fic, DSRK2, NaruRai, "Confidential"
Waff for 7/7, although it is thematically unrelated to celestial happenings. I meant to write a case fic involving magpies ala The Birds but no dice.
Not much in the way of hanky panky, only GOOP GOOP GOOP you have been warned. p.s. I made Raidou talk too much.
NaruRai + cat, spoilers for DSRK and DSRK2 (final battle, Law ending).
* * *
Confidential
For his part, Raidou would've been glad to fly straight home, even if he could barely keep his seat on the dragon's back, but the women--especially Akane--insisted that he stay. It was the least she and the village could do to offer one more night of hospitality, she said, after what he'd done for them. For the whole world, come to that.
Narumi was in favor. Why not, he said--they could head back tomorrow. Might as well get a few more halfway decent memories of this place under their belts. Raidou was too weary to protest. The rush that had carried him through interminable battles with Shinado was long gone. His body ached exactly as a body would after being flung to the ground by an angry god a hundred times in hard succession. The nearest futon was as good as a more distant one. The Capital would have to fend for itself another night.
At the inn there was dinner in the room, and the others wanted to know what had happened in the Abyss. Raidou gave them an abbreviated version. At last Tae said they should let him rest, poor guy, look at him, he was practically falling asleep in his soup, and they all bustled out, except for Narumi and Gouto.
Raidou kept himself upright. He began to give Narumi the less abbreviated version, not only out of duty or habit but because there were parts of it he wanted to tell. But Narumi said "Save it for later, eh?" and, gently, "You look done in."
The bedding was already laid out. Without waiting for further encouragement or bothering to take off anything but his jacket--the uniform was a loss, anyway--Raidou crawled onto the futon like a shipwrecked man to shore. When he closed his eyes golden spheres swam into his head. He hoped he wouldn't dream of them for long.
*
It wasn't dreams of anything that woke him. He felt a long, warm body stretched out along his side, not under the covers (which he didn't remember pulling over himself, though they were draped over him now) but on top. He opened his eyes. Narumi was leaning next to him, head propped on one hand, smoking a cigarette. He wore the crooked little private smile that seemed to be standard issue these days, and one of the inn's yukata instead of his suit.
"Don't mind me," he said. "Cat burglar stole my spot."
Raidou glanced around for Gouto, and saw a black shape sprawled belly-up, paws-akimbo on the other futon, the one that was in theory meant for Narumi. Fast asleep.
It looked like solid advice. Raidou let his eyes fall shut again. If he breathed too deeply his ribcage complained, but then there was the smell of smoke and the man next to him: clean, damp, faintly mineral, as if Narumi had been to the hot springs and back again while he slept. Probably he had. That too seemed like solid advice, but it demanded more motion than Raidou was prepared to muster. He drifted, just on the near side of a doze.
His memories of the Abyss were already dissipating, unraveling into confusion, as if a human mind--even a trained summoner's--were not meant to hold them. He wondered how it was for Akane, or the villagers who'd been held in sway, whether they would remember their captivity as anything but a bewildering dream.
There was one memory that kept returning: what the mysterious blond man had said about him. That he made nice with everyone--as if that were something to be ashamed of--without really trusting anyone. Maybe it was true, the part about not trusting. You didn't get far in his line of work by dropping your guard too readily. If you did get far, it would be straight down a demon's gullet. Raidou wasn't inclined to trust the mysterious blond man any further than he could throw him, either.
But he did trust, where trust was warranted. Gouto, for one.
The person next to him, for another.
Trust to do what exactly was another matter, but still.
Raidou turned his head.
"You were there," he said. Quietly, so as not to disturb Gouto. "In Abaddon."
Narumi's smile went quizzical. "I was at the shrine, you goof, praying for your victory. That, and wishing I had my mah jong set, and maybe some hard liquor, since there were four of us after Akane showed up, and believe you me, those dames needed distracting."
Raidou believed it. "But you were there, too. In the Abyss. An apparition, maybe. Something Shinado sent."
