| [Nov. 19th, 2011|06:50 am] |
Ryouma blinked. “She’s met you before. Told me afterwards she wouldn’t be surprised to hear stories about you, in a few years, if you didn’t get yourself killed first.”
Kakashi’s grey lashes shivered in his own surprised blink. “Smart woman,” he commented. “But stories are different when they’re sitting at your dinner table, within range of your...” He hesitated, chewing over his words. “You.”
“You mean,” Ryouma said slowly, “that a bastard street-rat who can’t even read and whose only claim to fame is that his signature jutsu makes strong men vomit is a better catch than Sharingan no Kakashi, last of the Hatake clan, the Yondaime’s student, who survived six years in ANBU and has now retired to begin a distinguished new career as the village’s top jounin? I guess I do have my looks going for me...”
That won him a flat stare. “Well, when you put it like that,” Kakashi murmured at last. Then he recaptured Ryouma’s hand, hooked his mask down, and bit him warningly on the knuckles, just hard enough to nick the skin. “Stop insulting yourself.”
“I was complimenting you!” Ryouma protested. “Hell, you could probably sign up with one of those match-making services and in half an hour you’d have forty hopeful mothers-in-law beating down your door.”
Kakashi shuddered. Ryouma grinned lopsidedly. “Okay, so the liking men thing might be kind of a stumbling block for the mothers-in-law. Honest, though, Hitomi’d probably just be pleased to know there’s someone who could put up with me for more than twenty minutes at a time. Ouch! That wasn’t an insult!”
“Full jounin,” Kakashi said, releasing Ryouma’s hand. “Jutsu inventor, survivor of two separate stints in enemy hands, battlefield experience, team leader, an ANBU career where you ran S-ranked missions with veterans and held your own.” He paused, brows crinkling. “And you’ve saved my life twice.”
“Only twice?” Ryouma tried and utterly failed to raise a skeptical eyebrow, as an absurd grin waged and won a war with the rest of his face. If his head weren’t still throbbing warningly at every movement this might have been a good time to try kissing Kakashi senseless. As it was, he settled for a brief brush of the lips along the edge of Kakashi’s jaw before he settled down again, head pillowed just below Kakashi’s shoulder, ridiculous grin still tugging at his mouth. “That makes us even, doesn’t it? I’ll have to work harder. Just you wait ‘til I’m back in shape. Show you why I was captain of Team Badass...”
The yawn took them both by surprise. Kakashi’s laugh rumbled deep in his chest, tingling through Ryouma’s bones. He cradled his hand around the back of Ryouma’s neck, and the cooling chakra sank in again, soothing as cold water on fevered skin. “You should eat before you pass out.”
“Tomorrow,” Ryouma said. His stomach still wasn’t sure it had settled. Brushing his teeth was probably a better idea, but the thought of sitting up again was too much to take. He could feel himself beginning to drift on the rise and fall of Kakashi’s breathing. Still no straight answer, about Kakashi’s talk with the Hokage or about his strained loyalties, but some things didn’t have straight-forward answers, and maybe they’d come as close as they could for one night. Most of the bleakness had drained out of Kakashi’s voice. There would always be shadows in his eye, but those were shadows Ryouma knew; he had his own.
His fingers curled loosely and relaxed again over Kakashi’s chest, an absent sort of petting somehow as soothing as Kakashi’s hand on his neck. There should be scars here, three parallel lines wrapping around the left side of Kakashi’s ribcage, just under his arm. Ryouma had memorized them months ago, though they were too faintly raised to be felt now beneath the thick uniform shirt. He traced the remembered lines anyway. “Tell me a story. Where’d you get these?” |
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