| [Dec. 26th, 2009|05:02 pm] |
"You'd better," Ryouma said, almost reflexively. "I'm a real catch, didn't I tell you?" He took one step forward. Another. The floor of the spring was rough and pebbled under his feet, reassuringly stable. Water dripped from Katsuko's fingers and sparkled like short-lived diamonds in the lamp-light from the inn. He reached out, caught one hand in his, and drew her in.
She stiffened, but she didn't pull away. When he set his free hand gently on her hip her muscles tensed as if he'd hit her, and her face set like carved ivory. But she held still, even when his fingers slipped lower to glide over the raised thickness of the scar under her belly, no parallel at all to the thin ridged line slicing down his. The jounin who'd nearly gutted him had been trying to kill him. The monsters who'd experimented on her--what had they wanted?
He had a brief, horrible image of rape, a child cut living out of her body. But they hadn't had her long enough, had they? Six months, she'd said. Long enough for other horrors, but not for that.
He splayed his hand over her ribcage, scattered with the more normal scars any ninja accumulated over a life in Konoha's service, and a few that probably weren't. Her breath caught when he moved up, rubbing his thumb over the base of the surgery scar between her breasts. The taut muscles eased a little, then tensed again. "You aren't...?"
"Disgusted?" He smiled faintly, shook his head. "I saw the kid who might've been my little brother die in the mud when I was sixteen. I melted the face off the guy who killed him and spent the next hour throwing up. When I was seventeen the girl I loved was killed on top of me. I wish I could avenge you, like I did for them--but you survived. Made it out of there when no one else did." He traced the white line down her sternum again. Wondered if he dared try it with his tongue.
"Try fascinated, maybe." |
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