| [Nov. 19th, 2011|06:53 am] |
Ryouma’s fingertips tickled. Kakashi twitched, but didn’t move away. Ryouma’s hand flattened across his ribcage.
“Bedtime story?” Kakashi asked wryly.
“I’ve always wanted to try one,” Ryouma said, with a lopsided shrug. There was still half a smile in his voice. “I thought happy thoughts for you, once.”
He had, half a lifetime ago, when Kakashi had been hungover and sick and shaken. Ryuoma had wrapped around him like armour then, too; braced against Kakashi’s back and talked quietly about bare-handed fishing.
“Fair point,” Kakashi said, trying to get past the thought that Ryouma had never had a bedtime story. Even Kakashi had been given stories to fall asleep to, once upon a time. “It’s not a bad story. I was sixteen, ANBU, just getting into being a veteran. The Village was halfway rebuilt after the Fox, settling down a bit. There was time for more... fluffy missions, if you like. Money-missions, anyway. I got sent to Tea Country as an escort for this princess doing a grand tour for her eighteenth birthday.”
Ryouma groaned. "How come I never got those missions? Princess'd be wasted on you. What was she like?"
“Pissy,” Kakashi said, remembering. “I think she expected someone older. And taller. Unlike some, I didn’t get my full height for another year.” Even then he’d never broken six feet; Ryouma still had four inches on him. “Actually, there was another princess later that year, in Snow. Guess it was a theme.”
Ryouma vented an envious sigh that ghosted warm across Kakashi’s neck. “I was eighteen and six-two that year. An' I spent most of it runnin' surveillance in Lightning Country with three other guys. No princesses anywhere."
“Amazing they didn’t put the tall, handsome, cocky killer near the rich girls of selective virtue,” Kakashi observed. “It’s almost like they planned it.”
There was a beat of silence around his collarbones.
“Good point,” Ryouma admitted grudgingly, before he laughed. “No fun for anybody.”
Ninja life in a nutshell, Kakashi thought.
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