| [Feb. 7th, 2015|06:37 am] |
Kakashi leaned back against his pillows, reassured and suddenly tired. “I can walk,” he said. “I just prefer getting waited on. You know they give you three meals a day here and all the IV you could want?”
Ryouma laughed, easier this time, without the worn edge. His thumb rubbed over Kakashi's anklebone. "We did that for you, too. You just don't remember it."
The touch was affectionate, not seductive — at least to Kakashi's limited understanding — but it still made him blink and free his ankle, flustered.
"I remember some of it," he said, like he hadn't spent most of the morning wanting to drag a pillow over his face and hide until the fuzzy, terrible embarrassment went away. "And based on that, I'm choosing to believe the rest was a horrible nightmare and didn't actually happen."
Ryouma’s slow-curling smirk managed, somehow, to be both superior and fond. “You’re awfully cuddly when you’re high.”
Kakashi opened his mouth to argue hotly— and stopped dead when a memory unfurled sepia wings in his mind’s eye. Katsuko on his left, curled close and warm. Ryouma on his right, smelling of soap and death, with his killing-fingers woven loosely through Kakashi’s.
They’d held hands?
“Oh my god,” Kakashi said thinly, and covered his head with both arms. “Kill me now.”
“Not after I put all that effort into saving you!” Ryouma protested. “I nearly put my back out. You’re heavier than you look.”
“Just because I look like an effervescent twig—” Kakashi began, channeling one of Minato’s older complaints, before he realized that didn’t actually help. “No, wait, I take it back, just because you have the muscle tone of melted butter doesn’t mean I can’t die of shame, and also shut up.”
Ryouma leaned back on his hands, eyes glittering with dark amusement under the fluorescent strip-lights, and ever-so-casually flexed his biceps, so the muscles tightened and stood out under his skin. His shirt was close-fitting enough to show the outline of his chest for a moment, cast in sharp relief. “Sure you’re not still on some of those drugs? Usually your insults are better than this.”
It was like watching an alley-cat preen itself.
On the other hand, it was also proof that Ryouma was feeling better. Even his scent had brightened.
"You're a ridiculous human being," Kakashi informed him, lowering his arms. "When you finally sprain your ego, I hope I'm there to take pictures."
Ryouma laughed, rumbling low and pleased with himself. That was the third time, now. “Better keep your camera close. It happens more often than you’d think.”
“I don’t doubt,” Kakashi said. He let his legs stretch out again, until his feet ended up a careful inch away from Ryouma’s hip, and raked a hand through his hair — ragged, though washed, and still crimped in odd ways. Katsuko’s hairdresser aspirations leaving a mark, even after the nurses’ best attempts to undo them. He almost missed the braids. At least they were something else to think about.
“Any word on Ueno?” he asked. |
|