| [Aug. 23rd, 2014|04:04 am] |
A half-second later, Raidou paused in the doorway.
He’d been gone ten minutes. And returned, breakfast in hand, to raise his eyebrows at the rapidly-getting-naked expanse of brown, muscled back as, once again, Ryouma’s shirt vanished. A dark, complicated tattoo rippled between his shoulderblades; two lancing tribal wings surrounding a black flame. Raidou had forgotten that.
On the bed-platform, Katsuko and Kakashi stared at the show, enraptured. Only Genma’s eyes flickered, clocking Raidou.
Ryouma went very still, shirt dripping from his hand. “Taichou’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
“With so many questions,” Raidou said.
“It’s boosting morale, taichou,” Ryouma said, still not moving. The backs of his ears were starting to redden.
“Oh, I see,” Raidou said, and considered exactly how much he was supposed to yell. A lot, under other circumstances. But today there was mostly terrible amusement bubbling up, and perhaps a twist of relief that Ryouma was feeling better enough to decide a strip-tease was the way to go for team bonding.
Of course, that didn’t explain why Genma had let him.
"Is it working?" Raidou asked, looking at the lieutenant.
Genma sounded like his usual implacable self, except for a faint, telltale crack in his voice. “For a given value of working.”
Ryouma’s naked chest did tend to have that effect.
But since the lieutenant had only revealed the disinterested, professional libido of a brick up until now, Raidou still marked that down as an interesting factoid. Genma liked men, at least a little.
Genma cleared his throat. “I’m sure the captain’s thinking what I was just about to say. Time and a place, Tousaki.”
Wrestling back into his shirt, Ryouma muttered something that sounded a lot like, You weren’t about to say it until taichou showed up…, just loud enough for Raidou to hear. Raidou freed a hand from the breakfast stewpot and smacked Ryouma upside the head, not too hard.
“Less backtalk, more dishes fetching,” he said. “Since you’re in a serving mood.”
Ryouma rubbed the back of his head and said, very stiffly, “Taichou.” But he obeyed and left.
On the bed-platform, Genma looked sheepish, concerned, and tired. “Sorry about that, taichou.”
“No harm done,” Raidou said. He lugged the steaming stewpot over to the platform and set it down on a bare patch of earth, where it wouldn’t burn anyone or catch the bedcovers on fire. “Did I miss anything else exciting?”
Like, for example, the stylistic tornado that had happened to Kakashi’s hair. Raidou blinked at him.
“Hatake managed a walk to the bathroom with Tousaki’s help. And we topped off his meds.” Genma said. “The hair was Ueno’s contribution.”
“It’s art,” Katsuko said. She ran her good hand lightly over the banded tufts that covered three-quarters of Kakashi’s head. |
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