(no subject)
And, after a long wait, Japan!fic. A.K.A., an excuse for me to abuse parentheses. Enjoy.
kobushi wo nigirishimeru.Our hands love frightened at night.
One morning, Jimmy wakes up with little bruises, five to be exact, all piercing his back on the left side. Looking in the mirror, peering in the spots that hadn't caught some of the steam from his shower, he finds that his hand fits it almost exactly.
He comes out, dressed and clean, and sits in front of Caleb's rice brekkie and bed-mussed hair to lift and press their palms together. Caleb, chewing, raises an eyebrow at him, and Jimmy says, "Just looking." He turns his fingertips in where they fall slightly short of Caleb's lengths. Smooth, like they had done it before, their fingers lace and gently hold together, steam-warm and sauce-sticky against the bedsheet. Caleb ducks his head, and Jimmy helps him pick at the food, thumb stroking over an embarrassed knuckle. When Caleb starts squirming, Jimmy stands with a pulse to Caleb's hand and leaves, citing a non-existent last-minute errand to give Caleb room to recover.
---
Three foreigners sit at the lowered table: Caleb, impervious to change, skilled with chopsticks as if he'd used them all his life, Alan maintaining his composure as usual, Jimmy humbled to fork-prongs. They'd tried this oriental thing earlier, and at the square table, the missing seat's fairly present. They're unbalanced. Jimmy imagines Japanese gods or feng-shui experts placing some sort of stone statue on Tara's pillow, across from Caleb. (Jimmy's taken to associating Alan with himself, lately. Before they met, when Jimmy had only been able to converse with Alan in text, he'd thought Alan was English. The first time Alan spoke, Jimmy was quite surprised.) He imagines the stone something gray and dense, with smooth sides and gracefully large ears, and the person would kneel before placing it down, perfectly on-center, like he's told they do at temples.
As it is, there are still only three of them, and only one lively conversation, and Jimmy is not quite a part of it, but listening. Well, to be truthful, watching, because it is far more interesting to see how they multitask -- lifting large chunks of rice and meat and vegetables with their chopsticks and hardly any outward energy expended. Caleb gestures wildly, describing something about tentacles and artistic skill without dropping even a grain, and Alan smirks as he chews on the beef, cabbage poised between the wooden sticks with secure grace, despite the stares of the public at the (admittedly) rude Americans. Jimmy's still twirling his fork in his sobe noodles like he was eating spaghetti, though he flicks Caleb's ankle for good measure. Not that it does much good other than soliciting a bit of a twitch from shoeless toes.
When dessert arrives (ichigo daifuku -- very, very sticky rice with a strawberry inside), Caleb stretches and relaxes, stretches and wiggles his fingers dramatically before shoving one whole ball into his mouth. Jimmy refrains from facepalming; Alan smirks a bit more. The dessert's cold and tricky to eat, so it's finished off slowly (with muffled conversation), just in time for Caleb to propose another sake run. Stomach flopping, Jimmy opts out (but not without a resigned blessing), and pays for their meal awkwardly, watching Caleb stretch his fingers at his sides as he and Alan leave. Jimmy pauses, considering joining them for a concern he can't quite pin (other than the obvious), but ends up walking past the flashing lights of Tokyo to their hotel.
---
When Jimmy half-makes the bed out of habit and tries to smooth out one of the pillows they share in the night, he notices a curious wrinkle that doesn't fade like most of the others after repeated strokes of his palm. It fans out in a spiral, almost like someone had twisted it, hard, and kept it that way. Jimmy tugs at the corners of the cover, at the fabric around it, and still it stays.
His teeth worry his inner lip, and when he and Caleb go swimming later that day, the chlorine half-stings it. Though, by then Jimmy's not paying very much attention to that; he's focused on the fingerpads at his belly, and on trying not to breathe in the water he is trying to conquer.
---
They've been swimming even more lately. Jimmy hates swimming, but he never mentions that. He still smells like chlorine, probably, even despite showering. (The Japanese are obsessed with cleanliness. Jimmy almost wants to run through the halls covered in mud or something. He thinks Caleb's beginning to rub off on him.) When he lays back he can sort of feel the 'water' beneath him swelling. Every now and then, he 'hears' the pool water sloshing in his nightmares.
They're taking the bullet train, which doesn't feel as fast as they say it is on the inside. It's a quick ride, but Jimmy's sort of slumped against the cold window, eyes half-closed. He's tired. He had no idea that visiting old temples of peace and tranquility could be so bleeding taxing. Who knew how many times one could come close to violating international law? Speaking of which, "How much Japanese have you both learned in order to've made his face all purple like that?"
