Fic: "Kiss Me," Inception, Robert/Saito, R
I don't want to go to work, today. Yesterday sucked.
Kiss Me
Author:
beetle_comma_the
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Robert/Saito
Rating: R
Word Count: Approx. 5300
Disclaimer: It was Colonel Mustard, in the drawing room, with the revolver.
Notes: Set two months after Inception.
Summary: Written for the
inception_kink prompt: A drunken kiss good night and an awkward apology the next day.
Robert wipes steam off the bathroom mirror and stares long and hard into the reflection of his eyes.
They’re the same cornflower-blue as always, though a bit bloodshot and surrounded by grayish circles. The rest of his face is pale under the flush the hot shower had brought to his skin. His dark auburn hair is still wet and there’s fringe hanging in his face, like it had when he was a child.
Not that he’d ever been hungover as a child.
Grimacing, he runs his hands through his hair, till it lays back flat. A slight draft of cooler air hits him, makes him shiver, break out in gooseflesh, then sneeze-which completely messes up his hair once more.
Now glaring at his reflection, he rubs his hair vigorously with a towel, till it’s in spikes and clumps, then hangs the towel back on the rack. He opens the bathroom door and stands in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the mid-morning sunlight streaming in. When they do, he walks over to the window, debating whether to close the curtains or leave them drawn. In the end, he decides to leave them drawn. Osaka is beautiful in the morning, hangover or not, and at any rate, hotel rooms feel like richly-appointed caves when the curtains are closed. Robert’s always thought so.
Despite the sun, the bedroom of his hotel suite is rather chilly after the heated humidity of the bathroom. He’s considering whether he should turn up the thermostat, or simply hurry into his suit-not that he has to be in the office, today, since he’s in Osaka, and Fischer-Morrow doesn’t have a local office. The deal with Proclus global is finally done and, as Uncle Peter might have said, were he not still frothing at the mouth, it’s Miller-time. Robert could literally stay in naked all day, should he choose to. . . .
Oh, but he still has plenty of work to keep himself occupied, however, and one of the advantages of being fully dressed is its ability to help focus one on work. Or so said the late Maurice Fischer.
“The suit, it is,” he murmurs to himself, smiling ruefully, wondering how long he would have to live before finally, truly stepping out of his father’s shadow. Certainly breaking up Fischer-Morrow was a start, but in so many ways, big and small, Robert is still figuring out how to be his own man. He’d spent the first thirty years of his life trying so hard to live up to what he thought Maurice wanted, that he’d never really given thought to what being anything else might be like.
Now, two months after Maurice’s death, he feels he is no closer. In fact, if anything-
Just then there’s a discreet knock at the door, barely audible in the bedroom. That’ll be room service with his usual breakfast of orange juice, coffee, two boiled eggs, and dry wheat toast.
“Come in!” He calls loudly, sighing as he watches a lone bird wing its way across the sky, toward the horizon. “Just leave the tray on the coffee table, thanks!”
He’s learned, throughout his stay, that tipping Japanese service staff is considered rather rude, and doesn’t even bother to reach for his robe so he can go tip the bellhop.
At least that’s one more small way I’m not like Maurice. He’d have insisted on tipping the guy, anyway, with no more consideration than if poor man had been an automaton. One that ran on money, as so many people and things did, in his opinion.
Robert’s mouth curves in that rueful smile again, and he watches the bird till it’s out of sight. He doesn’t envy its ability to fly, no, but he does envy its certainty about itself-something that surely keeps it in the air as much as its wings and the laws of physics.
This penchant for reflection is nothing new to Robert, but he’s learned, through gargantuan effort, to put reflection aside for action. As Maurice had always said: there’s danger in over-thinking things, Robert. Know when to follow your gut and make your move.
The move that’s called for now is eating breakfast so he can get to work. Though there’s much less of it than there used to be-since selling, massive chunks of it to Proclus Global, among other companies-there’s certainly more than enough work to keep one CEO and his recently-hired assistants in numbers, graphs, and meetings all day long-
Suddenly reminded that he’d better check in on Rodney and Carol after last night, Robert almost goes for his Blackberry. Then he decides not to. The alcohol had been flowing rather freely at Saito-san’s, and after the stress of twenty-hour days for the past two weeks, Carol, at least, had gotten plastered. Rodney hadn’t been too far behind. Both of them had been hanging off the arms of Saito-san’s assistants when Robert had shooed them off for the evening. It was likely that not only were they not awake, but they were probably in no fit state to field a call from their boss.
(Not that Robert is in much better shape, but at least he doesn’t have a superior to report to.)
Wincing at the way his hangover makes its presence felt once more, Robert turns away from the window and wanders towards the suite proper. Despite brushing his teeth, his mouth still tastes like death. Mint-flavored death, and his eyes are still relatively light-sensitive. He doesn’t have Uncle Peter’s, or even Maurice’s tolerance for alcohol. And though he’d drunk conservatively of the warm, fragrant sake on tap last night, he’d still gotten quite tipsy. He’d only barely been more sober than Rodney and Carol, though he’d drunk only a third as much.
How much Saito-san had had, Robert has no idea. But enough so that he hadn’t pulled away when Robert-
“Oh, fuck me!” Robert exclaims, one hand flying to his chest as he stops dead in the entryway to the main room. His heart is suddenly racing, his muscles gone tense and tight.
Standing near the door to the suite is the san in question, looking calm, cool, and professional in a grey suit and overcoat, in deference to the chill of the day.
For a moment, he looks just as startled and shocked as Robert feels and surely looks, his eyes sweeping Robert’s body quickly, down-up-down-up, before meeting Robert’s eyes again. A hint of color touches his cheeks, and he glances out the picture window.
“I apologize for showing up unannounced,” he says blandly, slowly in his accented English. “But it is important that we speak.”
And, as if being released from some sort of weird stasis, Robert turns bright red-all over-and covers his crotch with both hands. “Oh, God, I-fuck!“ He gulps, backing out of the entryway and bolting back into the bedroom. He slams the door shut and leans against it, breathing hard.
Getting hard.
Despite his very best efforts to put the end of yesterday evening-well, technically, early this morning-out of his head, it all comes rushing back with the speed and force of the planet Mercury: the mysterious darkness of Saito’s eyes; the inscrutable but gentle smile; the soft, warm gust of sake-scented breath as it puffed against Robert’s lips; the feel, oh, the exquisite feel of Saito’s soft, sure lips against his own, neither hesitant, nor bold, but somehow insistent and almost. . . .
Longing.
The kiss had been brief, Robert recalls with strangely perfect clarity. Brief and mostly chaste-no tongue, mouths barely open-it’d nonetheless set something in Robert afire. The same part of him that’d made him turn the sterile, good-night bow he’d been sketching to Saito, into a kiss that should have been awkward, and was . . . but that was also very fine, indeed.
