Title: Four Sinister Syllables
Author: Lys
Characters/Pairing: Sasagawa Ryohei/Hibari Kyouya
Rating/Warnings: NC-17
Status: lol not done writing it yet




It had been less unexpected than it had been untimely, Ryohei reflected as he leaned his forehead against the cool tile of the shower stall, the one on the other side of the facility, the western-styled one that reminded him pleasantly of his time in Italy. The water dripping out of his hair streamed across them, dripping chilly down the bridge of his nose and onto the tops of his feet. He let out a long sigh. How many more days would it be until they had to be prepared? Not enough; that was the way things worked, never enough time. He stood straight again, fingers running through his short-cropped hair in a last effort to find any leftover shampoo suds.

A deadline could be an encouragement for quick improvement, but it could also be something that lodged heavily in the pit of a man's stomach.

"Don't be so weak, Sasagawa," the voice of memory breathed against the wet back of his neck.

*

The rations storage area was cold at night, with its stainless steel floors and the facilities lights on their energy conserving timers, flourescence fading in and out slightly as Ryohei walked down the corridors to get to the place. He couldn't sleep lately; the butterflies in his stomach were fluttering out some kind of morse code message of nervousness. He was getting worked up again. He always got worked up. When you couldn't sleep, his mother had told him ages ago, you didn't just lay around in bed-- you got up for a while, had a drink and did something. You cleared your head. The worn rubber of Ryohei's slippers scratched against the metal of the floor as he pulled a glass out of the cupboard, flipping on the filter and filling it at the sink.

He didn't know how long he'd been staring into space blankly by the time he realized he'd been doing it, water dripping plaintively from the not-quite-off faucet. It must have been a good few minutes, because those smart lights had gone off again, convinced into a lack of living occuring in the room below them. He raised a hand to his forehead and sighed before tipping the glass back, pouring the water down his dry throat which tasted of interrupted sleep.

A noise came from behind him. The glass was quickly dropped into the sink, surviving but forgotten as Ryohei whipped his head around to stare at the doorway behind him.

"Who's there?!" His voice was strained, anxiousness clogging his throat. The lights started to fade back on, registering the sudden movement of Ryohei's head.

"Luck, obviously. Otherwise you'd be a smear by now."

He recognized the voice immediately, all smoke and antagonism. The hair on the back of his neck relaxed as Ryohei turned back to what he was doing and reached into the sink, retrieving his glass and filling it again as he heard to soft hiss of Hibari Kyouya's own slippers approaching him from the doorway. He felt more than saw the other man's pointed hip lean against the cupboards below the counter beneath the thin yukata he habitually slept in. Ryohei turned the sink off again, sliding around to lean also as he stared expectantly at Hibari. Hibari looked away, closing his eyes and yawning in that fashion he had; nearly offensively noncommital. Ryohei held back an annoyed cluck as he watched the other man's jaw stretch almost painfully.

"I'm hungry. Make me something."

Ryohei paused with a blink.

"Do I look like your mama, Hibari?"

The other man tossed a shrug at him, stretching up with one hand to snag his own glass from the cupboards, the other gripping the edge of the metal counter for support. The arm of his yukata fell with a shush, revealing pale skin that was still marked by sleeping on sheets with wrinkles in them.

"Make me something. I can't find the effort to do it myself."

That earned Hibari a roll of a pair of grey eyes as Ryohei pressed away from the counter and walked to the fridge. What did Hibari eat for a bedtime snack, anyway? Ryohei had always been fine with anything, even just rolled cold cuts from the fridge, but the other man was picky in his eccentricities. There was some fried rice left in the fridge, some cheese and not enough curry to really be worth saving. Ryohei had no doubts the fridge had been rifled through before that night. The rest was all raw ingredients, things which Ryohei didn't know what to do with. He'd always been too busy, he suddenly realized, to learn how to take care of a home life.

"Do you want some fried rice, then? I can stick it in the microwave, it's already on a plate and everything." Ryohei slid the milk to the side, eyeing a plastic jug of tangerine juice with some interest.

"I hate fried rice."

He could feel a familiar irritation bubbling up, making him want to slam the refrigerator door closed. He steeled himself instead, staring petulantly over his shoulder at the other man and dragging the juice out, shutting the door softly as he turned. Where did Hibari Kyouya get off, anyway? If Ryohei weren't sure they would be in for a lecture, he probably would have punched the man already. They owed one another, hundreds of times and ten years over.

"Then make something for yourself, you immature, unappreciative bastard."

Hibari pressed his lips to his glass, staring over the rim at Ryohei expectantly for a few seconds until realizing a fistfight wouldn't be forthcoming at four in the morning. Ryohei attempted to ignore the look, dumping the rest of the water out in the sink and replacing it with the thin juice.

"Oh," came Hibari's voice at length, followed by the click of his own empty glass on the counter. "Don't get angry if you don't plan on doing anything about it, Sasagawa. But I have no intention of making something for myself. It's more effort than I'm willing to expend at this time of the night."