"O tearai wa dochira desu ka?" Alan comments, folding the paper he had been browsing. "'Where is the lavatory'."
"Okane o sukkari tsukaihatashita. And I'm not saying what it means."
"Akinasu wa yome ni kuwasuna. 'Don't let your daughter-in-law eat autumn eggplants'."
"Wasurete shimaimashita. 'I completely forgot about it'."
"Gomen nasai," Jimmy interrupts. "Which means 'I'm sorry'."
Caleb grins in such as way that could only mean he's remembering all the incidents that've led to Jimmy learning that phrase. "Arigatou."
"Ano iro anata no kotoni kirei desu yo, 'that's a lovely color on you'."
"Wakarimasen, which means 'I don't understand'."
"Konnichiwa!"
"Bouryoku wa nani mo tokuranato. 'Violence doesn't solve anything'."
"That one's a bit useful."
"Ichi, ni, san!"
"Aishiteru," Jimmy says, looking directly at Caleb. "Meaning something I can't repeat in public."
Caleb only grins back. "Well, in that case, I know a lot more than before."
---
In the short time they've been here, Jimmy's taken to sitting on the backs of his calves while kneeling. He'd sit cross-legged if he were flexible enough, but with legs that don't cooperate, this will have to do. He's on the floor writing a letter to Buffy, who has recently sent him one back. Confidence renewed, this letter is turning out to be a long one, and he had just begun to talk about their trip to Japan when he was distracted.
Caleb is still in bed, but thankfully not watching the telly. Instead, there's one of three English books they've found resting on the thin pillow of the sleeping mat, Caleb hovering over it, slowly absorbing the meaning. (You could see it, really, as he read.) Jimmy is watching him breathe, absent of thought other than wondering what world Caleb is in right now, shoulders tensing and mouth slightly open, leaving possibility for a bit lip or a slight gasp. The wide flutter of a turned page (Caleb smooths the page a bit with his thumb) snaps Jimmy out of it. He returns to his letter.
Our world keeps getting smaller, he writes. Mean, sometimes it's no bigger than a hotel room & sometimes it's so small it can fit in a samurai book, yeah? Even in fingers that turn the pages.
---
"You know what we haven't done in a while?" Caleb says, one afternoon.
Jimmy's expecting something like 'base jump' or 'eaten something we couldn't pronounce' (which he would definitely protest) or 'tried to get you to jump off the diving board' or 'given away flowers on street corners'. "What?"
"Made hot chocolate."
Jimmy rings the room service for milk and dark chocolate and finds his nutmeg and mint vials in his bag. Hot chocolate takes a lot more effort in Japan with all the bowing and the low agas and the tart chocolate. That, and the knuckles brushing down his jawline and his neckline and back up again to where teeth are grazing the top curve of the shell of his ear.
"Should we take some over to Alan?" Jimmy asks the collar of Caleb's shirt.
"Maybe later," Caleb says, and leans back out to kiss him.
---
Jimmy wakes up the night after the night Alan left back for Boston. Jimmy had been dreaming about people curling, of all things, only instead of the heavy stones, they were using miniature arks full of different continents, and whatever ark was knocked out of the circle would be decimated by purple rabbits with nuclear warheads. He has a fleeting thought to never watch Japanese games shows ever again, but is distracted by the pressure on his forearm.
He shifts, night-vision showing him Caleb's blank face and, just north of the string of blankets Caleb has managed to siphon away, Caleb's hand gripping Jimmy's forearm, palm tight on the soft underskin, fingers tighter on the sides of the bone. As he wakes up more, the clenching becomes more uncomfortable. Jimmy, concerned, reaches up to Caleb's prickles with his free arm to try to comfort and awaken at the same time; he is convinced this is due to a bad dream not yet manifested on Caleb's visage.
True to form, Caleb wakes halfway, eyes blinking heavily, and makes a throaty, muffled questioning noise. "Shh," Jimmy whispers, thumb kissing Caleb's cheek even as he slips his forearm from Caleb's fingers. "Go back to sleep." Caleb sniffs, rearranges his limbs somewhat and easily drifts off, probably unaware that Jimmy has exchanged his arm for his hand. Jimmy's almost certain Caleb won't remember in the morning.
