28 - still_ciircee
Ignoring my previous style of writing in this AU, I did not write this directly in a comment window. Instead I wrote it in my own head and then sat down to write it in one sitting. Hopefully the feeling of the Road Trip is still in there. If not, I shall have to (pretend) comment-spam people with it.
The problem with Sho, Nino had told him, is that he thinks too much. Get your mouth someplace good and make him stop.
Aiba had said the same thing, only he'd added 'chan' to Sho's name and directed Ohno's mouth to somewhere slightly south of the tab on Sho's zipper.
Ohno appreciated their advice and their insight but he also knew that he'd have to use a different approach. He wasn't as golden-bright alluring as Aiba and he couldn't pull of the adorable-brat act that made Nino so completely irresistible. If he wanted to get anywhere with Sho-and he did-he was going to have to do it as plain old Satoshi.
"Mao-maou," he poked his head in to the kitchen at the bed and breakfast. "I need to borrow your money-maker this morning."
Mao looked up at him with a cheeky smile. "There's something you haven't said to me since I was seventeen," she told him, holding a cinnamon roll out to him and stuffing it in his mouth when he simply opened at her. "I think he's still asleep," she said when he bit down.
He thanked her with a smile, too busy chewing to bother with words, and wandered up the stairs to find Sho. Sho, he discovered, had rather prudently locked the door to his room. Too bad for him that Ohno had learned to pick locks early in his life-ostensibly because it would be useful later in unlocking cars for customers but mostly because he thought it sounded like a cool skill. He had Sho's door open in seconds and himself seated comfortable on Sho a second later. "Good morning," he said when Sho's eyes flew open. "We're going fishing."
"Wh-?" said Sho.
Ohno shoved the other half of his cinnamon roll into Sho's mouth and got up. "It's really early but that's the best time to catch them," he said easily and began to poke through the drawers interestedly. Sho had unpacked neatly, everything sorted nicely into place. It made him think of Nino's things, strewn haphazardly around his apartment, and smile. "Pants or shorts?" he asked, picking up a pair of underpants and tossing them vaguely in the direction of the bed.
"Uh," said Sho, his mouth still thick with food.
"We're going to be under the willows, so pants," Ohno decided and picked out a pair of jeans. "Jun would never forgive me if the mosquitoes ate you," he said as he began poking through the shirt drawer.
"Ju-" started Sho.
"Red," Ohno said, pulling out a t-shirt and turning. He stopped. Sho was shirtless and only half into his jeans. Hello, Satoshi thought, you're very pretty. Sho's sudden blush, sweeping from the bottom of his chest to the tips of his ears, made him realize that he was probably staring. "Red," he repeated and offered Sho the shirt.
He didn't say a word as Sho tripped over his pants as he struggled to pull them up.
He did kick Sho's battered shoes into a corner. "Won't need those," he said, taking Sho by the hand and leading him out of the room. He waved when Mao wolf-whistled, letting go of Sho's hand just long enough to take the bag of cinnamon rolls Mao offered him and for Sho to finish putting on his shirt.
The pond was small, but deep and clear. There were a few cattails and pond lilies by the dilapidated old launch that Ohno kept his little boat tied to in the summer. "Genious and Hairsbreadth the Third'," Sho read. "What happened to the first and second?"
Ohno patted the boat's bright blue trim as he untied the lines. "It's just something Aiba named it," he said. "It's the only Genious and Hairsbreadth there's ever been." That it had been sunk twice was probably not something that Sho needed to know. Besides, he reasoned, it wasn't like they were carrying an ostrich egg with three hundred firecrackers strapped to it. He held the boat steady as Sho stepped into it and then got in himself without a wobble, carrying breakfast and bait with him. He stowed those under his seat alongside the tackle box he kept there. "You don't mind rowing, right?"
Sho took the oar he handed him and looked at it in consternation. "As long as we're not trying to win any races," he shrugged after a moment.
"We're just going to the willow trees," Ohno assured him, dipping his oar into the water.
It was a quick trip across, five minutes of quiet rowing under a golden, pinky-blue sunrise sky. Sho started to fidget in the silence after a minute, however. "So, the weather report for today," he started.
