Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Senku, a brilliant scientist, finds himself tasked with too many projects and not enough hands to get them all done quickly. With this inconvenience in mind, he sets out to find an assistant willing to whatever he needs. Someone desperate that doesn’t want money. Like someone from a dating app.

“Hey, a dating app,” Senku says to himself in his dark room, “I’m 10 billion percent I’ll find someone gullible enough to do work for me at the price of mere attention!”

He takes his phone out of his coat pocket and downloads a regular old dating app. He sets up an account, putting a ton of bullshit into the bio to make himself seem more sweet than he is. He goes through a few of the profiles he sees before clicking on the one he decides on.
“Asagiri Gen…says he’s looking for anyone to spend time with him. Oh, we’ll spend time together. Lots of time.”

Senku sends a text saying “hi”. Gen immediately replies to Senku’s message with a “hey!” and a smile emoticon. They text each other a few times before Gen suggests a date to meet. Senku is surprised by how quick the whole thing took, but accepts the offer nonetheless.
Senku gets himself ready for his date. A normal shirt, some jeans, and his good sneakers. Nothing too much, nothing special. He just needs to show up, he doesn’t need to dress nicely for someone he met only a few moments ago.

It’s a nice location; warm lights, clean tables, a nice aroma, and a short line into the restaurant. He sees a man in mostly purple with black hair, almost feminine features on his face, a lean figure, grey eyes that have a slight blue tint, and a smooth aura emanating from him. Senku sees the eager smile on the other man’s face and thinks “yeah, this is gonna be easy” before walking to the table the other is sitting at. Senku sits.
“Gen, right?” he says, tilting his head.
Gen nods and smiles warmly.

“Yeah, that’s me!” he confirms.
Senku smirks and speaks smoothly, “nice,” he pauses before continuing, “I’ve never been here before, do they have any, like, ramen?”
“I’m sure they do. I’ve only been here two other times, so I’m not that familiar with the menu.”
“I’ll probably get that then. Uh, what about you?” Senku asks, awkwardly…very awkwardly.
Gen hums and picks something. “Hamburger steak with a nice cold Cola!”

Senku blinks. Cola, really? He’s never really seen anyone so excited by a soda. He thinks it’s a little strange, but he doesn’t want to bring it up. The waitress comes to their table shortly, and returns equally as shortly with their orders. The two of them talk whilst eating. Senku slowly gets more used to the social interaction he’s having. He talks about science while Gen talks about his…mentalist or magician thing he has going on.
Pretty soon, the food is finished and Senku pays the bill. It wasn’t too expensive at all, so he didn’t mind the expenses, especially if that makes Gen want to work for him more.
“So, er, do you have a lab or something since you’re so into science?” Gen questions Senku.
“Of course I do. You can see it if you want to on the next date,” Senku nods at Gen.
Gen lights up a little at that. “Really? That’d be awesome. How about,” Gen checks his calendar on his phone, “tomorrow afternoon?”
“Hah, fell for it” Senku says in his head. “Yeah, that’ll work, 10 billion percent. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Senku and Gen both go to their own places. Senku, knowing he’s got Gen where he wants him, smirks to himself in bed and sleeps peacefully. Meanwhile, in his car, Gen is cheesing and giddy because he has a second date. He’s only gotten past the first one because people think he’s kind of weird, so this is a bit of a big deal to him.

Tomorrow quickly arrives, and both men are up relatively early. Senku tidies up his room and his lab then takes a brief shower to freshen up. He makes some breakfast, does all of the usual things people do in the morning, and sits on his couch. He’s waiting for Gen to show up, of course. Senku gave him his address so that he could come and see the lab.
Ding dong! Ding dong!
The doorbell. Senku gets up and opens the door, stepping aside to let Gen into the room. Senku looks at Gen, noticing just now that Gen is a little taller than him. Probably only by an inch or a few centimeters, but Senku still notices it. Gen looks around curiously.
“Hey, cool!” he shouts, “you have a little beaker!”
“You think that’s cool? I have a ton more of those in the lab, let’s go see them.”
Senku is very proud of his lab when he shows it off. He talks about how much research goes on in the room and about how many things have gone wrong. He talks about a little explosion that happened once because he dozed off accidentally whilst mixing chemical fluids together. Gen stares at Senku the whole time he’s talking about the lab, not even interested in the lab anymore. He’s only focused on how Senku’s eyes are glowing with intelligence and pride and happiness. Gen never understood much about science, but seeing how talking about it is affecting Senku, he wants to understand it better. Senku looks at Gen and smiles. He’s got him for real.
“I’ve always wanted someone to be by my side working with me, though. Too bad it’ll never happen,” Senku mumbles, sighing dramatically.
“I’ll work with you!” Gen yelps.
“Oh, really? You will?”
“Totally,” Gen yelps again, “free of charge, too!”
“Great! You can come move in with me then!” Senku laughs and pats Gen’s back. “I can’t have my new assistant living so far away from me, am I right, Gen?”
“You’re so right! I’ll get my stuff from my car right now!”