Ryohei shook his head, tossing his juice back and contemplating eating the rice himself, if Hibari wouldn't touch the stuff. It was nostalgic to be eating his sister's cooking, despite the fact that she didn't have nearly as much experience under her belt at the point. Kyoko's warm eyes flashed in his head and Ryohei's face softened. It didn't go unnoticed by the other man, who reached a hand beneath the fabric of his yukata to scratch at his shoulderblade. He turned away fromn Ryohei with an indulgent, patronizing noise and started padding back toward the doorway. Ryohei would have let him go back to his bed, too, had it not been for Hibari's need to get the last word in situations that didn't really require one.

"Don't be so weak, Sasagawa. I saw that disgusting cow-eyed expression on your face."

"Oh, eat me," Ryohei snapped, better judgement thrown out the window. He'd been having a good thought. For once, he'd been honestly a little bit happy despite the sad situation, and Hibari had gone and dug his claws into his mood and ripped it apart.

The back of a dark head froze a few feet away from Ryohei before he'd realized that he had made a fairly hefty mistake. The situation could have gone extremely badly, probably was about to; Hibari's cold eye was peering at Ryohei from above his thin shoulders.

"H-Hibari..."

The thin fingers were wrapped into his shoulders immediately, pressing Ryohei's back against the startling chill of the counter even before his still sleep-heavy body could react to the smaller man's movement. Ryohei was suddenly, accutely acutely aware that he was dressed in only a pair of lounge pants. The cold of the metal slid slowly up his spine as Hibari gave another rough shove, lips pursed in amusement at the expression of confusion that must have been plastered against Ryohei's face. He never had been a good hand at hiding what was going on with his thoughts or emotions.

"You said a good thing just then. But it really pisses me off when people get angry when they don't plan to do anything to rectify the situation that was so unfair."

"I'd love to," Ryohei hissed, pressing back against the hands with his chest, trying to slide out of the space between the counter and Hibari's form. "I'd really love to just pop you in the nose, but even I realize this is a shitty time to be beating on one another. So gerroff me."

Hibari chuckled softly, blunt nails that were digging into the muscles of Ryohei's shoulders relaxing slightly. Had he, for once, said the right thing to pacify the man? He sighed deeply, trying to move away from Hibari, but the hands stayed on his shoulders, resting warningly.

"I'm getting tired of letting you acrue debt, Sasagawa Ryohei. Actually, you in particular I hate. Let me know I'm doing a service to myself by letting a cow like you continue to live, even when you're asking to get snapped up."

A thin, cool thigh pressed between Ryohei's legs, working against the crotch of Ryohei's pants as Hibari pressed against him, disturbingly insistent, one fine-boned hand moving to knead into the tense muscles of Ryohei's chest. His voice caught in his throat, face growing suddenly heated in the chilly, impersonal air of the Vongola base. He gripped Hibari's shoulders, rough hands slipping over the silky fabric as he tried to shove the smaller man away. The leg moved against him again, rubbing lazy circles beneath Ryohei's balls as his cheeks burned, reminded that he wasn't wearing any underwear. That the yukata Hibari was wearing was very thin. That, no matter what Yamamoto-level denial Ryohei could choose to employ, he could not make himself believe-- as he stared down into Hibari's pointed, frowning face --that he didn't know exactly what he was doing to Ryohei.

"Che," he grunted into Ryohei's shoulder, free hand drifting down to cup Ryohei's crotch un-gently, callouses of his palm from years of gripping rubberized handles obvious in texture even through the thin cotton pants. He dug the palm into Ryohei's slowly filling cock, moving around as if searching for something. "You're easy, aren't you? Like leading cattle to slaughter."

"Just what the hell are you doing?"

His heart was picking up pace, unfortunately exacerbating the situation, making him sweat, grow harder faster beneath the abusively impersonal touch of the hand over his pants. Ryohei bit his lip, swallowing a groan.

"Please. I can toss more than a guess at what you spent some of your nights in Italy doing. Did you miss that degenerate so much, Ryohei? Don't answer. I actually don't want to hear it."

Ryohei tossed his head to the side to keep himself from acknowledging the cold eyes below his own, silence more than enough of an answer for the other man. He bit his lip, grey eyes flickering to the doorway. His hips arched involuntarily against Hibari's hand. The hand was removed a second later and Ryohei gasped, small damp spot on his pants growing quickly cold and uncomfortable.

"I'm not okay with this. I know we're... I know we've been living here together for years, for as much as that means since we're both gone all the time anyway. I know you're the last person on the planet to think that doing this means anything." Ryohei ducked his head, ashamed at his own acknowledgement that letting Hibari Kyouya nearly molest him in the room they made all their food in was partly a good idea. Sex with Hibari would be the textbook definition of no-strings-attached. He gave one last heave against Hibari, but the hand on his chest held tight, pressing him backward.

"There are children here. Everywhere. And this isn't something I want to expose them to," Ryohei hissed, finishing his thought.

"Ask me if I care," was the response, Hibari's deep voice threatening and finalized.