Ohno smiled out at the glass-still surface of the water; somehow, Sho was really cute. "I like your car," he told him, cutting across the day's projected dew point. "You did a really good job with it."
"Eh?" From the corner of his eye Ohno could see the startled look on Sho's face and the sudden blush. "I made a lot of mistakes," he said.
He was pretty sure that Sho thought he was telling the truth and not downplaying his handling of the Dart and he was also pretty sure that Sho was really wrong. Ohno had been working on cars since he could walk and lift a spanner and a flashlight. He knew cars; he knew the engines, the bodies, the systems and he knew that somebody had loved Sho's car. Somebody had put work into it, had made mistakes and fixed them and done it again and again until it was as perfect as possible. Somebody had taken care of if, of all the little details, and filled it up with unspoken hopes and dreams. To Ohno's trained eye it could have been nobody but Sho who had done it.
"You did a really good job," Ohno repeated, twisting his oar so that they glided into the low-hanging canopy of the weeping willows, through the branches, and into the dawn-shaded space beneath them. The boat didn't have an anchor but it was shallow enough for the oar to touch bottom and one well-placed jab had it stopped. "The poles are under your seat," he told Sho as he stowed the oars. He had the feeling that Sho found the quiet a little unnerving. "Breakfast?" he asked, offering the bag.
Sho took it, opened it, and stopped. "Um."
"Oh," said Ohno, looking into his own bag. "Trade."
"What was that?" Sho asked, taking the bag from Mao from him.
Ohno looked into the bag proudly. It was full of mesh-bagged little red squares. "Bait," he said. "I make it myself from cherry kool-aid and jello and vanilla extract. It sets up just like regular jello." It was one of the very few things he could cook with absolute certainty. "It's really good. You can have a piece if you want."
Sho stared at him. "There are fish hooks in it."
"You can take them out," Ohno said, tying one to the line on his fishing pole and setting a bobber a few inches above it. "You just have to unwrap the mesh, first." He repeated the process with Sho's pole and then dropped both lines over the side.
"Aren't you supposed to-" Sho asked, miming a cast.
Ohno settled back on his seat, elbows on his knees and eyes on his bobber. "Aiba-chan and Matsujun kept catching the trees and themselves and each other and me." He'd never really realized that he automatically set up for drift fishing if he was going to have somebody else with him. "I'm jaded," he realized sadly.
Sho had one of the best laughs that Ohno had ever heard, an irresistible sound that had him laughing along even though he didn't know what had got the other man started. It felt good to laugh with him in the early, early morning, though.
"Jaded?" Sho managed to gasp. "You?"
"I am!" Ohno disagreed, laughing more as Sho laughed even harder.
"You let Nino practically move in with you the same night you met him," Sho said, winding down and wiping his eyes with the hem of his shirt. "You're the definition of ingenuous."
"But I know Nino," he said.
Sho smiled at him and Ohno could see that Sho was about to humor him, saying something that was going to be the verbal equivalent to a pat on the head.
Logically Ohno knew that he'd only met Nino two weeks (two weeks, one day, and sixteen hours) ago. But Ohno had never seen what the number of shared yesterdays had to do with knowing a person. He'd known Nakai all of his life and yet he knew that they didn't really know each other at all. He'd known Nino even before he'd led him upstairs to his apartment. He'd known Nino even before those midnight hours spent talking about where he was from, where he was going, and how they were going to ignore Jun in the morning. He had known in Johnny's that Nino fit with him, that Nino fit with Aiba and with Sho and would fit with Jun, too, all in different ways. Just the way he knew that Sho fit, that the five of them all fit together. "I know Nino just like I know you," he said, distinct and direct and final.
"Oh god," Sho said, staring at him, "you're coming on to me, aren't you?"
No time like the present, Ohno thought. "I wasn't, but I'd really like to kiss you and maybe get your shirt off you because you have a really nice chest."