At least on Robert’s end of it.
Lips suddenly tingling, still breathing hard, Robert leans his head back against the door and allows himself to remember last night.
*
Robert stumbles a bit as they step outside the restaurant, and Saito catches his arm, holding him steady.
“Sake can be a very powerful inebriant if one is not used to it,” he’d noted almost kindly, not letting go of Robert’s arm even when Robert had righted himself. In this fashion, he escorted Robert to the hired car waiting just up the street.
“Tell me about it,” Robert had laughed self-deprecatingly, coloring a bit. He was a hair’s breadth away from being as drunk as his assistants had been. He suspected he was only one or two bowls of sake from being utterly annihilated.
He had looked up into Saito’s amused eyes, and some touch of his characteristic hauteur had returned to him. “I notice you seem to be handling your sake a bit better.”
“I am used to it,” Saito had said simply, his hand still warm and sure on Robert’s elbow. “However, were I to imbibe, say scotch, I might not ‘handle it better,’ as you say.”
By now, they’d drawn even with Robert’s hired car, and Saito had let go-reluctantly, it’d seemed to Robert, who’d then dismissed the notion as briskly as his inebriated mind could move-of his elbow. He looked momentarily uncomfortable, then smiled as self-deprecatingly as Robert had been moments ago.
“Now that our business is concluded, Mr. Fischer-“
“Please, call me Robert,” Robert had interrupted, feeling amused himself. If Rodney and Carol could call him Robert, then certainly this man, who’d bought a sizeable portion of Robert’s inherited empire, could do so.
“Robert,” Saito had said, as if tasting the word. Then his smile had become more open. Robert had never seen the man wear such a smile, and wondered how well Saito was handling his sake, after all. “I should like to join you for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
Robert had blinked then grinned. “Okay, yeah, that’d be great!” He’d replied, realized he was gushing just a little then dismissed that thought, as well. Why on Earth would he be gushing at the prospect of a courtesy breakfast with a former business-rival-cum-business-associate?
Saito had nodded once. “I thank you.” He’d held out his hand for shaking, and Robert had taken it and pumped it three times exactly (any less makes you look weak, and any more makes you look like a rube, Maurice had used to say) noting that it was a strong, gentle hand, and used to some sort of manual labor, for it bore calluses, too.
“It’s my pleasure.” Robert blushed for some reason he couldn’t define then realized that Saito wasn’t in any hurry to let go of his hand, or so it seemed. He merely stood there, holding Robert’s hand and looking into his eyes as if he wanted to say something more.
When he finally did, it wasn’t what Robert had been expecting-though what he’d been expecting, he couldn’t honestly say.
“I have come to value your . . . acquaintance and insight over the past two weeks,” Saito began, once again seeming mildly uncomfortable and chagrined. “I would like to consider you a . . . friend.”
“And I, you,” Robert had said, squeezing Saito’s hand a little for emphasis. “I mean-I know you and my father were rivals, and you didn’t exactly get along-“
“If you will forgive me for saying so, Robert, your father was not an easy man to get along with,” Saito had murmured, as if loathe to speak so of the dead too loudly. But his eyes had searched Robert’s solemnly until Robert looked away.
“I, uh. I know. Believe me . . . if anyone knows, it’s me.” A fake, but easy smile, Robert had long ago learned, was great for covering up discomfort. At least as long as it’s done well, and since Maurice died, it seems that the only thing Robert can do well anymore is sell away the man’s life’s work piecemeal and smile while he does it.
He meets Saito’s gaze once more, suspecting-and rightly so-that his smile isn’t fooling either of them. He sighs, opting for a little honesty. At this late date, it hardly matters, but it couldn’t hurt, either. “Maurice was . . . a unique man. Strong, smart, self-made, beholden to no one. It made him a bit . . . insistent to have his own way. And when he was thwarted-something managed by very few people, of whom you are one, Saito-san-it made the old man . . . ill-tempered and occasionally spiteful. To everyone around him.”
“Indeed.” Saito had agreed, surely from his own set of experiences. “And please, call me ‘Toru.’”
“Alright . . . Toru.” Robert had cleared his throat and tugged his hand free. Then he’d remembered his manners and made as if to bow-but he’d stopped half way when Saito had reached out and touched his arm.
“That is not necessary,” he’d said, and Robert, still leaning forward, had put his hand on Saito’s, meaning to remove it and finish the bow. But instead he’d covered the man’s hand with his own and left it there.
Without breaking gazes, Saito had stepped forward, his hand tightening on Robert’s arm and pulling him forward as well. That solemn, searching look was back, leavening but not hiding or mitigating the sudden heated nature of the gaze.
No, nor was there any attempt made to hide or mitigate that nature.
“Oh,” Robert had breathed, feeling a quick, answering heat within himself unfurl and spread throughout his body, the lion’s share of it landing squarely in his gut. The gut that, despite Maurice’s insistence, Robert had rarely ever had the courage to listen to.
The gut whose clamoring he had for once heeded, and leaned in. Saito had met him halfway, those dark, deep eyes never closing.
*
Sagging against the bedroom door, Robert touches his lips.
It is important that we speak, Saito had said, and so help him, Robert wants to run and hide, like he’d done last night, after the kiss had ended. Robert clearly remembers turning an unspeakable shade of crimson, and turning to the hired car. He’d fumbled with the handle until Saito’s hand had closed over his own.
“Robert,” he’d said gently, and that gentle understanding had nearly undone Robert. Made him want to turn back around and throw himself into Saito’s strong arms and just rest there, until it felt like he could breathe properly again. And, pressed against Saito’s heartbeat, inhaling the scents of cologne, sake, and warm skin, Robert had thought he just might be able to regain his breath. And his equilibrium.
As it was, Saito’s touch on his hand had made him jump and bristle like a scalded cat.
He’d yanked his hand away, and instead of catching it (as Robert had half-hoped he would) Saito had merely opened the door for him.
“Thank you,” Robert had said automatically-this, a lesson learned not from his father, but from his mother. A habit he’d never really tried to break despite Maurice’s imprecations not to thank people for every little thing.
“You are most welcome,” Saito had said, and paused tangibly. “Robert, will I still see you in the morning?”
“If you must.” Robert had glanced over his shoulder. Saito’s face had gone unreadable, once more. “But it may just be best to go our separate ways. Our business is done, after all.”
“Is it?” Saito’s smile had been thin and wry, and Robert went crimson once more, unable to help it under that somehow measuring gaze. “I disagree. But we will discuss it in detail in the morning. Until then.”
He’d bowed shallowly, but slowly, then took himself off. Robert had turned to watch him go-indeed, had watched until Saito’s own car was out of sight.
Robert had then slammed his way into his car, the beginnings of tomorrow’s hangover already making themselves felt. The driver had, without comment, pulled smoothly into traffic. Sooner rather than later, they were at Robert’s hotel.
