| [Jul. 7th, 2013|10:47 pm] |
If this was Ryouma’s plan to put him off at the doorstep, Raidou thought he’d detected a subtle flaw. It was hard to put his thumb on it, distracted as he was by a warm, firm mouth and calloused, cradling hands, but he thought—he thought—it might have something to with the skillful kiss lighting his nerves up like firecrackers.
Apparently it had been a while.
Ryouma pulled back, letting go, and yeah, okay, that was not acceptable. Raidou followed him, crowding the long, lean body against the wall—carefully, because ninja reflexes—and pinned him there by his hips, tilting up to return the kiss, harder, with interest.
His split lip stung, but didn’t re-open.
A rough-rasping noise scraped out of Ryouma’s throat and tense muscles shivered, then partway relaxed. He ground his hips against Raidou, testing the hold, but opened his mouth when Raidou pressed him. The slick points of teeth tasted like recent mint and sharp alcohol. Raidou bit Ryouma’s lower lip gently, just because he could, and eased back, breaking the kiss but not the hold.
It took a second, then long, dark lashes flicked, and Ryouma’s eyes opened, a little storm-dazed. “You convinced me,” he rasped. “Let’s skip the poker.”
Raidou laughed. “Good plan.”
It took one more flight of stairs to get to Ryouma’s place, which was the lucky apartment built into the corner. Raidou hung to the side while Ryouma got his key in the lock and pressed his hand to the door, palm faintly glowing with a veneer of chakra. Raidou wasn’t sensitive enough to feel the traps disengage, but he assumed they did because nothing swung down to blast his head off when Ryouma let him in.
A table lamp gave them enough warm yellow light to see by—helped somewhat by there being really nothing much to look at.
Konoha’s landlords dealt a good trade in small white studio-box apartments for the shinobi on the go, and Ryouma had found himself a factory standard. There was a tiny kitchenette built against one wall; a wide bed; a sliding door left half-open to the bathroom, which looked far too small to contain an actual bath. Some homely details caught his eye — one of the small TVs that had finally gotten cheap enough for regular folks to buy, a decent stereo, a box of colorful tapes. No pictures, but a few wild band posters taped to the cinderblock walls. A jounin vest thrown on a rack in the corner below the single window, next to the weapon’s chest.
No clothes on the floor, but some definite kunai marks in the walls. The bed, Raidou couldn’t help noticing, was made, though not to a standard that’d let you bounce a coin off it.
The whole assessment took him a quick glance and ended with a floorplan filed away in the part of his mind that kept track of Plan B, where it could hopefully stay. He returned to Ryouma, who’d shucked his black jacket onto a wall hook and crouched to unlace heavy boots.
“Take your shoes off and stay awhile, shinobi,” Ryouma said, glancing up with a curling, playful grin. “Or keep standing, if you want me to stay on my knees.”
Through great effort of will, Raidou achieved a sound that wasn’t hng. “I had a plan,” he said. “And you just derailed it.”
Ryouma stripped his boot off, switched knees, and started on the laces of the other. “I like plans. Let’s hear yours.”
“The thing I just said, with the de-railing? Not a lie. You’re very distracting.” Raidou didn’t have a jacket to lose, but he shed both boots and offered a hand to Ryouma, who took it, and pulled him back to his feet.
Without the jacket, Ryouma looked like he’d lost a layer of armor, standing in a burnt scarlet band tee-shirt, torn jeans, and a flash of silver where a looping chain hooked from belt to wallet. He still looked dangerous, leaning balanced and easy on one hip, but just a little more approachable now. And the kissed-red curve of his mouth sure didn’t hurt.
Raidou held the bottle up. “How about a drink for good mission luck, then you tell me three things you love, and I’ll make sure to do ‘em.” |
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