“Car? Why the hell does he have his things in his car?” Senku thinks to himself. Gen does get all his things from his car. It’s not much, just some cheap magic equipment and clothes. Senku’s red eyes widen. That’s barely anything. Senku’s able to get lots of stuff because his dad works for NASA and has a government funded credit card. Gen clearly doesn’t have much money.
Senku shows Gen his bedroom and points to a spot in the corner of the room.
“You can sleep there for the time being. I’ll get you some blankets so the ground doesn’t hurt your back as much,” Senku says.
Gen sets his stuff down and bows slightly, “thank you.”
Senku shows Gen the bathroom, the laundry room, and the kitchen. By the time Senku is done showing Gen around, it’s already evening. Senku had gotten wrapped up in showing the other the lab again that he forgot to check the time. It’s already time for dinner. He looks at the black-haired male and walks to the kitchen without saying anything else. Gen stands still for a moment before following him. Senku starts cooking a pack of ramen noodles on the stove, letting the air blow to Gen’s hungry nose. His stomach growls in response to the scent.
Senku talks while pouring the other packet of noodles into the pot, “you don’t have a house, do you?”
Gen jerks, surprised. “Erk! Uh, yeah, I don’t…is that going to be a problem?”
“No. It just makes me wonder why you said you don’t want me to pay you for working with me.”
“Oh, well, I,” Gen grumbles and stumbles over his words, “you talking about science made you really happy, so I wanted to see if doing science for fun would make me that happy.”
“I see,” Senku hums, “that’s good to hear, Gen.”
Gen’s face reddens listening to his name coming from the other’s mouth in such a tone.

Gen rolls around in his pile of blankets on the floor next to Senku’s bed. He’s cold, not at all warm enough to fall asleep. Since Gen is used to sleeping in his hot and stuffy car, it’s difficult to fall asleep in such a cold environment like Senku’s house. Without thinking, he gets off of the floor and gets in bed with Senku. Senku doesn’t like sleeping with a shirt on since it gets itchy, so now Gen is stuck next to a half-naked man. It’s not bad. At all. He quite likes it, in fact! Gen finds himself wondering how the next day is going to go in the lab…and the next day of their time together. He’s growing more curious about Senku and the things he has to offer.

Chapter Text

Senku rolls over in the morning. He feels another person next to him and yells in shock.
“What the hell?!” he sits up and kicks Gen off of the bed before realizing it’s just Gen.
Gen falls and all the air leaves his lungs from the impact. He stands back up to look at Senku.
“Sorry. I got cold last night and you looked really warm in bed, so I climbed in with you,” he rubs his neck, “I didn’t mean to scare you or make you uncomfy or whatever, I swear!”
Senku grumbles and gets out of bed. “It’s fine, Gen. Next time just go get more blankets from the closet.”
“Yeah, okay. Sorry again.”

The lab is filled with smoke. Senku accidentally put too much of one chemical into another, making the mixture explode into smoke. Gen totally freaks out and rushes to Senku’s side.
“What happened?! Why is everything smoking?!”
Senku coughs, “I messed up the formula by accident.”
Gen waves his arms around and opens the window to clear out the smoke. He makes sure that Senku isn’t harmed at all, then he sighs out of relief. Despite only knowing Senku barely for 2 days, Gen wants to treat him like they’ve known each other for years.
“Be more careful, Senku,” Gen sighs again, “just ask me to help! That’s why I’m here right now, after all!”
“Alright then. Go and make some lead-acid batteries.”
“And how do I do that?!”
“Geez, you really don’t know much about science.”

Senku takes the whole entire day to teach Gen about lead-acid batteries and zinc-carbon batteries and proper ionic reactions. Senku tells Gen how to put the batteries together properly and how to handle the materials needed to make said batteries. Senku takes Gen’s hands into his own to demonstrate the steps mentioned. As soon as Senku touches Gen’s hands, Gen goes stiff. He hasn’t had his hands touched in a while, not gently, anyways. Senku notices how Gen stiffened up and he takes his hands off of the other man.
“You alright? I didn’t mean to touch you without permission, I just got carried away.”
Gen grabs Senku’s hands and holds them tenderly, catching Senku off guard. Gen looks into Senku’s ruby red eyes and speaks to him, “I don’t mind. Just show me how to do this so I can help you, Senku…”
“Uh, okay,” says Senku, awkwardly.