Without tipping the man-even drunk, Robert remembers his manners-he’d gone straight for his room, thankfully encountering no one other than the night manager and desk clerk. And in spite of the evening’s events, despite Robert’s own confusion and embarrassment, he’d dropped immediately off to sleep, and this morning. . . .
He’d put last night out of his mind with a sheer force of will that would’ve surprised anyone who knew him, especially his father.
Because of that willful forgetfulness, he’d completely forgotten about agreeing to breakfast with Saito. Now, there’s nothing for it, but to go back out there and deal. Deal with the fact that he’d not only kissed this powerful, intimidating man-not only that this man had seem Robert naked in more ways than one, but the intense feeling of need that was once more welling up within him. Need to feel Saito’s arms around him, keeping him . . . safe? Warm? Or maybe just keeping him?
Definitely to feel Saito’s mouth on his own again, in another of those brief, respectful-but-oh-with-the-promise-of-so-much-more kisses.
Robert leans his head back against the door again, willing away his hardness rather unsuccessfully.
Thankfully, he thinks ironically, a well-tailored suit may cover a multitude of sins.
*
Robert steps out of the bedroom in his best, impeccably pressed suit, a professional smile plastered on his face.
Saito is standing by the window, looking out distractedly.
“Saito-san,” Robert says, reflexively smoothing his hands over his suit jacket. His erection had mercifully gone away, but it hadn’t gone terribly far. “I apologize for earlier-I was expecting the bellhop.”
One ironic eyebrow quirks up when Saito glances over at him. “And do you always greet the bellhop while undressed? If so, he’s a lucky man, indeed.”
There’s goes Roberts professional smile, to be replaced by that awful crimson flush. “I-he usually just leaves breakfast and goes.” Robert wraps his arms around himself nervously, realizes how that must look-weak, uncertain, scared-and forces his arms back down to his side.
Saito turns fully to Robert, and puts his hands in his pockets. His gaze is measuring and otherwise unreadable, just like it’d been last night, but his mouth-ah, that mouth-is turned up ever so slightly at the corners.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind sharing what you find so amusing, Mr. Saito.” It’s out before Robert can stop himself, and tinged with genuine asperity. “Or do I want to know?”
Now Robert gets a full smile, and that irks him even more-sets him on edge for no reason he cares to examine.
“Sometimes, Robert, a smile is merely that: a smile,’ Saito says with a sanguinity Robert envies. “And did I not ask you to call me Toru?”
“I think it’s best that I don’t-that we keep our dealings purely professional,” Robert says, as close as he can come to alluding to last night’s kiss. But he hopes his meaning is conveyed clearly.
“I disagree.” Saito’s smile becomes a bit less cryptic and a whole lot warmer. Or maybe it just becomes heated. “I disagree very much.”
“Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?” Robert tries on Maurice’s gruff, no-nonsense voice. “Our business together is done. You have what you wanted-a rather large share of my father’s empire now sitting in your coffers. What more could you possibly want from me?”
Another wry, ironic sort of look, and Robert turns crimson again. “That is not on offer, Mr. Saito.”
“You did not give me a chance to answer your question.” Saito laughs, as if Robert has somehow delighted him. “What I want from you is a kiss. One kiss.”
Feeling disappointed for reasons he also doesn’t care to explore, Robert clears his throat and looks away. At the coffee table, upon which sits his long-awaited breakfast. He wonders briefly what the bellhop had thought when Saito had answered the door. “You’ve already gotten it.”
Saito approaches him slowly, as if approaching a skittish horse, hands held out placatingly. Robert, however, is in no mood to be placated, and balks just as defiantly as a skittish horse, taking a step back for every step Saito takes forward.
“I would like another kiss. One that we are both sober enough to fully appreciate,” Saito clarifies.
Robert realizes he’s backed all the way to the bedroom doorway, and stops cold. Saito, however, does not. At least not until a mere foot of air separates them. That’s not nearly enough distance for Robert’s liking . . . and yet it’s too much, as well.
“May I kiss you?” Saito asks, as formally as he’d asked to do business, once upon a time.
“Why? So I can be yet another conquest with the Fischer name?” Robert asks angrily, yet another thing that slips out before he can stop himself. Not that he’d had any idea it was waiting at the tip of his tongue. But now that he’s said it, he can feel the burn of true ire pushing away his embarrassment and whatever . . . untoward desires he might have entertained.
Saito’s brow furrows with consternation. “That is not how I would think of such a kiss.”
Robert laughs sarcastically. “Really? Then how would you think of it-pray, tell, Saito-san?”
Saito takes another step closer, and Robert blocks the doorway. But Saito’s intent hadn’t been to come in, but to simply move closer. Close enough to reach out and brush the callused tips of his fingers, feather-light, down Robert’s cheek. Robert turns his face away, but far too reluctantly for his own peace of mind.
“I would think of it as an honor,” Saito murmurs, his eyes flicking down to Robert’s lips briefly then back up to his eyes. “I would think of it as an event to be remembered even as I lay on my deathbed. I will surely die with many other regrets, but I do not wish this to be one of them.”
Robert blinks and gapes. Then somehow collects himself enough to find his once customary cynicism. “Pretty words. It’s a pity I don’t believe them. But shall I tell you what I do believe? I believe that you want to do more than kiss me. You want to fuck me, isn’t that right?”
Saito sighs, running one finger along the dark line of his left eyebrow. “I will not deny that it would please greatly me if we were to become lovers.”
“I’ll bet it would. You’d have found one more way to stick it to the old man, wouldn’t you? Screw me, and you’d be screwing him, too, only in a slightly different sense. Isn’t that right?”
Now Saito looks confused. “I don’t understand-“
Robert sights impatiently. “You don’t want me, you want what I stand for: your old rival’s only son-his prized possession in your bed. The final checkmate.”
Saito’s shaking his head. “That is not why I want you Robert. Your father has nothing to do with my feelings for you.”
Robert rolls his eyes. “Oh, so now there are feelings? This gets better and better!”
“I think you are brave and smart, and your sense of honor is far greater than it would be for many men in your position. I think you are a kind man and, I have noticed to my distraction, an almost unbearably lovely one, as well.” Saito steps closer, and this time, Robert does take another step back.
Saito sighs again, and takes a step back, himself. His face closes off, and he bows shallowly to Robert. “But I see this is of no import to you. That I have, in fact, caused you distress. I apologize for being so forward last night. And today. While I may have had too much sake to be fully in control of my actions then, this morning I have no such excuse now.” He bows again. “I will leave you to your breakfast.”
And with that, he turns smartly and strides toward the suite door.
Robert opens his mouth-really, it’s become almost fascinating to find out what’ll come out, these days-and says defensively: “I-how can I trust what you say? You’ve made it your life’s work to destroy or break down anything with the Fischer name on it. Why should I be any different?”