He still wondered. The Narumi in the Abyss hadn't felt false to him--nor had the Tae, for that matter, although the Tae was more disheartening to remember. He knew there were gods who had the power to summon spirits of the living as well as shades of the dead. It was strange to think that the spirit of a living man could be summoned without the man himself noticing, but maybe that was a tribute to the resilience of the man in question. Or the sheer obliviousness.
Narumi took a drag on his cigarette. "I see. So what was the bug in my bonnet?"
"There wasn't one."
The cigarette dangled foolishly. Narumi blinked, then looked pleased verging on vindicated, not to say smug. Before he could congratulate himself at too much length, Raidou continued.
"There wasn't one, but you asked whether I didn't want to live a normal life. To give up being a Kuzunoha."
The smugness disappeared from Narumi's face, and most of the smile with it. "Let me guess, that'd be thanks but no thanks."
Raidou searched for a way to explain better. "This is my normal life," he said.
That wasn't quite right--he had learned enough since accepting his post at the Capital to understand, in the intellectual sense, that a summoner's life wasn't normal by any stretch. But he could sooner give up breathing than give up being what he was. Could and would. He would be a Kuzunoha even after death.
"I get it," murmured Narumi. He leaned forward to bump his forehead into Raidou's, or rather into Raidou's hat, and let out a gusty sigh. "You make me feel like a prizefighter's main squeeze sometimes, you know that? I hate seeing you get beat up, but it sure is a kick to watch you wipe the floor with all those other mugs." He pulled back. "How're you feeling, anyway?"
Raidou made a neutral sound. If he tried to move he felt like he could use an ox bezoar or several. As long as he didn't move he felt fine.
"Tomorrow a.m. we'll take a nice long soak before we head back to town, how's that."
It sounded good. Invigorating, even.
"Mind if I get rid of this?"
The hat, Narumi meant. He had one thumb already cocked under the brim. Raidou pushed the thumb away to remove the hat himself--the rest of his uniform might be a lost cause, but not this portion--and set it carefully on the tatami floor. Narumi watched with ill-concealed satisfaction.
"There oughtta be a 'pop' when that thing comes off, if you ask me. Like uncorking a bottle of champagne. The real stuff. Dom Pérignon." He reached to smooth a lick of hair over Raidou's brow, as if it weren't already flattened. "Did I mention you did good today?"
Raidou nodded. Somehow the praise didn't seem redundant yet.
"You did good."
From the other futon came a gagging noise. "Do I need to leave?" Gouto asked.
Raidou was abashed. For a minute he'd forgotten they weren't alone in the room. He told Gouto to stay where he was.
"Kitty, you can have that whole big futon all to yourself," said Narumi unnecessarily. Gouto only spared him a shriveling look, which hit him square in the back, while Narumi rattled on to Raidou around a mouthful of cigarette. "You ever had champagne? It's fizzy, like a soda. You'd like it. We should get a bottle when we're back in town, have a toast to no more locust plagues."
Gouto produced another noise between a garbled yowl and a groan. "Don't fall for it. He just wants to get you loaded and spend obscene amounts of dough at the same time."
Narumi craned his neck. "What's the matter with Gouto? He's making a heck of a racket."
"Tell him I'm having a hairball," Gouto said.
Raidou relayed the message.
Narumi scrambled upright. "Cat, you stay away from my suit--"
The suit did happen to be folded very near the futon. Gouto's eyes glinted an especially diabolical green.
"Tell him to open the door, dollface, and I'll make myself scarce."
Raidou relayed that message, too, with minor adjustments.
Narumi lunged across the room and slid the door open in record time. Gouto sauntered out, tail waving a see you later, and disappeared down the hall. Narumi stared after him, then shut the door with a clack.