In thirty minutes, Jimmy has Caleb's clenching fingers cocooned under all ten of his own, has the slight arch of his foot curved over Caleb's ankle and a determined look on his face. His eyes are closed, but he's attentive -- for a sudden hitch of the breath, a sudden cringing twitch, a tightening of clenched digits. He stays awake for most of the night, hovering quietly between catnaps and worry until Caleb turns in such a way that Jimmy has to let go. Caleb's fingers never stopped gripping for more than a few minutes at a time.
---
In the late morning, Jimmy wanders back into their room with scones from the one place in town he could find English pastries. (He'd asked for such a place at the embassy; he'd gone to visit when he needed to hear a familiar accent.) He sets the parcel down by their sleeping mat and scoots next to Caleb. "We need to get a real bed."
"I think it's comfy," Caleb says, opening the box. "Scones!"
"And jam," Jimmy adds. "For brekkie, since we can't just have rice." Caleb's already started rummaging through to find raspberry. Jimmy smiles a bit, remembering old morning rituals fondly, and skipping a comment about how Caleb could probably sleep on pebbles, falls to business. "First, though, I need to practice something I learned."
Caleb's "Oh?" is muffled with chocolate chip scone, so Jimmy simply picks up Caleb's right hand and starts kneading his palm. There's a small pause of silence, and a loud swallow. "You learned how to give a hand massage?" Jimmy nods. "Huh."
Then Caleb turns on the telly. Jimmy sighs, and they talk a little about how the anime is melting Caleb's brain before just letting the aggressive sounds fill the silence. Jimmy works slowly out to each finger, pinching and pressing until he's satisfied. He is firm and careful. Hard bones and strong muscles make this sort of thing easy, and if he had nimble fingers it might even work better. Jimmy doesn't really know what he's doing, but since Caleb hasn't started complaining (or fidgeting, oddly enough), he figures he's doing something good.
Once finished, he crawls over to Caleb's left, moving the scone-box and settling in with Caleb's left hand. He cradles it the same way he had on Caleb's first, and thumbs circles on each fleshy pad of his palm. He absorbs himself in the physical task, pressing outward to the tips of Caleb's fingers, but lets his mind wander. Unconsciously, Jimmy slides his thumb and forefinger down Caleb's fourth, pausing at its base and imagining a metallic glint of light. Blinking, he massages it away.
kobushi wo nigirishimeru.Our hands love frightened at night.
One morning, Jimmy wakes up with little bruises, five to be exact, all piercing his back on the left side. Looking in the mirror, peering in the spots that hadn't caught some of the steam from his shower, he finds that his hand fits it almost exactly.
He comes out, dressed and clean, and sits in front of Caleb's rice brekkie and bed-mussed hair to lift and press their palms together. Caleb, chewing, raises an eyebrow at him, and Jimmy says, "Just looking." He turns his fingertips in where they fall slightly short of Caleb's lengths. Smooth, like they had done it before, their fingers lace and gently hold together, steam-warm and sauce-sticky against the bedsheet. Caleb ducks his head, and Jimmy helps him pick at the food, thumb stroking over an embarrassed knuckle. When Caleb starts squirming, Jimmy stands with a pulse to Caleb's hand and leaves, citing a non-existent last-minute errand to give Caleb room to recover.
---
Three foreigners sit at the lowered table: Caleb, impervious to change, skilled with chopsticks as if he'd used them all his life, Alan maintaining his composure as usual, Jimmy humbled to fork-prongs. They'd tried this oriental thing earlier, and at the square table, the missing seat's fairly present. They're unbalanced. Jimmy imagines Japanese gods or feng-shui experts placing some sort of stone statue on Tara's pillow, across from Caleb. (Jimmy's taken to associating Alan with himself, lately. Before they met, when Jimmy had only been able to converse with Alan in text, he'd thought Alan was English. The first time Alan spoke, Jimmy was quite surprised.) He imagines the stone something gray and dense, with smooth sides and gracefully large ears, and the person would kneel before placing it down, perfectly on-center, like he's told they do at temples.
As it is, there are still only three of them, and only one lively conversation, and Jimmy is not quite a part of it, but listening. Well, to be truthful, watching, because it is far more interesting to see how they multitask -- lifting large chunks of rice and meat and vegetables with their chopsticks and hardly any outward energy expended. Caleb gestures wildly, describing something about tentacles and artistic skill without dropping even a grain, and Alan smirks as he chews on the beef, cabbage poised between the wooden sticks with secure grace, despite the stares of the public at the (admittedly) rude Americans. Jimmy's still twirling his fork in his sobe noodles like he was eating spaghetti, though he flicks Caleb's ankle for good measure. Not that it does much good other than soliciting a bit of a twitch from shoeless toes.