Saito pauses, his hand on the doorknob.
“You are different because you simply are,” he says slowly, as if trying to find the right words. “I have not always been . . . honorable in my dealings with the your family. I, myself, have been spiteful and difficult. But I wish to be honorable from this point on. I have no wish to see you destroyed or broken down, no wish to compete with a dead man or to take our some pointless vengeance against his surviving heir. I wish only to. . . .”
When Saito doesn’t continue, Robert steps out of the bedroom hesitantly, unaware he’s even doing so. “What? What do you wish, Saito-san”
Saito glances back at him, and bends another wry smile his way. “You have already given your answer on the matter, and I do not mean to task you any further with requests for what will not be.”
Robert lets out a breath, though it sounds like a snorting laugh. “You and your damn kiss. You’re like a broken record. Are you really this hard up for someone to swap spit with? Alright, goddamnit. Fine. One kiss.” Moved by some impulse he can’t bear to look at too closely, Robert stalks toward Saito, who half-turns to face him. When he’s gotten close enough to reach out and touch Saito, he does so, grabbing the man by the lapels and pulling him close. He has a moment to see the look of complete surprise on that saturnine face before he’s closing his eyes and bringing his mouth to Saito’s.
There are no hearts and flowers-no choirs of cherubs singing. Just the warm dry press of their lips gone slick as their mouths open a little. Then Saito’s tongue is tickling patiently at Robert’s lips until they open wider and-
Saito’s hands settle lightly on his waist and Robert’s come up to land uncertainly on Saito’s chest. And his body does something it’s never done before: it molds itself to another man’s, at once pliant and submissive. He moans into the kiss, wanting-needing more. He’s never been kissed like this and wonders if it’s because he’s kissing a man (and wouldn’t his father have something interesting to say about that?) or because he’s kissing Saito. It’s not a hard or rough kiss, but it’s demanding, possessive, and thorough, as if Saito’s trying to learn him by taste in the space of a single kiss. . . .
Eventually they have to come up for air, and when they do, Saito leans their foreheads together and squeezes Robert’s waist. “Thank you,” he breathes, and Robert shivers.
“Y-you’re welcome.” He shivers again, and Saito’s arms wind around his waist, as if in an attempt to warm him. When Robert opens his eyes, he can just barely make out Saito watching him.
“You are shivering, Robert-chan.”
And you know why, damn you. “Saito-san-“
“Toru.” The word is a gentle ghost of air on Robert’s lips. Another pleasant shiver goes through him, and liquid heat begins to pool determinedly at his groin.
“Toru, then. I-“ Robert realizes he doesn’t know what to say. Indeed, what can he say? Pressed against a man who was once his enemy-who now owns more of Fischer-Morrow-that-was than Robert does? Pressed against the first man he’s ever kissed (but not the first man he’s wanted to kiss, oh, no, merely the first man he’s wanted to kiss badly enough to let himself) and getting hard from that kiss?
Pressed against a man who’s also getting hard, and all because of him?
What can Robert say regarding any of that?
He shakes his head, frustrated and confused. “I don’t understand. Any of this.”
“I yearn for you,” Saito-Toru says gravely. “From the first time I sat across from you at a conference table, I have wanted you. Not because your last name is Fischer, but because you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen. And having spent so much time working with you lately has only intensified this . . . yearning for you that I feel. You are all I that can think about when I am with you. When we are apart, it’s . . . worse.”
Robert sighs, shaking his head again and leaning back to look Toru in the eyes. What he sees there-open, solemn, and yes, yearning-literally takes his breath away. He’s never seen a look like that. At least not one directed at himself. And therein lies the problem.
How can he trust such a look, when he can’t accept it in relation to himself?
Toru smiles ruefully. “I see you still do not believe me. Perhaps cannot believe me.”
Flushed and embarrassed at being seen into so easily, Robert looks down at his hands, still laying flat on Toru’s chest. He can feel the strong, steady heartbeat inside it. “Say I did believe you-that you really want me as badly as you claim . . . say that I want you back. That I want to explore this . . . thing that’s between us-“ he’s briefly swept away by the thrill, the sheer newness of what lay between them, hard and growing harder against Robert’s stomach. Robert does, indeed, wish to explore it. Though surely he can’t be so self-indulgent as to let himself. Right? “What then?”
Looking surprised, Toru reaches up to cup Robert’s face in his hand. His thumb strokes Robert’s cheek almost tenderly. Another thing Robert hasn’t experienced before, at least not from anyone who wasn’t his late mother.
“Then, we ‘take it slowly,’ as you Westerners like to say.” Toru frowns a little. “I would like to take the time to court you properly, as a sign of respect, and as a token of my affection. I swear on my honor I will never push you for more than you are ready for, or more than you wish to give.”
“I’m not ready for any of this and I don’t know what I want to give. Or even what I have to give,” Robert admits lowly. “I’ve never been in a relationship that wasn’t about mutual connections and convenience. Never been with anyone that didn’t care about my last name or what that name could do for them.”
Toru sways them slowly, as if to the strains of a song only he can hear, the hand still on Robert’s waist slipping around to the small of his back. “We already have all the same connections and you would never be a mere convenience to me. The Fischer name only matters to me because, like a curse, it once more stands between me and what I want.”
Robert’s eyebrows shoot up. “Which is-?“
“You.”
Shivering again, Robert realizes he could never get tired of hearing that. It’s a scary, somehow liberating thought that a feeling could be so . . . addictive. That he could, all his life, have been craving this feeling of being wanted, without even knowing it.
“You know, no one’s ever called the Fischer name a curse, before. Not to my face, anyway.” A soft laugh escapes his lips before he can stop it, and Toru smiles and darts in to steal another kiss. This one is short, but it sizzles and lingers well after Toru’s pulled away.
“I, uh . . . thought you only wanted one of those,” Robert stammers, his face heating up under Toru’s hand. He can only imagine what Maurice would think if he could see them like this. As it is, the old man must be spinning in his grave, a thought that, surprisingly, doesn’t bother Robert one bit.
“I was willing to accept one kiss. But I wanted more.” Toru’s smile turns wistful, his touch tender. Robert licks his tingling lips, noting the way Toru’s eyes immediately flick to them. “I will always want more.”
Like a flower in the sunshine, something within Robert opens-fairly blooms under Toru’s words and bright, acquisitive regard. “Tell me again.”
Smiling, Toru sways them some more then dips Robert gracefully, easily; the next step in their own private dance. Robert can only hope Toru knows what the step after that is, as well. “I want you, Robert-chan.”
Robert’s arms slide up and around Toru’s neck and he lets himself be pulled back upright and into a tight, possessive embrace. He gazes long into Toru’s dark eyes, takes a deep breath, and throws his caution, his hesitation, his fear to the wind. He takes a leap of faith, and trusts that Toru will be there to catch him.
“Then kiss me,” he whispers.