"That's an infernal animal," he observed. "You never did explain how he came back from the dead. No, don't tell me, I don't really want to know." His voice dropped to a mutter. "Zombie cat having zombie hairballs--"
Raidou frowned slightly. He had fought too many zombies in his life, and besides, it wasn't fair that Gouto should have to leave, not when Gouto had gone through everything Raidou had in Abaddon, or nearly everything, and must be nearly as worn out. Especially not when Raidou was too tired to have any intention of doing anything unmentionable with anyone.
Although he'd had no intention of doing anything unmentionable during their previous stay at the inn, either. His lack of intention hadn't helped.
What he said aloud was: "Gouto's not a zombie."
"Good to know." Narumi padded back across the room and stood between the two futons, looking down. He seemed to perceive Raidou's disquiet. "Now I'm curious. Was that whole scheme a conspiracy just to get me out of your bed? Because a kick in the pants is faster, not to mention more direct."
Raidou told him it hadn't been. He waited a long moment before adding that it was all right to come back.
Narumi brightened.
Raidou further added that he was going back to sleep, just to be clear, and because he suspected that when Narumi had talked about getting memories under their belts, he'd meant it literally.
Narumi was unfazed. He put out his cigarette, swiped a pillow from the other futon, and settled back down. "I'm bushed too, you know. All that praying takes it out of a guy. Shove over, will you? On your side."
The suggestion was so casually given that Raidou followed it without thinking, and only afterward paused to reconsider the wisdom of turning his back to Narumi at this point. A warm hand cupped the nape of his neck.
"What--"
"Easy does it."
The hand began to knead. Just his neck, and just the part above his collar. Raidou's mouth went slack. It was as if Narumi had--by instinct or deduction or dumb luck--found the one place on his body that wasn't bruised, only sore. Raidou's thoughts began to flicker in and out of coherence, like a light about to go off.
Bits of their conversation repeated in his mind amid the flickering, the way a phonograph record did when it skipped. A prizefighter, Narumi had called him. It was such a funny thing to say. Raidou had never thought of himself in those terms, or considered that there might be some reward for doing his work beyond the satisfactions he already took in it. But the hand on his neck felt as good and as much like a revelation as anything he'd ever felt. He hoped it would never stop.
He could barely get his lips to form words. He tried for Narumi-san.
"Hmmm?"
His eyes had slumped shut. "You said...other things. In the Abyss."
"Did I?"
Belatedly he realized it was no use repeating them. Even if that other Narumi had been the spirit of this one, Raidou didn't want to give too much away. He had an inkling that he might like to be told and asked some of those things again sometime. Not in the Abyss but in this world. This place.
His chin sank to his chest. "You...you bet your life on me."
"That was before you went in to clean house, as I recall, but yeah?" In a tone that claimed and I'd do it again, too.
"I was wondering." His tongue felt thick. The clever fingers kept kneading. Never stop, he thought at them loudly, as if they could read his mind. Never. "Did I win it?"
Bets didn't work like that. Even half-conscious, Raidou knew it--they both did--and maybe they should be having this particular investigational meeting when he was more awake. But Narumi made a low approving sound, like a hum, and said in his most confidential voice: "You want it, kid, it's all yours."
*
In the morning they bumped into Tae on their way to the hot springs.
"You two! Did you forget to feed Gouto last night? Not that I blame you--it's just he came to our room and pawed at the door and gave us the saddest look, so Akane went to the kitchen and got him some fish, only later we found out he'd done the exact same thing to Nagi--anyway, we might've overfed him, since he passed out on Akane's futon and didn't budge the entire night. I think she was glad to have him there, though, you know? After everything that happened."
"Akane, eh?" Narumi jigged an eyebrow. "Cat's got taste in birds, I'll give him that."
Tae rolled her eyes and went back to the inn. Raidou studied the black shadow by his feet, which had been waiting outside the door to the room when he opened it, and had fallen into step with him without a word about the night before.
Narumi tipped his thumb at the entrance to the springs. "Why don't I head on in?"
Raidou nodded. He crouched down on the path to look Gouto in the eye, on the level. Gouto sniffed.
"What. You think you're the only one who knows how to get himself royally spoiled? I've been around a lot longer than you have, junior."