When dessert arrives (ichigo daifuku -- very, very sticky rice with a strawberry inside), Caleb stretches and relaxes, stretches and wiggles his fingers dramatically before shoving one whole ball into his mouth. Jimmy refrains from facepalming; Alan smirks a bit more. The dessert's cold and tricky to eat, so it's finished off slowly (with muffled conversation), just in time for Caleb to propose another sake run. Stomach flopping, Jimmy opts out (but not without a resigned blessing), and pays for their meal awkwardly, watching Caleb stretch his fingers at his sides as he and Alan leave. Jimmy pauses, considering joining them for a concern he can't quite pin (other than the obvious), but ends up walking past the flashing lights of Tokyo to their hotel.
---
When Jimmy half-makes the bed out of habit and tries to smooth out one of the pillows they share in the night, he notices a curious wrinkle that doesn't fade like most of the others after repeated strokes of his palm. It fans out in a spiral, almost like someone had twisted it, hard, and kept it that way. Jimmy tugs at the corners of the cover, at the fabric around it, and still it stays.
His teeth worry his inner lip, and when he and Caleb go swimming later that day, the chlorine half-stings it. Though, by then Jimmy's not paying very much attention to that; he's focused on the fingerpads at his belly, and on trying not to breathe in the water he is trying to conquer.
---
They've been swimming even more lately. Jimmy hates swimming, but he never mentions that. He still smells like chlorine, probably, even despite showering. (The Japanese are obsessed with cleanliness. Jimmy almost wants to run through the halls covered in mud or something. He thinks Caleb's beginning to rub off on him.) When he lays back he can sort of feel the 'water' beneath him swelling. Every now and then, he 'hears' the pool water sloshing in his nightmares.
They're taking the bullet train, which doesn't feel as fast as they say it is on the inside. It's a quick ride, but Jimmy's sort of slumped against the cold window, eyes half-closed. He's tired. He had no idea that visiting old temples of peace and tranquility could be so bleeding taxing. Who knew how many times one could come close to violating international law? Speaking of which, "How much Japanese have you both learned in order to've made his face all purple like that?"
"O tearai wa dochira desu ka?" Alan comments, folding the paper he had been browsing. "'Where is the lavatory'."
"Okane o sukkari tsukaihatashita. And I'm not saying what it means."
"Akinasu wa yome ni kuwasuna. 'Don't let your daughter-in-law eat autumn eggplants'."
"Wasurete shimaimashita. 'I completely forgot about it'."
"Gomen nasai," Jimmy interrupts. "Which means 'I'm sorry'."
Caleb grins in such as way that could only mean he's remembering all the incidents that've led to Jimmy learning that phrase. "Arigatou."
"Ano iro anata no kotoni kirei desu yo, 'that's a lovely color on you'."
"Wakarimasen, which means 'I don't understand'."
"Konnichiwa!"
"Bouryoku wa nani mo tokuranato. 'Violence doesn't solve anything'."
"That one's a bit useful."
"Ichi, ni, san!"
"Aishiteru," Jimmy says, looking directly at Caleb. "Meaning something I can't repeat in public."
Caleb only grins back. "Well, in that case, I know a lot more than before."
---
In the short time they've been here, Jimmy's taken to sitting on the backs of his calves while kneeling. He'd sit cross-legged if he were flexible enough, but with legs that don't cooperate, this will have to do. He's on the floor writing a letter to Buffy, who has recently sent him one back. Confidence renewed, this letter is turning out to be a long one, and he had just begun to talk about their trip to Japan when he was distracted.
Caleb is still in bed, but thankfully not watching the telly. Instead, there's one of three English books they've found resting on the thin pillow of the sleeping mat, Caleb hovering over it, slowly absorbing the meaning. (You could see it, really, as he read.) Jimmy is watching him breathe, absent of thought other than wondering what world Caleb is in right now, shoulders tensing and mouth slightly open, leaving possibility for a bit lip or a slight gasp. The wide flutter of a turned page (Caleb smooths the page a bit with his thumb) snaps Jimmy out of it. He returns to his letter.
Our world keeps getting smaller, he writes. Mean, sometimes it's no bigger than a hotel room & sometimes it's so small it can fit in a samurai book, yeah? Even in fingers that turn the pages.