Toru does.
*
Continued In: Moving Day
Kiss Me
Author:
beetle_comma_the
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Robert/Saito
Rating: R
Word Count: Approx. 5300
Disclaimer: It was Colonel Mustard, in the drawing room, with the revolver.
Notes: Set two months after Inception.
Summary: Written for the
inception_kink prompt: A drunken kiss good night and an awkward apology the next day.
Robert wipes steam off the bathroom mirror and stares long and hard into the reflection of his eyes.
They’re the same cornflower-blue as always, though a bit bloodshot and surrounded by grayish circles. The rest of his face is pale under the flush the hot shower had brought to his skin. His dark auburn hair is still wet and there’s fringe hanging in his face, like it had when he was a child.
Not that he’d ever been hungover as a child.
Grimacing, he runs his hands through his hair, till it lays back flat. A slight draft of cooler air hits him, makes him shiver, break out in gooseflesh, then sneeze-which completely messes up his hair once more.
Now glaring at his reflection, he rubs his hair vigorously with a towel, till it’s in spikes and clumps, then hangs the towel back on the rack. He opens the bathroom door and stands in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the mid-morning sunlight streaming in. When they do, he walks over to the window, debating whether to close the curtains or leave them drawn. In the end, he decides to leave them drawn. Osaka is beautiful in the morning, hangover or not, and at any rate, hotel rooms feel like richly-appointed caves when the curtains are closed. Robert’s always thought so.
Despite the sun, the bedroom of his hotel suite is rather chilly after the heated humidity of the bathroom. He’s considering whether he should turn up the thermostat, or simply hurry into his suit-not that he has to be in the office, today, since he’s in Osaka, and Fischer-Morrow doesn’t have a local office. The deal with Proclus global is finally done and, as Uncle Peter might have said, were he not still frothing at the mouth, it’s Miller-time. Robert could literally stay in naked all day, should he choose to. . . .
Oh, but he still has plenty of work to keep himself occupied, however, and one of the advantages of being fully dressed is its ability to help focus one on work. Or so said the late Maurice Fischer.
“The suit, it is,” he murmurs to himself, smiling ruefully, wondering how long he would have to live before finally, truly stepping out of his father’s shadow. Certainly breaking up Fischer-Morrow was a start, but in so many ways, big and small, Robert is still figuring out how to be his own man. He’d spent the first thirty years of his life trying so hard to live up to what he thought Maurice wanted, that he’d never really given thought to what being anything else might be like.
Now, two months after Maurice’s death, he feels he is no closer. In fact, if anything-
Just then there’s a discreet knock at the door, barely audible in the bedroom. That’ll be room service with his usual breakfast of orange juice, coffee, two boiled eggs, and dry wheat toast.
“Come in!” He calls loudly, sighing as he watches a lone bird wing its way across the sky, toward the horizon. “Just leave the tray on the coffee table, thanks!”
He’s learned, throughout his stay, that tipping Japanese service staff is considered rather rude, and doesn’t even bother to reach for his robe so he can go tip the bellhop.
At least that’s one more small way I’m not like Maurice. He’d have insisted on tipping the guy, anyway, with no more consideration than if poor man had been an automaton. One that ran on money, as so many people and things did, in his opinion.
Robert’s mouth curves in that rueful smile again, and he watches the bird till it’s out of sight. He doesn’t envy its ability to fly, no, but he does envy its certainty about itself-something that surely keeps it in the air as much as its wings and the laws of physics.
This penchant for reflection is nothing new to Robert, but he’s learned, through gargantuan effort, to put reflection aside for action. As Maurice had always said: there’s danger in over-thinking things, Robert. Know when to follow your gut and make your move.
The move that’s called for now is eating breakfast so he can get to work. Though there’s much less of it than there used to be-since selling, massive chunks of it to Proclus Global, among other companies-there’s certainly more than enough work to keep one CEO and his recently-hired assistants in numbers, graphs, and meetings all day long-
Suddenly reminded that he’d better check in on Rodney and Carol after last night, Robert almost goes for his Blackberry. Then he decides not to. The alcohol had been flowing rather freely at Saito-san’s, and after the stress of twenty-hour days for the past two weeks, Carol, at least, had gotten plastered. Rodney hadn’t been too far behind. Both of them had been hanging off the arms of Saito-san’s assistants when Robert had shooed them off for the evening. It was likely that not only were they not awake, but they were probably in no fit state to field a call from their boss.
(Not that Robert is in much better shape, but at least he doesn’t have a superior to report to.)
Wincing at the way his hangover makes its presence felt once more, Robert turns away from the window and wanders towards the suite proper. Despite brushing his teeth, his mouth still tastes like death. Mint-flavored death, and his eyes are still relatively light-sensitive. He doesn’t have Uncle Peter’s, or even Maurice’s tolerance for alcohol. And though he’d drunk conservatively of the warm, fragrant sake on tap last night, he’d still gotten quite tipsy. He’d only barely been more sober than Rodney and Carol, though he’d drunk only a third as much.
How much Saito-san had had, Robert has no idea. But enough so that he hadn’t pulled away when Robert-
“Oh, fuck me!” Robert exclaims, one hand flying to his chest as he stops dead in the entryway to the main room. His heart is suddenly racing, his muscles gone tense and tight.
Standing near the door to the suite is the san in question, looking calm, cool, and professional in a grey suit and overcoat, in deference to the chill of the day.
For a moment, he looks just as startled and shocked as Robert feels and surely looks, his eyes sweeping Robert’s body quickly, down-up-down-up, before meeting Robert’s eyes again. A hint of color touches his cheeks, and he glances out the picture window.
“I apologize for showing up unannounced,” he says blandly, slowly in his accented English. “But it is important that we speak.”
And, as if being released from some sort of weird stasis, Robert turns bright red-all over-and covers his crotch with both hands. “Oh, God, I-fuck!“ He gulps, backing out of the entryway and bolting back into the bedroom. He slams the door shut and leans against it, breathing hard.
Getting hard.
Despite his very best efforts to put the end of yesterday evening-well, technically, early this morning-out of his head, it all comes rushing back with the speed and force of the planet Mercury: the mysterious darkness of Saito’s eyes; the inscrutable but gentle smile; the soft, warm gust of sake-scented breath as it puffed against Robert’s lips; the feel, oh, the exquisite feel of Saito’s soft, sure lips against his own, neither hesitant, nor bold, but somehow insistent and almost. . . .
Longing.
The kiss had been brief, Robert recalls with strangely perfect clarity. Brief and mostly chaste-no tongue, mouths barely open-it’d nonetheless set something in Robert afire. The same part of him that’d made him turn the sterile, good-night bow he’d been sketching to Saito, into a kiss that should have been awkward, and was . . . but that was also very fine, indeed.
At least on Robert’s end of it.