Sho covered his face with his hand. "Look," he said, holding the other hand out. "Look, I know that Aiba and Nino probably told you I'm easy as long as you can get your mouth on my-"
"It's not like that," Ohno cut him off, taking the hand that Sho was holding out. He knew it was a 'stop right there' gesture and not an offer to hold hands but he didn't particularly care. He pulled Sho's hand down, holding it, making a bridge between them. "They wouldn't like you so much if it was like that. They really like you," he said when Sho just looked at him.
"You're…" said Sho. He seemed to be at a loss for words and Ohno waited. "You're a thoughtful guy after all, aren't you?" he asked.
The problem with Sho, Nino had told him, is that he thinks too much.
He wasn't wrong, Ohno thought now, but he wasn't quite right either. The real problem was that Sho was too thoughtful, taking the responsibilities of everything on to himself, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Until one day, Ohno mused, until one day the weight had pushed his shoulders down and Sho had managed to reach out and take hold of the wheel. Ohno put one hand on the slope of Sho's shoulder and ran it slowly down, following it down his arm and linking their free hands. "I really do want to kiss you," he repeated. And then he let go of Sho's hands, leaning in to confide in a whisper, "It's fine with me if you drive."
Sho smiled at him. "You don't make any sense."
"Wherever you're going is where I'm going," Ohno shrugged. In that one way he could be like Nino and Aiba, a hitchhiker on Sho's ride to anywhere. He kissed the tip of Sho's nose and sat back. "You've got a bite."
Sho nearly fumbled the rod into the water but he got the fish out, a good-sized carp. "Wow," he said as it flopped on the floor of the boat. "Now what?"
Ohno made a face. "Now we gut it and clean it because if we don't Matsujun will put it down our pants when we give it to him. It's not an idle threat, either," he mourned.
"Satoshi," Sho said and Ohno looked up because he was laughing again inside the words and, when he looked up, Sho kissed him. Ohno went still and let his lips part and Sho put a hand in his hair and kissed him again. And again.
"Jun?" Ohno dripped uncomfortably into Johnny's.
"What the hell happened to you?" Nino demanded from the order window. He was still sleep-tousled and barely awake as far as Ohno could tell.
"The boat sank," Ohno said. "But we did save the fish," he added, holding it up and offering it towards Nino.
"Gut it and clean it or else I'll shove it down your pants," Nino told him, "since I won't be going there again if you don't."
"Going where?" Jun asked, coming in from the supply closet, his arms full of napkins. "Oh, no," he said when his eyes landed on Ohno. Ohno held the fish out to him. "No."
Aiba and Yoko came up from the basement refrigerator holding eggs. Aiba was holding his under his shirt, like breasts. He took one look at Ohno and then turned to Yoko. "We're going to need ping pong balls, a sump-pump, ten feet of tubing, a hose, and Koyama's scuba gear."
"I'll call Ryo," Yoko saluted.
Ohno stopped Aiba by holding the fish out again. "Sho needs new pants," he said. "He won't fit mine or Nino's and that's all I have. I thought maybe you or Jun…"
Nino came out of the kitchen, took the fish, and slapped it on the counter (they both ignored Jun's stifled shriek) and put his hands carefully on Ohno's waist; they were warm through the cold, wet denim and Ohno edged closer until Nino's hands stopped him. He pouted a little but listened obediently as Nino said, "I did Sho's laundry on Sunday so why doesn't Sho get a pair of Sho's pants that are clean and dry and probably folded nicely in his dresser drawer?"
Biting his lip to hide a smile, Ohno pointed at the fish. "We saved the fish," he said solemnly.
Aiba's head whipped around, frantically searching the windows for Ohno's battered old truck. His eyes lit up when he found it and he bounded toward the door. Jun stopped him by stepping in front of it. "I'll handle this," he said. "We don't have time to raise the 'love boat' from the depths and still open on time. Get Yoko and Koyama and find Koichi. He can help Nino in here while I get Sho presentable."
"You wear tight pants," Aiba said, eyes still on the truck and the obviously embarrassed Sho inside of it. "He can wear my pants."
"I," Jun said slowly, "will handle this."
"I wanted to handle it," Aiba grumbled as Jun went out the door.
"He's probably tired from me handling it anyhow," Ohno comforted him.
Aiba perked up. "Did you yell 'bingo'?"
