shiegra (shiegra) wrote in no_true_pair, @ 2008-06-07 15:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 2008 twelve characters challenge, author: shiegra, crossover: dogs/yu yu hakusho, pairing: kurama/naoto |
Yu Yu Hakusho/DOGS
Title: Greenhouse
Author/Artist: shiegra
Fandom: Yu Yu Hakusho/DOGS
Pairing/characters: Naoto, Kurama
Rating: PG13/R
Prompt/challenge you're answering: * Naoto shares something meaningful (a meal? a secret? ...bodily fluids?) with Youko Kurama
She kept the sword at her side and slipped inside the shop without making noise, letting the sunlight filter through glass and pour over her skin. A warm touch, almost a caress, and the abundance of life—the overflow of green and brown and the harmonious burst of flower’s colors—made her halt sharp, falter, awkward in this face of it.
She’d never seen a place like this, or smelled one like it. It was beautiful, riding the edge of intoxicating, and she drew in a deep, shaky breath and closed her eyes, savoring it.
“Can I help you?”
The sword was up before she thought, fine gleaming metal clearing the sheath—at least five inches, and she was startled by how close the young man had gotten. Black hair tied back, deep eyes and an utterly serene expression.
Her throat worked and she looked away, then back. Uneasy. “I didn’t mean—I just came in for—” Shelter. The young man had a watering can in his hands and politely lifted eyebrows. She shouldn’t be here. If her pursuers came crashing in after her, they’d tear the place apart with guns. “I should go.”
His eyebrows raised a little higher. “Very well.” He said, but for a long moment she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the plants growing from the earth, here long graceful stems and there short thick trunks, here broad heart shaped leaves and there long, spear-graceful fans. Flowers that ran the gamut from purple tipped white to a fierce sunset orange.
“It’s...” He was still watching her. She unstuck her throat, licked her lips, and said quietly, “they’re so beautiful.” Naoto knew she sounded lost, flushed painfully as her hand tightened on the sheath.
But he smiled, a cool and collected expression, faint edge of approval. “Thank you.” He gave a short, courteous bow. “Perhaps you could stay? I sell tea, as well.”
Longing clenched in her belly. It was beautiful and peaceful here. The scavenger she was chasing wouldn’t poke his head out until nightfall. Surely it wouldn’t hurt...
Sounds down the street, and ominous ruckus. “I can’t.” She told him, clipped and brief, and bowed. “Thank you for your—”
One of the front windows shattered. Naoto flinched, horrified, and the sword leapt free as shards peppered a long limbed, graceful fern and the short thick—it had to be some form of stunted tree—plant behind it.
A hand closed over her wrist and she halted sharply in the midst of a forward lunge, her eyes darting towards him wide and astonished. “But—”
“Shh.” He said, and smiled a slow, catlike smile.
The first man to lunge through the window didn’t even manage to finish snarling out a threat before a thick vine dropped heavily over him, hooking against his neck and yanking him up into the shadows of the ceiling. There was a dry crack of bone as the second one tripped over roots and then found himself yanked against the ground by them, neck jerking into a fatal angle. The third shrieked, raised his gun, and found it more or less politely taken away by a third plant. He held on, and it plucked him off the ground and dropped him into another’s concealing leaves. The following sounds were not pleasant.
After a long, startled moment Naoto craned her neck to look into the shadows where the first had vanished, thoughtful. Something brushed her back and she jerked against the grip he still had on her wrist to see the broad, heart shaped leaves she’d admired before stroking lovingly over her skin.
“It appears they like you.” The young man noted, and smiled at her. Naoto stared back. “Do you still need to go so urgently?”
She licked her lips, dragged in a breath, and then said very softly. “I...wouldn’t mind some tea.”
His smile widened.