#'Ingo is my big brother and therefore I am going to kiss him directly on the mouth' HSMDLJXKSJXKDKSND

[feroluce]

want you to, want you, too

Blankshipping <1k; getting together featuring a big fat scoop of Ingo's Catholic Guilt and Nii-san Complex uwu

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When Emmet forces his way to Hisui, fueled by a determination that could override every karmic force in the universe, Ingo thinks nothing of his immediate attempts to get him alone.

His memories are still vague, but they're stronger now than ever, jolted and jogged, jostled about by the reappearance of the one person he'd remembered before anyone else. Ingo understands; all he wants is to stay close, spend every waking moment basking and soaking up his brother's presence. He'd missed him before he even knew him, deeply and intensely missed him, enough to hurt, enough to leave an empty ache.

Ingo had been content with the Pearl Clan in Hisui, but it had never quite felt like home. It does now.

As early as the first day after his fated Fall, Emmet fixes him with an odd look and says he has something he needs to tell him. Something important. Emmet is strangely serious as he says it, deathly so. Ingo finds himself standing straighter. 

"While we were apart, I realized something. I-" A pause, something akin to regret in his briefly hollowed eyes and his stitched-on smile. "Well, ok, no. I knew it before then. I've known it for a verrrry long time. I just didn't act on it." Ingo wants to ask; Emmet is rarely hesitant to act- whip-smart and sharp as a tack, once he's decided something needs to be done, he figures out how to do it as efficiently as possible. For him to be so overly cautious, it must be a truly tricky and delicate matter. But he doesn't dare interrupt now. 

"But I did not chase you across continents-" Emmet's eyes light up again, blazing now, bonfire-bright "-across centuries-" something rumbles within Ingo, like an early warning, moving as a phantom sensation beneath the balls of his feet, as though the world were about to shift, "-just to not take advantage of a second chance."

Ingo is suddenly painfully aware of his own body, of the curl of his knuckles, the bite of his nails in the flesh of his palms, a twitch in his legs and an itch in his throat. His head has forgotten, memories smeared and leaking out like a bird's egg dropped on a rock, but much still lives on in his heart, some beacon is in his center, at his core, sending out signal after signal, a rapid-fire jumble of SOS and morse code that Ingo can't decipher.

There is something happening here, something only his heart and his brother (between which there is only a small difference, he'll admit) are privy to, Emmet's voice a chorus of trumpets, a declaration of war, and Ingo's brain is scrambling to form some response. There is a niggling feeling somewhere within him, in a secret place cordoned off by chain and padlock, that all of this was a long time coming. That this is a long-at-sea ship finally docking, this is all of his chickens and bad decisions and "I'll reflect on these thoughts later"s come home to roost.

Emmet steps closer. The door is right behind Ingo, tauntingly unlocked and beckoning, he could so easily leave if he wanted to. Emmet never does things accidentally. He's given Ingo an escape route. Emmet takes another step, slow, watching and observing with his quicksilver eyes, giving every opportunity to turn and run. Like he's dealing with a skittish creature.

Ingo should escape.

Ingo does not want to escape.

Emmet is right in front of him now and he leans in so close that Ingo can't see anything else, loses view of the rest of the world around them. When he stops, it's at a lethal, point-blank range.

"Don't just let me do this to you, ok? Don't let me unless you want me to." He shouldn't. There is still that twitch in his limbs, those loud wordless pings of alarm in his heart that urge him to retreat, that tell him staying here is going to damn them both. Because his younger brother is making the worst mistake of his life, and Ingo is doing nothing to stop him. But Emmet's breath mixing with his own between them is a rallying cry, the close warmth of his body a call to action, the press of his lips against Ingo's a battle hymn.

Emmet kisses him, and Ingo horribly, selfishly, wants him to do it again.

The long, bitter civil war is over in a flash, he's won and he's lost. The side of him that had struggled to resist, that had held strong and weathered for years and years as it tried to be the model older brother Emmet deserved, finally succumbs and is trampled in the trenches by the incoming cavalry, stormed and seized by the parts of him that love Emmet in all the ways that he shouldn't.

"-san. Ingo-niisan." Hands cupping his face bring him out of the gunsmoke and fog. "Tell me if you don't want this, too."

Ingo stands atop a bloody battlefield of corpses, both conqueror and vanquished. He feels like he's won, a thrilling victorious high stronger than any challenger has ever given him. The loss is immeasurable.

"...I'm terrible," Ingo whispers.

His brother begins an attempt to console him because he's too kind, too forgiving, he always is when it's just the two of them. But he's cut short when Ingo grabs him, crushes them together and gorges himself, gluttonous and greedy, swallowing the rest of Emmet's sounds to hoard them for himself.

Emmet's smile widens against his lips, his arms coming up to hold on to Ingo like some sought-after, fought-for prize, as though he were the Spoils of War, kiss tasting like a bloodsoaked victory.