| [Jan. 31st, 2012|06:26 am] |
“Mm,” Kakashi mumbled.
Threads of dreams snapped around him as Ryouma moved, forcing Kakashi to turn his head or be smothered by a shoulder. He made a faint sound of protest, not quite willing to wake up yet. It felt early, and he was short on sleep...
There was a hand clenched around his. It wasn’t Ryouma’s.
He blinked the world back into focus, abruptly drenched awake, and looked up. “I can explain.”
The smokey confusion in Ryouma’s scent was starting to teeter into amusement. “Please do. ‘Cause this is fascinatin’.” He pushed himself higher, looking over Kakashi’s shoulder with raised eyebrows at whatever picture Katsuko made. “She sure managed to get cuddly with you a lot quicker’n I did. Should I wake her up an’ ask for tips?”
Kakashi was really getting tired of turning red.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he said, pulling his hand free from Katsuko’s crushing grip. His fingers were bloodless-numb. Katsuko made a mumbling, incoherent sound, but didn’t wake. Ryouma’s eyebrows were still up to his hairline.
"I'm still tryin’ to decide what it looks like,” Ryouma said. “You borrowed Katsuko for seal practice, knocked her unconscious, an’ scorched off her clothes? She picked up a new hobby of dirty-laundry-theft, an’ you caught her at it and decided to keep her til I woke up and decided what to do with her? I'm pretty sure I’d’ve woken up if you were having sex next to me, but maybe ninja sex..."
“There was no sex!” Kakashi hissed.
"Because gay. Right!" Ryouma said cheerfully, as if he’d only just remembered. He tipped his head sideways, still looking over Kakashi’s shoulder. "Y'know, I did think she was a boy, first time I ran into her. If it was really dark, you might've made the same mistake..."
Kakashi pushed himself up on one elbow, grabbed his pillow, and shoved it into Ryouma’s face. Ryouma fell onto his back, clutching the pillow and shaking with silent laughter. His shirt was rucked up to his ribs, baring lean-cut stomach muscles, and for a moment Kakashi was severely tempted to give him another bite-mark scar.
“Keep laughing,” he said instead, glancing over his shoulder. “I hope you choke on goose feathers.”
Katsuko was pulled in on herself, curled small and private, swamped by Ryouma’s borrowed tee-shirt. With her usual sense of perfect timing she twitched, eyebrows drawing down, and rolled away from them. Kakashi grabbed the back of her collar before she could throw herself off the bed in her sleep.
She made a slightly flaily gesture, like half a seizure, and settled with one arm hanging off the mattress, still asleep.
Ryouma shed the pillow and pulled himself up, bright-eyed and wildly tousled. He leaned against Kakashi’s back, propping his chin on Kakashi’s shoulder. “So why is she here?”
There was no way to explain without telling secrets that weren’t his, but if Katsuko had wanted to stay private she wouldn’t have crawled into bed with them. He reeled her back onto the bed. This time she rolled over towards them, and sort of... pressed her face against his knee.
Something twisted in Kakashi’s ribcage, like cold failure. He still didn’t know how to save her. “Bad dreams,” he said. “She came around last night after you fell asleep.”
The amusement faded out of Ryouma’s face and scent. He looked down at Katsuko for a moment, then reached out, gently, and brushed the dark strands of hair away from her forehead. “Bad enough she wanted to come cuddle you?”
Kakashi’s teeth caught the scarred corner of his mouth. He’d brought the woman home, put her in the same bed. If Ryouma had tried that, Kakashi would have thrown him out the window. He was owed an explanation. And he wasn’t so fragile that he couldn’t handle one.
“She wanted to get drunk,” Kakashi said. “Her chakra makes it dangerous. She needed a suppressing seal, and someone to watch and make sure she wasn’t about to do something stupid. So we went up on the roof for an hour, and afterwards she wasn’t steady enough to go home alone.”
Which still didn’t explain the reasoning behind putting her in the bed, but he’d wanted them both within reach. It made them easier to protect.
“I would have woken you up,” he added carefully. “But you haven’t been sleeping well, either.” |
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