Senku moves Gen’s hands carefully and expertly to guide Gen to make the batteries. Senku rubs Gen’s hands on instinct after finishing the process of creation. He always rubs his own hands after finishing work.
Gen pauses and feels his stomach and…other places…get warm at Senku’s touch. He quickly crosses his legs to hide any sort of reaction. Senku keeps rubbing Gen’s hands until he stops zoning out.
“Ah, sorry. I rub my hands after finishing things sometimes.”
Gen gulps, “it’s okay,” he manages to say.
“I’m getting hard just from him caressing my hands! What the hell?!” Gen thinks. “Damn it, I’m totally losing all of my cool here! He can’t get the better of me this easily!” Senku picks in his ear. Gen’s erection goes down a little immediately after seeing that. Senku walks out of the lab to go make dinner. Gen hears a groan and goes to the kitchen to see what’s wrong.
Senku groans again, “I need to go grocery shopping again…I have nothing to eat here,” Senku turns to Gen, “do you wanna go out to eat or something? We have no food.”
“Sure…what are we gonna get?” Gen asks.
“I dunno. Maybe we can go to a fancy ass restaurant. I have enough money to try it.”
“Whatever you want, Senku,” Gen smiles, “I’m fine with anything.”

The restaurant is really, really fancy, just like Senku said. Gen has never been in such a lavish place since he went broke and lost his house. The lights are red and orange, the floors have velvet carpeting, the walls have painted tiles, and the smell is way better than the last restaurant they both went to. So much better. They both sit down at a booth in the back of the restaurant and stare at the menus in front of them. The items on the menu all look so good. Gen has never even seen anything that looks so delicious. Senku sure hasn’t either.
A waiter comes by with two bottles of wine and two glasses. They didn’t order any wine.
“Hey, we didn’t or–”

“It’s complimentary,” says the waiter, interrupting Senku.

Gen takes the wine and pours the liquid into the glasses after hearing that they don’t need to pay for it. He hands one glass to Senku and keeps the other for himself, already drinking from it.
They give their orders to the waiter and the waiter leaves. Senku ordered the chashu ramen with black garlic, and Gen ordered the seafood paella and a cold Cola.
Senku sips from his wine glass while looking at Gen. Gen seems so mesmerized by the whole atmosphere of the place. Senku finds himself smiling at Gen, despite trying not to.
The meals quickly come and the drinks quickly go. Gen is a little tipsy, and so is Senku. Neither of them drink much, so they’re both pretty lightweight. Gen is more tipsy than Senku, however, and his movements are getting slow. Senku sighs and pays the bill. He lets Gen lean on him while they walk to the car. Gen’s body is incredibly warm and it’s making Senku think very hard. Hard. Very hard.
“Shit.”
Gen looks at Senku with half-lidded eyes. “Something wrong, dear Senku?”
Senku’s red eyes widen. DEAR?! Senku is shocked, but quickly composes himself.
“Ah, nothing, Gen,” Senku coughs, “let’s just go home and…uh, sleep.”
Gen smirks and nods, getting into the passenger seat.

Senku gets undressed once they get to the house. Gen stares and licks his lips. Senku puts on his sleeping pants and leaves his torso bare, as usual. Gen gets undressed, too, and he puts on some of Senku’s spare pajamas. Senku is trying his best to keep his eyes away from Gen. Gen walks closer to Senku and licks his neck. Senku jolts and turns around to face Gen.
“What the fuck?!”
“Mmh…you taste nice, Senku.”
Senku backs up onto the bed and yells, “why’d you do that?!”
“Because you look hot right now…” Gen leans over Senku on the bed and licks his neck again.
“Woah, woah, chill out!” Senku is getting erect and he’s panicking, “you’re kind of drunk right now, Gen!”
“So? I’m totally fine to do something right now.”
“No, I can’t do that with you! Just because you’re like, a year older doesn’t mean I’m gonna let you do…stuff with me while you’re like this!”
Gen sighs and sits on Senku’s lap, “alright then. But maybe later, dear Senku.”
Senku stares at their laps and gulps. He pushes Gen off lightly and hides under the covers. Gen goes back on his little spot on the floor and almost immediately falls asleep somehow. Senku is left sleepless and with his thoughts racing.