Raidou smiled.
The black tail uncurled impatiently. "Go on, go soak your head."
* * *
Not much in the way of hanky panky, only GOOP GOOP GOOP you have been warned. p.s. I made Raidou talk too much.
NaruRai + cat, spoilers for DSRK and DSRK2 (final battle, Law ending).
* * *
Confidential
For his part, Raidou would've been glad to fly straight home, even if he could barely keep his seat on the dragon's back, but the women--especially Akane--insisted that he stay. It was the least she and the village could do to offer one more night of hospitality, she said, after what he'd done for them. For the whole world, come to that.
Narumi was in favor. Why not, he said--they could head back tomorrow. Might as well get a few more halfway decent memories of this place under their belts. Raidou was too weary to protest. The rush that had carried him through interminable battles with Shinado was long gone. His body ached exactly as a body would after being flung to the ground by an angry god a hundred times in hard succession. The nearest futon was as good as a more distant one. The Capital would have to fend for itself another night.
At the inn there was dinner in the room, and the others wanted to know what had happened in the Abyss. Raidou gave them an abbreviated version. At last Tae said they should let him rest, poor guy, look at him, he was practically falling asleep in his soup, and they all bustled out, except for Narumi and Gouto.
Raidou kept himself upright. He began to give Narumi the less abbreviated version, not only out of duty or habit but because there were parts of it he wanted to tell. But Narumi said "Save it for later, eh?" and, gently, "You look done in."
The bedding was already laid out. Without waiting for further encouragement or bothering to take off anything but his jacket--the uniform was a loss, anyway--Raidou crawled onto the futon like a shipwrecked man to shore. When he closed his eyes golden spheres swam into his head. He hoped he wouldn't dream of them for long.
*
It wasn't dreams of anything that woke him. He felt a long, warm body stretched out along his side, not under the covers (which he didn't remember pulling over himself, though they were draped over him now) but on top. He opened his eyes. Narumi was leaning next to him, head propped on one hand, smoking a cigarette. He wore the crooked little private smile that seemed to be standard issue these days, and one of the inn's yukata instead of his suit.
"Don't mind me," he said. "Cat burglar stole my spot."
Raidou glanced around for Gouto, and saw a black shape sprawled belly-up, paws-akimbo on the other futon, the one that was in theory meant for Narumi. Fast asleep.
It looked like solid advice. Raidou let his eyes fall shut again. If he breathed too deeply his ribcage complained, but then there was the smell of smoke and the man next to him: clean, damp, faintly mineral, as if Narumi had been to the hot springs and back again while he slept. Probably he had. That too seemed like solid advice, but it demanded more motion than Raidou was prepared to muster. He drifted, just on the near side of a doze.
His memories of the Abyss were already dissipating, unraveling into confusion, as if a human mind--even a trained summoner's--were not meant to hold them. He wondered how it was for Akane, or the villagers who'd been held in sway, whether they would remember their captivity as anything but a bewildering dream.
There was one memory that kept returning: what the mysterious blond man had said about him. That he made nice with everyone--as if that were something to be ashamed of--without really trusting anyone. Maybe it was true, the part about not trusting. You didn't get far in his line of work by dropping your guard too readily. If you did get far, it would be straight down a demon's gullet. Raidou wasn't inclined to trust the mysterious blond man any further than he could throw him, either.
But he did trust, where trust was warranted. Gouto, for one.
The person next to him, for another.
Trust to do what exactly was another matter, but still.
Raidou turned his head.
"You were there," he said. Quietly, so as not to disturb Gouto. "In Abaddon."
Narumi's smile went quizzical. "I was at the shrine, you goof, praying for your victory. That, and wishing I had my mah jong set, and maybe some hard liquor, since there were four of us after Akane showed up, and believe you me, those dames needed distracting."
Raidou believed it. "But you were there, too. In the Abyss. An apparition, maybe. Something Shinado sent."
