J&A: To Live Forever

[aegistheia]

Title: To Live Forever
Rating: PG
Genre: General
Word Count: ~1000
Warnings: None.
Also Archived On: Livejournal; Archive of Our Own.
Summary: Arashi concerts are always more spectacular with wings and sparkles. Apologies to J. M. Barrie.
Series: Part of the Winged AU.
A.N.: Another good-luck fic for their upcoming tour to be successful!

Jun shakes the bottle and makes one last spray. “Done. Nino, you want any?”

“Nah. I don’t shed much.”

“I’m envious.”

“It just means your wings can take more damage,” Nino says, gingerly edging past a streak of tape some unwise stagehand had set up around the costumes.

“Yes, well, at the cost of leaving glittering scales everywhere.”

“That just means you’re our Marvellous Matsumoto,” Nino points out, and Jun can’t help grinning until Nino adds, “like a fairy. Hey, like Tinkerbell!”

“Are you calling me small and girly—”

“I’m calling you fabulous!”

“You called me a chick in a mini-dress!”

“I’ll be Peter Pan,” Ohno volunteers, head still stuck in his shirt. “And Nino can be my Lost Boy minion.”

“Me,” Nino scoffs, “a minion—”

“I’m the crocodile!” Aiba bellows from around his makeup chair across the room.

“Please don’t imitate the crocodile now, Aiba-san,” says his makeup artist, though she sounds like she’s laughing, “you’ll upset the powder all over yourself.”

“I can be very careful about what I eat,” Aiba reassures her.

Sho reaches over and yanks Ohno’s shirt down. Ohno’s head pops into sight in a fluff of hair. “Yeah, the casting sounds about perfect.”

“Sho-kun can be the rapping mermaid on the rock,” Jun says sullenly.



-----



“You put me on the rock because I’d be topless and swamped by fans, didn’t you,” Sho says at length as he evaluates the lay of his first overcoat’s lapel critically.

“Pretty much,” Jun confesses. “And also because J. M. Barrie’s mermaids have vestigial wings.”

“I was wondering,” Sho says affably. “Well, Tinkerbell, you’ll have to rescue me by granting me the temporary power of wingless flight. So unfortunately it’s not like you’ll get to escape them either.”

“Way to point out narrative flaws,” Jun grumbles without heat.

“The perils of a perceptive mind,” Sho assures him.

“And a nice body,” Jun agrees, leaning out of the way as Sho reaches across the table for a copy of the stage directions for the concert’s first quarter.

“You smell nice,” Sho says approvingly. “Did you buy a new brand of something?”

“The scale sealer,” Jun replies. “Limited edition. Oguri Shun’s gift.”

“Good call. Too bad we can’t use down sealer for Aiba-chan.”

“Yes, well, Aiba shedding everywhere is more preferable to Aiba overheating to death by the smallest of margins.”

“The crocodile is going to come eat you on stage later,” Aiba threatens from his costume rack.

“When you get your head unstuck from the shirt, sure,” Jun says comfortably.



-----



Aiba the Crocodile does not, in fact, come to eat Jun on stage.

(“Sho-chan the mermaid is easier to reach because he won’t fly,” Aiba will explain later backstage when Sho demands an explanation for the bite mark on his biceps. “But he’s too chewy to eat quickly, so I let him go for now.”

“For now?!”

“He’s best slightly salty,” Nino will say, “maybe with a pinch of spice.”

“I’ll give you salty—”

“That’s too much spice, Sho-chan!”)

Instead, Aiba, skids to a stop on his knees in front of Jun. His wings are haphazardly mantled.

“Jun-kun!” he shrieks, throwing his arms open. Miracle upon miracles, Jun can hear him above the equally effervescent screams of the crowd. “I want to be fabulous! Dust me!”

Jun kindly dumps the entirety of his water bottle over his head.



-----



“Jun-kun!” Nino says gleefully, right behind a dripping, squalling Aiba. “I want to fly!” He throws his arms and wings open. “Dust me—”

“You are ridiculous,” Jun declares, and settles for shoving Nino over.



-----



“I don’t need dusting,” Ohno says thirty seconds before they are due to be elevated back into eyeshot of the crowd, “but thanks.”

Jun eyes his costume. “If you had any more sparkles I’d need sunglasses.”

“And I’m not the one who’s going into the air,” Ohno agrees. “Maybe you really should dust Sho-kun for good luck.” Sho is too busy taking one last glimpse of his flight plan with an expression of distracted terror to pay attention to them.

“You wouldn’t need pixie dust to fly anyway,” Jun tells Ohno.

“But I would like pixie dust to look fabulous.”

“You don’t need pixie dust to look any more fabulous either.”

Ohno smiles at him, elegant fingers squeezing his hand tightly, and Jun laughs aloud in sheer delight.

He flares his wings wide when the spotlight hits, feeling Nino’s brush his from one side and Ohno’s feathers touch his back from the other, and cannot imagine feeling any more content.



-----



(“It’s so nice to keep a part of Neverland in our hearts.” Aiba will empty half his water bottle in one swallow, then use the other half to douse his drooped wings, fluffed to almost a third larger than their regular sizes. “We’ll stay young forever!”

“Maybe you will,” Jun will say, shrugging on the encore T-shirt. “The rest of us, we’re mature, thank you very much.”

“We’re not the types to live forever,” Nino will agree, half-squashed into the back corner of the standby platform by Sho’s own set of ruffled wings, “we’re a bit too bad at keeping time as it is. How long do we have? Seventy seconds? No? Oh, forty?”

“Could do with a bit more space,” Ohno will add, who will be crouching like an old man to fit his fully extended wings in the area.

Aiba will laugh, dripping wings flaring. “Silly! Who said anything about living forever? We’re living fabulously right now! That’s what Neverland is about!”

“Full of rapping mermaids and Lost Boy minions about to fall off the platform?” Sho will query, as Nino ducks Aiba’s wings, yelps, and stumbles against Sho.

“Could do with a bigger Neverland,” Ohno will affirm as he hauls Sho back by the hem of his shirt and Nino by his arm.

“Can we focus on fitting properly on the platform,” Jun will say, though he will not mean it, and they will know. They will not stay young, but they will not fade so quickly, either.

So just for now, they will live forever.)

-fin-