InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "a little piece of heaven"

fallen_tsume (fallen_tsume) wrote in fallen_leaves,
@ 2008-09-27 19:45:00

Entry tags:

ryouma, tsume

Just Promise To Keep Your Heart Broken [closed to Tsume and Ryouma]
[Happens the evening of Like You Wanted To Go And Give Yourself Away]

The clock was ticking. In Ginta's apartment. She'd never noticed the ticking clock, before. Never heard it over Kuromaru's panting or sleepy breathing or simple heartbeat. Anxiety crawled up over her shoulders.

The room felt very large. Her futon very cold. Something creaked. Her eyes opened and flicked to the door, half expecting the knob to turn. Kuromaru wasn't there to sense people even before she did. To keep a hazy watch throughout the night, share the duties of protection. He was still in the hospital, though they'd insisted she go home and let him rest. Her family had suggested she stay there, but less than an hour dealing with Taro and Tanaka, while Tsume was in a weakened state, was enough to keep anyone from protesting when she decided to return to ANBU HQ.

Tsume punched her pillow and rolled over. No one was going to get her here, for the Wolf's teeth.

The clock kept ticking.

She'd slept alone before.

Before she'd had Kuromaru.

No, she'd shared a room with her sisters, then...

Or stayed with friends...

That one night she decided to run away.

No, she'd slept with the feral pack after nearly getting her throat ripped out.

She was a grown woman and a special jounin and former head of her clan!

The stairwell creaked. It smelled like old blood.

She yanked the covers off and swung her legs over the side of the mattress, bare feet landing silently on the carpet. She'd go home. That was all. Head home and--

--hide from any other alphas, because she was in no shape for a pack challenge. Deal with her family and their anger and arguments.

She'd get thrown in the drunk tank. Yes, that'd do. Get hammered and--

--get alcohol poisoning? Who knew how it would react with her lack of chakra. Waki would kill her. And that was assuming anyone else would be in the drunk tank.

Tsume's fangs caught the inside of her lip, teasing at the flesh.

She could go see Ryouma. Until tonight, they'd been curled up with Kakashi in the same bed, and even if Kuromaru wasn't in the room...

But stay with him? That'd go over like a wet dog in a crowded tent.

He might let her, though. If there were a reason.

She stood, glancing around the room for something decent--beyond a black T-shirt and underwear--and finally found a ragged pair of flannel pants. She yanked them on, still trying to come up with a solution. A reason. She wasn't about to tell him she was afraid of being alone. Of all the crotch-bit...

Why else would she go to his room in the middle of the night--or as close to it as made no difference?

There was, of course, one very normal reason. One reason women stayed over with men all the time. A reason she doubted he'd refuse. Her stomach lurched. She'd think of something. Something else.

She didn't know of anyone else she could ask, so... so she'd think of something.

Her door was locked. She never locked anything, but without Kuromaru there... She walked out, leaving it partially open as if he might somehow come back in the wee hours of the morning. The corridor around to the other side of the floor and Ryouma's apartment was not nearly long enough. She stood in front of his door, still trying to think of anything, a reason beyond--

Something barked at her. No, yapped at her. Her eyebrows rose and she sniffed. Dog.

Dog. In Ryouma's room.

He cursed. The floor thumped. He cursed some more. She was supposed to be thinking of a reason.

It was still yapping at her. One eyebrow twitched upward.

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fallen_ryouma
2008-09-27 09:59 pm UTC (link)

"Shut up," Ryouma ordered the rat. It grinned at him, baring teeth that wouldn't even break skin, and wagged its plumed tail. Then it bounced in the nest of clean shirts it had built for itself at the foot of his bed, and yapped again.

Ryouma yanked a tee-shirt over his head and considered throwing a crutch at it. Even if he hit the little beast, though, he doubted it'd have any effect other than provoking frenzied noise. In the fifteen or so hours since Kakashi had given him the hairy little excuse for a watchdog, he'd tripped over it three times and stepped on it twice. Apparently, it was made of rubber.

The rat's yapping rose half an octave. It danced in place, waiting for the half-second it took him to trip over a pair of discarded jeans and nearly lose his crutches again, and then streaked like a little bolt of furry lightning for the door. Someone down the hall shouted a sleepy threat.

"You're dead," Ryouma promised the rat.

It perked those enormous, ridiculous ears at him, and laughed.

At least it danced out of the way when he finally made it to the door. Wrestling with the knob took another few seconds; he couldn't quite get his balance right, and the crutches cut into his armpits, and he nearly fell over when the door opened at last. The rat slipped out past his foot and launched itself at the ankles of the woman who stood there.

"Step on it. Please," he said, and then registered who it was.

Tsume was drowning in an over-large black tee-shirt and ragged plaid pajama pants, but somehow he didn't think only the size of the clothes made her look so small. Discreet white bandages still hid her right temple and left ear: not nearly the mummy-like swathings she'd borne when they first woke up, but not nearly healed yet, either. The sharp edge of a collarbone cut through the wide collar of her tee-shirt, and her thin, fine-boned hands picked at its hem. They paused as she stared down at the fluffy rat swarming over her ankles.

"It's been holding me hostage," Ryouma said. "It's somehow managed to convince Kakashi it's a dog, and it has evil rat plans to kill me in my sleep. Can you go alpha at it and make it go away?"