Lips suddenly tingling, still breathing hard, Robert leans his head back against the door and allows himself to remember last night.
*
Robert stumbles a bit as they step outside the restaurant, and Saito catches his arm, holding him steady.
“Sake can be a very powerful inebriant if one is not used to it,” he’d noted almost kindly, not letting go of Robert’s arm even when Robert had righted himself. In this fashion, he escorted Robert to the hired car waiting just up the street.
“Tell me about it,” Robert had laughed self-deprecatingly, coloring a bit. He was a hair’s breadth away from being as drunk as his assistants had been. He suspected he was only one or two bowls of sake from being utterly annihilated.
He had looked up into Saito’s amused eyes, and some touch of his characteristic hauteur had returned to him. “I notice you seem to be handling your sake a bit better.”
“I am used to it,” Saito had said simply, his hand still warm and sure on Robert’s elbow. “However, were I to imbibe, say scotch, I might not ‘handle it better,’ as you say.”
By now, they’d drawn even with Robert’s hired car, and Saito had let go-reluctantly, it’d seemed to Robert, who’d then dismissed the notion as briskly as his inebriated mind could move-of his elbow. He looked momentarily uncomfortable, then smiled as self-deprecatingly as Robert had been moments ago.
“Now that our business is concluded, Mr. Fischer-“
“Please, call me Robert,” Robert had interrupted, feeling amused himself. If Rodney and Carol could call him Robert, then certainly this man, who’d bought a sizeable portion of Robert’s inherited empire, could do so.
“Robert,” Saito had said, as if tasting the word. Then his smile had become more open. Robert had never seen the man wear such a smile, and wondered how well Saito was handling his sake, after all. “I should like to join you for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
Robert had blinked then grinned. “Okay, yeah, that’d be great!” He’d replied, realized he was gushing just a little then dismissed that thought, as well. Why on Earth would he be gushing at the prospect of a courtesy breakfast with a former business-rival-cum-business-associate?
Saito had nodded once. “I thank you.” He’d held out his hand for shaking, and Robert had taken it and pumped it three times exactly (any less makes you look weak, and any more makes you look like a rube, Maurice had used to say) noting that it was a strong, gentle hand, and used to some sort of manual labor, for it bore calluses, too.
“It’s my pleasure.” Robert blushed for some reason he couldn’t define then realized that Saito wasn’t in any hurry to let go of his hand, or so it seemed. He merely stood there, holding Robert’s hand and looking into his eyes as if he wanted to say something more.
When he finally did, it wasn’t what Robert had been expecting-though what he’d been expecting, he couldn’t honestly say.
“I have come to value your . . . acquaintance and insight over the past two weeks,” Saito began, once again seeming mildly uncomfortable and chagrined. “I would like to consider you a . . . friend.”
“And I, you,” Robert had said, squeezing Saito’s hand a little for emphasis. “I mean-I know you and my father were rivals, and you didn’t exactly get along-“
“If you will forgive me for saying so, Robert, your father was not an easy man to get along with,” Saito had murmured, as if loathe to speak so of the dead too loudly. But his eyes had searched Robert’s solemnly until Robert looked away.
“I, uh. I know. Believe me . . . if anyone knows, it’s me.” A fake, but easy smile, Robert had long ago learned, was great for covering up discomfort. At least as long as it’s done well, and since Maurice died, it seems that the only thing Robert can do well anymore is sell away the man’s life’s work piecemeal and smile while he does it.
He meets Saito’s gaze once more, suspecting-and rightly so-that his smile isn’t fooling either of them. He sighs, opting for a little honesty. At this late date, it hardly matters, but it couldn’t hurt, either. “Maurice was . . . a unique man. Strong, smart, self-made, beholden to no one. It made him a bit . . . insistent to have his own way. And when he was thwarted-something managed by very few people, of whom you are one, Saito-san-it made the old man . . . ill-tempered and occasionally spiteful. To everyone around him.”
“Indeed.” Saito had agreed, surely from his own set of experiences. “And please, call me ‘Toru.’”
“Alright . . . Toru.” Robert had cleared his throat and tugged his hand free. Then he’d remembered his manners and made as if to bow-but he’d stopped half way when Saito had reached out and touched his arm.
“That is not necessary,” he’d said, and Robert, still leaning forward, had put his hand on Saito’s, meaning to remove it and finish the bow. But instead he’d covered the man’s hand with his own and left it there.
Without breaking gazes, Saito had stepped forward, his hand tightening on Robert’s arm and pulling him forward as well. That solemn, searching look was back, leavening but not hiding or mitigating the sudden heated nature of the gaze.
No, nor was there any attempt made to hide or mitigate that nature.
“Oh,” Robert had breathed, feeling a quick, answering heat within himself unfurl and spread throughout his body, the lion’s share of it landing squarely in his gut. The gut that, despite Maurice’s insistence, Robert had rarely ever had the courage to listen to.
The gut whose clamoring he had for once heeded, and leaned in. Saito had met him halfway, those dark, deep eyes never closing.
*
Sagging against the bedroom door, Robert touches his lips.
It is important that we speak, Saito had said, and so help him, Robert wants to run and hide, like he’d done last night, after the kiss had ended. Robert clearly remembers turning an unspeakable shade of crimson, and turning to the hired car. He’d fumbled with the handle until Saito’s hand had closed over his own.
“Robert,” he’d said gently, and that gentle understanding had nearly undone Robert. Made him want to turn back around and throw himself into Saito’s strong arms and just rest there, until it felt like he could breathe properly again. And, pressed against Saito’s heartbeat, inhaling the scents of cologne, sake, and warm skin, Robert had thought he just might be able to regain his breath. And his equilibrium.
As it was, Saito’s touch on his hand had made him jump and bristle like a scalded cat.
He’d yanked his hand away, and instead of catching it (as Robert had half-hoped he would) Saito had merely opened the door for him.
“Thank you,” Robert had said automatically-this, a lesson learned not from his father, but from his mother. A habit he’d never really tried to break despite Maurice’s imprecations not to thank people for every little thing.
“You are most welcome,” Saito had said, and paused tangibly. “Robert, will I still see you in the morning?”
“If you must.” Robert had glanced over his shoulder. Saito’s face had gone unreadable, once more. “But it may just be best to go our separate ways. Our business is done, after all.”
“Is it?” Saito’s smile had been thin and wry, and Robert went crimson once more, unable to help it under that somehow measuring gaze. “I disagree. But we will discuss it in detail in the morning. Until then.”
He’d bowed shallowly, but slowly, then took himself off. Robert had turned to watch him go-indeed, had watched until Saito’s own car was out of sight.
Robert had then slammed his way into his car, the beginnings of tomorrow’s hangover already making themselves felt. The driver had, without comment, pulled smoothly into traffic. Sooner rather than later, they were at Robert’s hotel.