Ohno frowned, thinking. "I don't know," he confessed at last. "That was when he noticed the boat was mostly underwater so I got kind of distracted."
The problem with Sho, Nino had told him, is that he thinks too much. Get your mouth someplace good and make him stop.
Aiba had said the same thing, only he'd added 'chan' to Sho's name and directed Ohno's mouth to somewhere slightly south of the tab on Sho's zipper.
Ohno appreciated their advice and their insight but he also knew that he'd have to use a different approach. He wasn't as golden-bright alluring as Aiba and he couldn't pull of the adorable-brat act that made Nino so completely irresistible. If he wanted to get anywhere with Sho-and he did-he was going to have to do it as plain old Satoshi.
"Mao-maou," he poked his head in to the kitchen at the bed and breakfast. "I need to borrow your money-maker this morning."
Mao looked up at him with a cheeky smile. "There's something you haven't said to me since I was seventeen," she told him, holding a cinnamon roll out to him and stuffing it in his mouth when he simply opened at her. "I think he's still asleep," she said when he bit down.
He thanked her with a smile, too busy chewing to bother with words, and wandered up the stairs to find Sho. Sho, he discovered, had rather prudently locked the door to his room. Too bad for him that Ohno had learned to pick locks early in his life-ostensibly because it would be useful later in unlocking cars for customers but mostly because he thought it sounded like a cool skill. He had Sho's door open in seconds and himself seated comfortable on Sho a second later. "Good morning," he said when Sho's eyes flew open. "We're going fishing."
"Wh-?" said Sho.
Ohno shoved the other half of his cinnamon roll into Sho's mouth and got up. "It's really early but that's the best time to catch them," he said easily and began to poke through the drawers interestedly. Sho had unpacked neatly, everything sorted nicely into place. It made him think of Nino's things, strewn haphazardly around his apartment, and smile. "Pants or shorts?" he asked, picking up a pair of underpants and tossing them vaguely in the direction of the bed.
"Uh," said Sho, his mouth still thick with food.
"We're going to be under the willows, so pants," Ohno decided and picked out a pair of jeans. "Jun would never forgive me if the mosquitoes ate you," he said as he began poking through the shirt drawer.
"Ju-" started Sho.
"Red," Ohno said, pulling out a t-shirt and turning. He stopped. Sho was shirtless and only half into his jeans. Hello, Satoshi thought, you're very pretty. Sho's sudden blush, sweeping from the bottom of his chest to the tips of his ears, made him realize that he was probably staring. "Red," he repeated and offered Sho the shirt.
He didn't say a word as Sho tripped over his pants as he struggled to pull them up.
He did kick Sho's battered shoes into a corner. "Won't need those," he said, taking Sho by the hand and leading him out of the room. He waved when Mao wolf-whistled, letting go of Sho's hand just long enough to take the bag of cinnamon rolls Mao offered him and for Sho to finish putting on his shirt.
The pond was small, but deep and clear. There were a few cattails and pond lilies by the dilapidated old launch that Ohno kept his little boat tied to in the summer. "Genious and Hairsbreadth the Third'," Sho read. "What happened to the first and second?"
Ohno patted the boat's bright blue trim as he untied the lines. "It's just something Aiba named it," he said. "It's the only Genious and Hairsbreadth there's ever been." That it had been sunk twice was probably not something that Sho needed to know. Besides, he reasoned, it wasn't like they were carrying an ostrich egg with three hundred firecrackers strapped to it. He held the boat steady as Sho stepped into it and then got in himself without a wobble, carrying breakfast and bait with him. He stowed those under his seat alongside the tackle box he kept there. "You don't mind rowing, right?"
Sho took the oar he handed him and looked at it in consternation. "As long as we're not trying to win any races," he shrugged after a moment.
"We're just going to the willow trees," Ohno assured him, dipping his oar into the water.
It was a quick trip across, five minutes of quiet rowing under a golden, pinky-blue sunrise sky. Sho started to fidget in the silence after a minute, however. "So, the weather report for today," he started.
Ohno smiled out at the glass-still surface of the water; somehow, Sho was really cute. "I like your car," he told him, cutting across the day's projected dew point. "You did a really good job with it."