He still wondered. The Narumi in the Abyss hadn't felt false to him--nor had the Tae, for that matter, although the Tae was more disheartening to remember. He knew there were gods who had the power to summon spirits of the living as well as shades of the dead. It was strange to think that the spirit of a living man could be summoned without the man himself noticing, but maybe that was a tribute to the resilience of the man in question. Or the sheer obliviousness.
Narumi took a drag on his cigarette. "I see. So what was the bug in my bonnet?"
"There wasn't one."
The cigarette dangled foolishly. Narumi blinked, then looked pleased verging on vindicated, not to say smug. Before he could congratulate himself at too much length, Raidou continued.
"There wasn't one, but you asked whether I didn't want to live a normal life. To give up being a Kuzunoha."
The smugness disappeared from Narumi's face, and most of the smile with it. "Let me guess, that'd be thanks but no thanks."
Raidou searched for a way to explain better. "This is my normal life," he said.
That wasn't quite right--he had learned enough since accepting his post at the Capital to understand, in the intellectual sense, that a summoner's life wasn't normal by any stretch. But he could sooner give up breathing than give up being what he was. Could and would. He would be a Kuzunoha even after death.
"I get it," murmured Narumi. He leaned forward to bump his forehead into Raidou's, or rather into Raidou's hat, and let out a gusty sigh. "You make me feel like a prizefighter's main squeeze sometimes, you know that? I hate seeing you get beat up, but it sure is a kick to watch you wipe the floor with all those other mugs." He pulled back. "How're you feeling, anyway?"
Raidou made a neutral sound. If he tried to move he felt like he could use an ox bezoar or several. As long as he didn't move he felt fine.
"Tomorrow a.m. we'll take a nice long soak before we head back to town, how's that."
It sounded good. Invigorating, even.
"Mind if I get rid of this?"
The hat, Narumi meant. He had one thumb already cocked under the brim. Raidou pushed the thumb away to remove the hat himself--the rest of his uniform might be a lost cause, but not this portion--and set it carefully on the tatami floor. Narumi watched with ill-concealed satisfaction.
"There oughtta be a 'pop' when that thing comes off, if you ask me. Like uncorking a bottle of champagne. The real stuff. Dom Pérignon." He reached to smooth a lick of hair over Raidou's brow, as if it weren't already flattened. "Did I mention you did good today?"
Raidou nodded. Somehow the praise didn't seem redundant yet.
"You did good."
From the other futon came a gagging noise. "Do I need to leave?" Gouto asked.
Raidou was abashed. For a minute he'd forgotten they weren't alone in the room. He told Gouto to stay where he was.
"Kitty, you can have that whole big futon all to yourself," said Narumi unnecessarily. Gouto only spared him a shriveling look, which hit him square in the back, while Narumi rattled on to Raidou around a mouthful of cigarette. "You ever had champagne? It's fizzy, like a soda. You'd like it. We should get a bottle when we're back in town, have a toast to no more locust plagues."
Gouto produced another noise between a garbled yowl and a groan. "Don't fall for it. He just wants to get you loaded and spend obscene amounts of dough at the same time."
Narumi craned his neck. "What's the matter with Gouto? He's making a heck of a racket."
"Tell him I'm having a hairball," Gouto said.
Raidou relayed the message.
Narumi scrambled upright. "Cat, you stay away from my suit--"
The suit did happen to be folded very near the futon. Gouto's eyes glinted an especially diabolical green.
"Tell him to open the door, dollface, and I'll make myself scarce."
Raidou relayed that message, too, with minor adjustments.
Narumi lunged across the room and slid the door open in record time. Gouto sauntered out, tail waving a see you later, and disappeared down the hall. Narumi stared after him, then shut the door with a clack.
"That's an infernal animal," he observed. "You never did explain how he came back from the dead. No, don't tell me, I don't really want to know." His voice dropped to a mutter. "Zombie cat having zombie hairballs--"
Raidou frowned slightly. He had fought too many zombies in his life, and besides, it wasn't fair that Gouto should have to leave, not when Gouto had gone through everything Raidou had in Abaddon, or nearly everything, and must be nearly as worn out. Especially not when Raidou was too tired to have any intention of doing anything unmentionable with anyone.