Without tipping the man-even drunk, Robert remembers his manners-he’d gone straight for his room, thankfully encountering no one other than the night manager and desk clerk. And in spite of the evening’s events, despite Robert’s own confusion and embarrassment, he’d dropped immediately off to sleep, and this morning. . . .
He’d put last night out of his mind with a sheer force of will that would’ve surprised anyone who knew him, especially his father.
Because of that willful forgetfulness, he’d completely forgotten about agreeing to breakfast with Saito. Now, there’s nothing for it, but to go back out there and deal. Deal with the fact that he’d not only kissed this powerful, intimidating man-not only that this man had seem Robert naked in more ways than one, but the intense feeling of need that was once more welling up within him. Need to feel Saito’s arms around him, keeping him . . . safe? Warm? Or maybe just keeping him?
Definitely to feel Saito’s mouth on his own again, in another of those brief, respectful-but-oh-with-the-promise-of-so-much-more kisses.
Robert leans his head back against the door again, willing away his hardness rather unsuccessfully.
Thankfully, he thinks ironically, a well-tailored suit may cover a multitude of sins.
*
Robert steps out of the bedroom in his best, impeccably pressed suit, a professional smile plastered on his face.
Saito is standing by the window, looking out distractedly.
“Saito-san,” Robert says, reflexively smoothing his hands over his suit jacket. His erection had mercifully gone away, but it hadn’t gone terribly far. “I apologize for earlier-I was expecting the bellhop.”
One ironic eyebrow quirks up when Saito glances over at him. “And do you always greet the bellhop while undressed? If so, he’s a lucky man, indeed.”
There’s goes Roberts professional smile, to be replaced by that awful crimson flush. “I-he usually just leaves breakfast and goes.” Robert wraps his arms around himself nervously, realizes how that must look-weak, uncertain, scared-and forces his arms back down to his side.
Saito turns fully to Robert, and puts his hands in his pockets. His gaze is measuring and otherwise unreadable, just like it’d been last night, but his mouth-ah, that mouth-is turned up ever so slightly at the corners.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind sharing what you find so amusing, Mr. Saito.” It’s out before Robert can stop himself, and tinged with genuine asperity. “Or do I want to know?”
Now Robert gets a full smile, and that irks him even more-sets him on edge for no reason he cares to examine.
“Sometimes, Robert, a smile is merely that: a smile,’ Saito says with a sanguinity Robert envies. “And did I not ask you to call me Toru?”
“I think it’s best that I don’t-that we keep our dealings purely professional,” Robert says, as close as he can come to alluding to last night’s kiss. But he hopes his meaning is conveyed clearly.
“I disagree.” Saito’s smile becomes a bit less cryptic and a whole lot warmer. Or maybe it just becomes heated. “I disagree very much.”
“Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?” Robert tries on Maurice’s gruff, no-nonsense voice. “Our business together is done. You have what you wanted-a rather large share of my father’s empire now sitting in your coffers. What more could you possibly want from me?”
Another wry, ironic sort of look, and Robert turns crimson again. “That is not on offer, Mr. Saito.”
“You did not give me a chance to answer your question.” Saito laughs, as if Robert has somehow delighted him. “What I want from you is a kiss. One kiss.”
Feeling disappointed for reasons he also doesn’t care to explore, Robert clears his throat and looks away. At the coffee table, upon which sits his long-awaited breakfast. He wonders briefly what the bellhop had thought when Saito had answered the door. “You’ve already gotten it.”
Saito approaches him slowly, as if approaching a skittish horse, hands held out placatingly. Robert, however, is in no mood to be placated, and balks just as defiantly as a skittish horse, taking a step back for every step Saito takes forward.
“I would like another kiss. One that we are both sober enough to fully appreciate,” Saito clarifies.
Robert realizes he’s backed all the way to the bedroom doorway, and stops cold. Saito, however, does not. At least not until a mere foot of air separates them. That’s not nearly enough distance for Robert’s liking . . . and yet it’s too much, as well.
“May I kiss you?” Saito asks, as formally as he’d asked to do business, once upon a time.
“Why? So I can be yet another conquest with the Fischer name?” Robert asks angrily, yet another thing that slips out before he can stop himself. Not that he’d had any idea it was waiting at the tip of his tongue. But now that he’s said it, he can feel the burn of true ire pushing away his embarrassment and whatever . . . untoward desires he might have entertained.
Saito’s brow furrows with consternation. “That is not how I would think of such a kiss.”
Robert laughs sarcastically. “Really? Then how would you think of it-pray, tell, Saito-san?”
Saito takes another step closer, and Robert blocks the doorway. But Saito’s intent hadn’t been to come in, but to simply move closer. Close enough to reach out and brush the callused tips of his fingers, feather-light, down Robert’s cheek. Robert turns his face away, but far too reluctantly for his own peace of mind.
“I would think of it as an honor,” Saito murmurs, his eyes flicking down to Robert’s lips briefly then back up to his eyes. “I would think of it as an event to be remembered even as I lay on my deathbed. I will surely die with many other regrets, but I do not wish this to be one of them.”
Robert blinks and gapes. Then somehow collects himself enough to find his once customary cynicism. “Pretty words. It’s a pity I don’t believe them. But shall I tell you what I do believe? I believe that you want to do more than kiss me. You want to fuck me, isn’t that right?”
Saito sighs, running one finger along the dark line of his left eyebrow. “I will not deny that it would please greatly me if we were to become lovers.”
“I’ll bet it would. You’d have found one more way to stick it to the old man, wouldn’t you? Screw me, and you’d be screwing him, too, only in a slightly different sense. Isn’t that right?”
Now Saito looks confused. “I don’t understand-“
Robert sights impatiently. “You don’t want me, you want what I stand for: your old rival’s only son-his prized possession in your bed. The final checkmate.”
Saito’s shaking his head. “That is not why I want you Robert. Your father has nothing to do with my feelings for you.”
Robert rolls his eyes. “Oh, so now there are feelings? This gets better and better!”
“I think you are brave and smart, and your sense of honor is far greater than it would be for many men in your position. I think you are a kind man and, I have noticed to my distraction, an almost unbearably lovely one, as well.” Saito steps closer, and this time, Robert does take another step back.
Saito sighs again, and takes a step back, himself. His face closes off, and he bows shallowly to Robert. “But I see this is of no import to you. That I have, in fact, caused you distress. I apologize for being so forward last night. And today. While I may have had too much sake to be fully in control of my actions then, this morning I have no such excuse now.” He bows again. “I will leave you to your breakfast.”
And with that, he turns smartly and strides toward the suite door.
Robert opens his mouth-really, it’s become almost fascinating to find out what’ll come out, these days-and says defensively: “I-how can I trust what you say? You’ve made it your life’s work to destroy or break down anything with the Fischer name on it. Why should I be any different?”
Saito pauses, his hand on the doorknob.