"Eh?" From the corner of his eye Ohno could see the startled look on Sho's face and the sudden blush. "I made a lot of mistakes," he said.
He was pretty sure that Sho thought he was telling the truth and not downplaying his handling of the Dart and he was also pretty sure that Sho was really wrong. Ohno had been working on cars since he could walk and lift a spanner and a flashlight. He knew cars; he knew the engines, the bodies, the systems and he knew that somebody had loved Sho's car. Somebody had put work into it, had made mistakes and fixed them and done it again and again until it was as perfect as possible. Somebody had taken care of if, of all the little details, and filled it up with unspoken hopes and dreams. To Ohno's trained eye it could have been nobody but Sho who had done it.
"You did a really good job," Ohno repeated, twisting his oar so that they glided into the low-hanging canopy of the weeping willows, through the branches, and into the dawn-shaded space beneath them. The boat didn't have an anchor but it was shallow enough for the oar to touch bottom and one well-placed jab had it stopped. "The poles are under your seat," he told Sho as he stowed the oars. He had the feeling that Sho found the quiet a little unnerving. "Breakfast?" he asked, offering the bag.
Sho took it, opened it, and stopped. "Um."
"Oh," said Ohno, looking into his own bag. "Trade."
"What was that?" Sho asked, taking the bag from Mao from him.
Ohno looked into the bag proudly. It was full of mesh-bagged little red squares. "Bait," he said. "I make it myself from cherry kool-aid and jello and vanilla extract. It sets up just like regular jello." It was one of the very few things he could cook with absolute certainty. "It's really good. You can have a piece if you want."
Sho stared at him. "There are fish hooks in it."
"You can take them out," Ohno said, tying one to the line on his fishing pole and setting a bobber a few inches above it. "You just have to unwrap the mesh, first." He repeated the process with Sho's pole and then dropped both lines over the side.
"Aren't you supposed to-" Sho asked, miming a cast.
Ohno settled back on his seat, elbows on his knees and eyes on his bobber. "Aiba-chan and Matsujun kept catching the trees and themselves and each other and me." He'd never really realized that he automatically set up for drift fishing if he was going to have somebody else with him. "I'm jaded," he realized sadly.
Sho had one of the best laughs that Ohno had ever heard, an irresistible sound that had him laughing along even though he didn't know what had got the other man started. It felt good to laugh with him in the early, early morning, though.
"Jaded?" Sho managed to gasp. "You?"
"I am!" Ohno disagreed, laughing more as Sho laughed even harder.
"You let Nino practically move in with you the same night you met him," Sho said, winding down and wiping his eyes with the hem of his shirt. "You're the definition of ingenuous."
"But I know Nino," he said.
Sho smiled at him and Ohno could see that Sho was about to humor him, saying something that was going to be the verbal equivalent to a pat on the head.
Logically Ohno knew that he'd only met Nino two weeks (two weeks, one day, and sixteen hours) ago. But Ohno had never seen what the number of shared yesterdays had to do with knowing a person. He'd known Nakai all of his life and yet he knew that they didn't really know each other at all. He'd known Nino even before he'd led him upstairs to his apartment. He'd known Nino even before those midnight hours spent talking about where he was from, where he was going, and how they were going to ignore Jun in the morning. He had known in Johnny's that Nino fit with him, that Nino fit with Aiba and with Sho and would fit with Jun, too, all in different ways. Just the way he knew that Sho fit, that the five of them all fit together. "I know Nino just like I know you," he said, distinct and direct and final.
"Oh god," Sho said, staring at him, "you're coming on to me, aren't you?"
No time like the present, Ohno thought. "I wasn't, but I'd really like to kiss you and maybe get your shirt off you because you have a really nice chest."
Sho covered his face with his hand. "Look," he said, holding the other hand out. "Look, I know that Aiba and Nino probably told you I'm easy as long as you can get your mouth on my-"
"It's not like that," Ohno cut him off, taking the hand that Sho was holding out. He knew it was a 'stop right there' gesture and not an offer to hold hands but he didn't particularly care. He pulled Sho's hand down, holding it, making a bridge between them. "They wouldn't like you so much if it was like that. They really like you," he said when Sho just looked at him.