Although he'd had no intention of doing anything unmentionable during their previous stay at the inn, either. His lack of intention hadn't helped.
What he said aloud was: "Gouto's not a zombie."
"Good to know." Narumi padded back across the room and stood between the two futons, looking down. He seemed to perceive Raidou's disquiet. "Now I'm curious. Was that whole scheme a conspiracy just to get me out of your bed? Because a kick in the pants is faster, not to mention more direct."
Raidou told him it hadn't been. He waited a long moment before adding that it was all right to come back.
Narumi brightened.
Raidou further added that he was going back to sleep, just to be clear, and because he suspected that when Narumi had talked about getting memories under their belts, he'd meant it literally.
Narumi was unfazed. He put out his cigarette, swiped a pillow from the other futon, and settled back down. "I'm bushed too, you know. All that praying takes it out of a guy. Shove over, will you? On your side."
The suggestion was so casually given that Raidou followed it without thinking, and only afterward paused to reconsider the wisdom of turning his back to Narumi at this point. A warm hand cupped the nape of his neck.
"What--"
"Easy does it."
The hand began to knead. Just his neck, and just the part above his collar. Raidou's mouth went slack. It was as if Narumi had--by instinct or deduction or dumb luck--found the one place on his body that wasn't bruised, only sore. Raidou's thoughts began to flicker in and out of coherence, like a light about to go off.
Bits of their conversation repeated in his mind amid the flickering, the way a phonograph record did when it skipped. A prizefighter, Narumi had called him. It was such a funny thing to say. Raidou had never thought of himself in those terms, or considered that there might be some reward for doing his work beyond the satisfactions he already took in it. But the hand on his neck felt as good and as much like a revelation as anything he'd ever felt. He hoped it would never stop.
He could barely get his lips to form words. He tried for Narumi-san.
"Hmmm?"
His eyes had slumped shut. "You said...other things. In the Abyss."
"Did I?"
Belatedly he realized it was no use repeating them. Even if that other Narumi had been the spirit of this one, Raidou didn't want to give too much away. He had an inkling that he might like to be told and asked some of those things again sometime. Not in the Abyss but in this world. This place.
His chin sank to his chest. "You...you bet your life on me."
"That was before you went in to clean house, as I recall, but yeah?" In a tone that claimed and I'd do it again, too.
"I was wondering." His tongue felt thick. The clever fingers kept kneading. Never stop, he thought at them loudly, as if they could read his mind. Never. "Did I win it?"
Bets didn't work like that. Even half-conscious, Raidou knew it--they both did--and maybe they should be having this particular investigational meeting when he was more awake. But Narumi made a low approving sound, like a hum, and said in his most confidential voice: "You want it, kid, it's all yours."
*
In the morning they bumped into Tae on their way to the hot springs.
"You two! Did you forget to feed Gouto last night? Not that I blame you--it's just he came to our room and pawed at the door and gave us the saddest look, so Akane went to the kitchen and got him some fish, only later we found out he'd done the exact same thing to Nagi--anyway, we might've overfed him, since he passed out on Akane's futon and didn't budge the entire night. I think she was glad to have him there, though, you know? After everything that happened."
"Akane, eh?" Narumi jigged an eyebrow. "Cat's got taste in birds, I'll give him that."
Tae rolled her eyes and went back to the inn. Raidou studied the black shadow by his feet, which had been waiting outside the door to the room when he opened it, and had fallen into step with him without a word about the night before.
Narumi tipped his thumb at the entrance to the springs. "Why don't I head on in?"
Raidou nodded. He crouched down on the path to look Gouto in the eye, on the level. Gouto sniffed.
"What. You think you're the only one who knows how to get himself royally spoiled? I've been around a lot longer than you have, junior."
Raidou smiled.
The black tail uncurled impatiently. "Go on, go soak your head."
* * *