---
"You know what we haven't done in a while?" Caleb says, one afternoon.
Jimmy's expecting something like 'base jump' or 'eaten something we couldn't pronounce' (which he would definitely protest) or 'tried to get you to jump off the diving board' or 'given away flowers on street corners'. "What?"
"Made hot chocolate."
Jimmy rings the room service for milk and dark chocolate and finds his nutmeg and mint vials in his bag. Hot chocolate takes a lot more effort in Japan with all the bowing and the low agas and the tart chocolate. That, and the knuckles brushing down his jawline and his neckline and back up again to where teeth are grazing the top curve of the shell of his ear.
"Should we take some over to Alan?" Jimmy asks the collar of Caleb's shirt.
"Maybe later," Caleb says, and leans back out to kiss him.
---
Jimmy wakes up the night after the night Alan left back for Boston. Jimmy had been dreaming about people curling, of all things, only instead of the heavy stones, they were using miniature arks full of different continents, and whatever ark was knocked out of the circle would be decimated by purple rabbits with nuclear warheads. He has a fleeting thought to never watch Japanese games shows ever again, but is distracted by the pressure on his forearm.
He shifts, night-vision showing him Caleb's blank face and, just north of the string of blankets Caleb has managed to siphon away, Caleb's hand gripping Jimmy's forearm, palm tight on the soft underskin, fingers tighter on the sides of the bone. As he wakes up more, the clenching becomes more uncomfortable. Jimmy, concerned, reaches up to Caleb's prickles with his free arm to try to comfort and awaken at the same time; he is convinced this is due to a bad dream not yet manifested on Caleb's visage.
True to form, Caleb wakes halfway, eyes blinking heavily, and makes a throaty, muffled questioning noise. "Shh," Jimmy whispers, thumb kissing Caleb's cheek even as he slips his forearm from Caleb's fingers. "Go back to sleep." Caleb sniffs, rearranges his limbs somewhat and easily drifts off, probably unaware that Jimmy has exchanged his arm for his hand. Jimmy's almost certain Caleb won't remember in the morning.
In thirty minutes, Jimmy has Caleb's clenching fingers cocooned under all ten of his own, has the slight arch of his foot curved over Caleb's ankle and a determined look on his face. His eyes are closed, but he's attentive -- for a sudden hitch of the breath, a sudden cringing twitch, a tightening of clenched digits. He stays awake for most of the night, hovering quietly between catnaps and worry until Caleb turns in such a way that Jimmy has to let go. Caleb's fingers never stopped gripping for more than a few minutes at a time.
---
In the late morning, Jimmy wanders back into their room with scones from the one place in town he could find English pastries. (He'd asked for such a place at the embassy; he'd gone to visit when he needed to hear a familiar accent.) He sets the parcel down by their sleeping mat and scoots next to Caleb. "We need to get a real bed."
"I think it's comfy," Caleb says, opening the box. "Scones!"
"And jam," Jimmy adds. "For brekkie, since we can't just have rice." Caleb's already started rummaging through to find raspberry. Jimmy smiles a bit, remembering old morning rituals fondly, and skipping a comment about how Caleb could probably sleep on pebbles, falls to business. "First, though, I need to practice something I learned."
Caleb's "Oh?" is muffled with chocolate chip scone, so Jimmy simply picks up Caleb's right hand and starts kneading his palm. There's a small pause of silence, and a loud swallow. "You learned how to give a hand massage?" Jimmy nods. "Huh."
Then Caleb turns on the telly. Jimmy sighs, and they talk a little about how the anime is melting Caleb's brain before just letting the aggressive sounds fill the silence. Jimmy works slowly out to each finger, pinching and pressing until he's satisfied. He is firm and careful. Hard bones and strong muscles make this sort of thing easy, and if he had nimble fingers it might even work better. Jimmy doesn't really know what he's doing, but since Caleb hasn't started complaining (or fidgeting, oddly enough), he figures he's doing something good.
Once finished, he crawls over to Caleb's left, moving the scone-box and settling in with Caleb's left hand. He cradles it the same way he had on Caleb's first, and thumbs circles on each fleshy pad of his palm. He absorbs himself in the physical task, pressing outward to the tips of Caleb's fingers, but lets his mind wander. Unconsciously, Jimmy slides his thumb and forefinger down Caleb's fourth, pausing at its base and imagining a metallic glint of light. Blinking, he massages it away.