"You're…" said Sho. He seemed to be at a loss for words and Ohno waited. "You're a thoughtful guy after all, aren't you?" he asked.
The problem with Sho, Nino had told him, is that he thinks too much.
He wasn't wrong, Ohno thought now, but he wasn't quite right either. The real problem was that Sho was too thoughtful, taking the responsibilities of everything on to himself, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Until one day, Ohno mused, until one day the weight had pushed his shoulders down and Sho had managed to reach out and take hold of the wheel. Ohno put one hand on the slope of Sho's shoulder and ran it slowly down, following it down his arm and linking their free hands. "I really do want to kiss you," he repeated. And then he let go of Sho's hands, leaning in to confide in a whisper, "It's fine with me if you drive."
Sho smiled at him. "You don't make any sense."
"Wherever you're going is where I'm going," Ohno shrugged. In that one way he could be like Nino and Aiba, a hitchhiker on Sho's ride to anywhere. He kissed the tip of Sho's nose and sat back. "You've got a bite."
Sho nearly fumbled the rod into the water but he got the fish out, a good-sized carp. "Wow," he said as it flopped on the floor of the boat. "Now what?"
Ohno made a face. "Now we gut it and clean it because if we don't Matsujun will put it down our pants when we give it to him. It's not an idle threat, either," he mourned.
"Satoshi," Sho said and Ohno looked up because he was laughing again inside the words and, when he looked up, Sho kissed him. Ohno went still and let his lips part and Sho put a hand in his hair and kissed him again. And again.
"Jun?" Ohno dripped uncomfortably into Johnny's.
"What the hell happened to you?" Nino demanded from the order window. He was still sleep-tousled and barely awake as far as Ohno could tell.
"The boat sank," Ohno said. "But we did save the fish," he added, holding it up and offering it towards Nino.
"Gut it and clean it or else I'll shove it down your pants," Nino told him, "since I won't be going there again if you don't."
"Going where?" Jun asked, coming in from the supply closet, his arms full of napkins. "Oh, no," he said when his eyes landed on Ohno. Ohno held the fish out to him. "No."
Aiba and Yoko came up from the basement refrigerator holding eggs. Aiba was holding his under his shirt, like breasts. He took one look at Ohno and then turned to Yoko. "We're going to need ping pong balls, a sump-pump, ten feet of tubing, a hose, and Koyama's scuba gear."
"I'll call Ryo," Yoko saluted.
Ohno stopped Aiba by holding the fish out again. "Sho needs new pants," he said. "He won't fit mine or Nino's and that's all I have. I thought maybe you or Jun…"
Nino came out of the kitchen, took the fish, and slapped it on the counter (they both ignored Jun's stifled shriek) and put his hands carefully on Ohno's waist; they were warm through the cold, wet denim and Ohno edged closer until Nino's hands stopped him. He pouted a little but listened obediently as Nino said, "I did Sho's laundry on Sunday so why doesn't Sho get a pair of Sho's pants that are clean and dry and probably folded nicely in his dresser drawer?"
Biting his lip to hide a smile, Ohno pointed at the fish. "We saved the fish," he said solemnly.
Aiba's head whipped around, frantically searching the windows for Ohno's battered old truck. His eyes lit up when he found it and he bounded toward the door. Jun stopped him by stepping in front of it. "I'll handle this," he said. "We don't have time to raise the 'love boat' from the depths and still open on time. Get Yoko and Koyama and find Koichi. He can help Nino in here while I get Sho presentable."
"You wear tight pants," Aiba said, eyes still on the truck and the obviously embarrassed Sho inside of it. "He can wear my pants."
"I," Jun said slowly, "will handle this."
"I wanted to handle it," Aiba grumbled as Jun went out the door.
"He's probably tired from me handling it anyhow," Ohno comforted him.
Aiba perked up. "Did you yell 'bingo'?"
Ohno frowned, thinking. "I don't know," he confessed at last. "That was when he noticed the boat was mostly underwater so I got kind of distracted."