“You are different because you simply are,” he says slowly, as if trying to find the right words. “I have not always been . . . honorable in my dealings with the your family. I, myself, have been spiteful and difficult. But I wish to be honorable from this point on. I have no wish to see you destroyed or broken down, no wish to compete with a dead man or to take our some pointless vengeance against his surviving heir. I wish only to. . . .”
When Saito doesn’t continue, Robert steps out of the bedroom hesitantly, unaware he’s even doing so. “What? What do you wish, Saito-san”
Saito glances back at him, and bends another wry smile his way. “You have already given your answer on the matter, and I do not mean to task you any further with requests for what will not be.”
Robert lets out a breath, though it sounds like a snorting laugh. “You and your damn kiss. You’re like a broken record. Are you really this hard up for someone to swap spit with? Alright, goddamnit. Fine. One kiss.” Moved by some impulse he can’t bear to look at too closely, Robert stalks toward Saito, who half-turns to face him. When he’s gotten close enough to reach out and touch Saito, he does so, grabbing the man by the lapels and pulling him close. He has a moment to see the look of complete surprise on that saturnine face before he’s closing his eyes and bringing his mouth to Saito’s.
There are no hearts and flowers-no choirs of cherubs singing. Just the warm dry press of their lips gone slick as their mouths open a little. Then Saito’s tongue is tickling patiently at Robert’s lips until they open wider and-
Saito’s hands settle lightly on his waist and Robert’s come up to land uncertainly on Saito’s chest. And his body does something it’s never done before: it molds itself to another man’s, at once pliant and submissive. He moans into the kiss, wanting-needing more. He’s never been kissed like this and wonders if it’s because he’s kissing a man (and wouldn’t his father have something interesting to say about that?) or because he’s kissing Saito. It’s not a hard or rough kiss, but it’s demanding, possessive, and thorough, as if Saito’s trying to learn him by taste in the space of a single kiss. . . .
Eventually they have to come up for air, and when they do, Saito leans their foreheads together and squeezes Robert’s waist. “Thank you,” he breathes, and Robert shivers.
“Y-you’re welcome.” He shivers again, and Saito’s arms wind around his waist, as if in an attempt to warm him. When Robert opens his eyes, he can just barely make out Saito watching him.
“You are shivering, Robert-chan.”
And you know why, damn you. “Saito-san-“
“Toru.” The word is a gentle ghost of air on Robert’s lips. Another pleasant shiver goes through him, and liquid heat begins to pool determinedly at his groin.
“Toru, then. I-“ Robert realizes he doesn’t know what to say. Indeed, what can he say? Pressed against a man who was once his enemy-who now owns more of Fischer-Morrow-that-was than Robert does? Pressed against the first man he’s ever kissed (but not the first man he’s wanted to kiss, oh, no, merely the first man he’s wanted to kiss badly enough to let himself) and getting hard from that kiss?
Pressed against a man who’s also getting hard, and all because of him?
What can Robert say regarding any of that?
He shakes his head, frustrated and confused. “I don’t understand. Any of this.”
“I yearn for you,” Saito-Toru says gravely. “From the first time I sat across from you at a conference table, I have wanted you. Not because your last name is Fischer, but because you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen. And having spent so much time working with you lately has only intensified this . . . yearning for you that I feel. You are all I that can think about when I am with you. When we are apart, it’s . . . worse.”
Robert sighs, shaking his head again and leaning back to look Toru in the eyes. What he sees there-open, solemn, and yes, yearning-literally takes his breath away. He’s never seen a look like that. At least not one directed at himself. And therein lies the problem.
How can he trust such a look, when he can’t accept it in relation to himself?
Toru smiles ruefully. “I see you still do not believe me. Perhaps cannot believe me.”
Flushed and embarrassed at being seen into so easily, Robert looks down at his hands, still laying flat on Toru’s chest. He can feel the strong, steady heartbeat inside it. “Say I did believe you-that you really want me as badly as you claim . . . say that I want you back. That I want to explore this . . . thing that’s between us-“ he’s briefly swept away by the thrill, the sheer newness of what lay between them, hard and growing harder against Robert’s stomach. Robert does, indeed, wish to explore it. Though surely he can’t be so self-indulgent as to let himself. Right? “What then?”
Looking surprised, Toru reaches up to cup Robert’s face in his hand. His thumb strokes Robert’s cheek almost tenderly. Another thing Robert hasn’t experienced before, at least not from anyone who wasn’t his late mother.
“Then, we ‘take it slowly,’ as you Westerners like to say.” Toru frowns a little. “I would like to take the time to court you properly, as a sign of respect, and as a token of my affection. I swear on my honor I will never push you for more than you are ready for, or more than you wish to give.”
“I’m not ready for any of this and I don’t know what I want to give. Or even what I have to give,” Robert admits lowly. “I’ve never been in a relationship that wasn’t about mutual connections and convenience. Never been with anyone that didn’t care about my last name or what that name could do for them.”
Toru sways them slowly, as if to the strains of a song only he can hear, the hand still on Robert’s waist slipping around to the small of his back. “We already have all the same connections and you would never be a mere convenience to me. The Fischer name only matters to me because, like a curse, it once more stands between me and what I want.”
Robert’s eyebrows shoot up. “Which is-?“
“You.”
Shivering again, Robert realizes he could never get tired of hearing that. It’s a scary, somehow liberating thought that a feeling could be so . . . addictive. That he could, all his life, have been craving this feeling of being wanted, without even knowing it.
“You know, no one’s ever called the Fischer name a curse, before. Not to my face, anyway.” A soft laugh escapes his lips before he can stop it, and Toru smiles and darts in to steal another kiss. This one is short, but it sizzles and lingers well after Toru’s pulled away.
“I, uh . . . thought you only wanted one of those,” Robert stammers, his face heating up under Toru’s hand. He can only imagine what Maurice would think if he could see them like this. As it is, the old man must be spinning in his grave, a thought that, surprisingly, doesn’t bother Robert one bit.
“I was willing to accept one kiss. But I wanted more.” Toru’s smile turns wistful, his touch tender. Robert licks his tingling lips, noting the way Toru’s eyes immediately flick to them. “I will always want more.”
Like a flower in the sunshine, something within Robert opens-fairly blooms under Toru’s words and bright, acquisitive regard. “Tell me again.”
Smiling, Toru sways them some more then dips Robert gracefully, easily; the next step in their own private dance. Robert can only hope Toru knows what the step after that is, as well. “I want you, Robert-chan.”
Robert’s arms slide up and around Toru’s neck and he lets himself be pulled back upright and into a tight, possessive embrace. He gazes long into Toru’s dark eyes, takes a deep breath, and throws his caution, his hesitation, his fear to the wind. He takes a leap of faith, and trusts that Toru will be there to catch him.
“Then kiss me,” he whispers.
Toru does.
*
Continued In: Moving Day