It sounds like begging, “Shinji, do it inside me. Please. I’m yours.”
The desperation of his words has Shinji climaxing seconds after, slamming his dick as far into Kaworu as it will go and moaning his name as he fills him. At the feeling of Shinji’s release Kaworu hits his own high and messily bucks up into Shinji’s hand, coming all over both of them while Shinji fucks him through it.
The world is suddenly quiet except for their rapid breaths that slowly even out in the few minutes they take to rest. Kaworu is trembling, Shinji can feel it in the man’s legs as they begin to collapse from around him- Shinji hugs one of those beloved legs to his body and softly kisses his knee. He shifts to disconnect his hips from his lover’s with a small, wet sound, and Kaworu gives him a tired whine that he answers with a string of apologetic kisses on his thigh.
“It was good?” He questions into the skin before coming up to lay beside him. Everything smells like sweat. “You’re okay?”
Kaworu gets these sorts of questions every time they do this. His voice is low but the tone is intimate as he lifts his hand to touch Shinji’s arm. “More than good. More than okay. You brighten my world, Shinji Ikari.” His smile is peaceful. “Thank you.”
“I- I… Kaworu...” His boyfriend’s sincere intimacy always costs Shinji a little bit of his dignity, he thinks as he stutters. He feels the blush in his cheeks start to rise again and the feelings he betrayed before come seething out as tears. Not sure what else do to with himself, he puts a hand on Kaworu’s shoulder but looks into the mattress miserably.
“Oh, love…” Kaworu rushes to wipe his tears and sweet talk him like a child, “I’m here. Has it all been too much? I’m sorry.”
"N-no Kaworu, I…. You’re just…” Shinji’s voice wavers and he cries while he speaks, “You’re such a- a good person and handsome and- and nice- and you’re here and I’m here and I…” Love you. I love you. “Fuck.”
“Shinji…” Kaworu cooed his name. He takes the hand that’s not on his shoulder, kisses it, and holds it in both his own. “You’re so lovely to me. You have a lot of love in your heart, Shinji. It makes me happy, too.”
Shinji just shakes his head into the pillow. “I don’t feel like it, you say you love me all the time, and- and most of the time I can’t even say it back. I’m awful.”
“That’s not true, Shinji. You always say it back.”
Confusion lifted his otherwise teary expression. “No?”
“Your unaware?” Kaworu pulls himself closer, “I say I love you. You make us dinner. You kiss me. You worry over me. You miss me when I’m not home. I certainly feel loved by you, Shinji. Were these not your way of telling me?”
Shinji finally looks at him, a finicky sort of eye contact. “No! I- I mean, I…” He brings his other hand off Kaworu’s shoulder and sets it atop the hand pile, fidgeting with Kaworu’s fingers while he digests the new concept. “I never thought of it like that, it’s just that I care… a lot about you. You make me feel safe and I want you to feel safe too, Kaworu.”
They're touching noses now, and Kaworu’s whisper is proud and confident. “I’ve never felt safer.”
Those words infect Shinji like something good. Something scary, and good. He’s not sure why he’s crying anymore but he puts his trust in Kaworu and kisses him- soft and slow on the mouth, then tilting his face to press his lips against his forehead. Shinji lingers there, giving him a couple more pecks until he hears a satisfied hum, and Kaworu unlaces their fingers to pull himself under Shinji’s chin. Shinji graciously accepts him by squeezing them together with his arms while Kaworu nestles comfortably into his chest. Its only when he registers the tackiness of their skin that he remembers something important.
“-Oh! We never cleaned up!”
“We can take a bath after we’re done embracing.” Kaworu answers like everything in the world is simple. Most of the time, he’s right.
Shinji speaks into his hair, worrying over him. “You’re sure? You’re not all… sticky?”
Kaworu just gives a breathy chuckle, going over Shinji’s waist with his hand. “I am, but I desire to rest and be close to you more than anything else right now. Is that okay?”
Shinji feels warm from Kaworu’s words again. I want to be close to you too. “Oh...kay. Of course. Sorry. And sorry I started crying right after… you know… that was weird.”
Kaworu unfolds himself from Shinji just to be face to face when he says, sweetly, “Not at all.”
They resettle, pulling over tangled blankets and fitting into each other’s bodies. Everything is quiet again.
He’s not sure how long it’s been, but Kaworu is limp against his body, cheek pressed into Shinji’s collarbone and breath tickling his skin. The lamp is still on, but there’s no more light behind the curtains of their modest room.
“Kaworu..?” He asks so softly, just to see.
There’s no answer. He lets his own body relax. He almost falls asleep, but his heart skips a beat thinking about the man in his arms and it’s frightening to be this comfortable. Will someone get hurt, eventually? Inevitably? Is it worth it to love briefly as long as they’ve loved at all? Shinji doesn’t think he can take another heartbreak.
Despite it, he re-admits something out loud, to no one but himself and sleeping ears.
“I love you. So much.”