moonsheen

So,

autophanous and I decided that basically Shunsui and Nanao were the hottest thing ever and was woefully underwritten. I promised her porn. This is not porn. Although admittedly, it is just one of those stories that has the very obvious unstated addendum of "And then they TOTALLY DID IT." TAKE A GUESS WHAT OTHER FICS OF MINE CAN HAVE THAT AS A LAST LINE.

There really wasn’t much to be said that evening when Ise Nanao took off her glasses, slipped off her uniform and slid into the warm, marching out the door and straight into the warm pool that was the main district’s bathhouse. The men’s side.

Well. There was one thing to say, at least.

“Captain Kyouraku will keep his hands to himself. They’ve been burned, and I’m certain the 4th division is not so eager to see you again so soon.”

She kept her hair firmly clipped at the back of her hair. Her Captain, who had yet to move from his place at the opposite end of the bath, still had his arms very innocently stretched out along the edge behind him.

Ise Nanao folded her hands over her lap and looked coldly at the wall.

“And I gained this position by my own merit.”

“Of course,” said Shunsui, whose eyebrows had yet to come down from their upraised position. “My lovely, what would I do without--”

Nanao’s fingertips left red marks on her legs.

“Captain Aizen considered me efficient.”

“Ah, my beautiful—“

“He considered me an efficient, valuable, effective asset to any division I should serve.” A cricket was singing in one of the corners as the steam rose steadily around them. “Your exact opposite, in fact. It’s what he wrote on my recommendation. When I was transferred to the 8th.”

Shunsui tilted his head sideways and squinted, as though to assure himself the woman was actually there. “My Nanao has read that…?”

“Vice-Captain Ise has read everything that is sent to this division,” Nanao lifted her chin rigidly. “Since the Captain does not.”

“So many words! So complicated! Words, words, words! If the world were made of only words…”

“That would imply you did paperwork.”

“Cut to the quick!” cried Shunsui, and immediately sank under water.

When he emerged the cricket had stopped and Nanao had moved to sit on the edge with her toes brushing the surface. She was just out of an easy reach. The line of her back was as unforgiving as ever, the crooks of her knuckles looked as painful as ever.

“You should slap me,” he whispered.

“That would encourage you.”

“You are worried.”

“It’s passed.”

Shunsui levered himself up. Water drizzled through the strands of hair that stuck across the bridge of his nose.

“You were worried, then.”

Nanao twitched and took a breath. It was the sort of action that was usually the preamble for a healthy application of a book, or a fan, or a division office paperweight. However none of these things were present and he hadn’t given her a physical cause. Instead, she waited for the ripples at her toes to still before she spoke:

“I graduated from Academy top of my class. My grades were perfect. Every single exam I was given, I passed. When I took the entrance exam for the 13 divisions, I passed. I was a well ranked seated officer in the 5th within the decade I had become a shinigami. I have had misgivings, but I found a place for them. I have had frustrations, and I have dealt with those as well. My position as Vice-Captain of the 8th has been the most perilous, challenging, and frustrating years in the whole of my career. I had always expected as much. But I had not expected Captain Aizen… and I had not expected you to…”

Her nose wrinkled, as though the report before her was suddenly dissatisfying.

“Yes,” she said, closing her eyes and bringing her hands to her hairclip. She pulled it out with an annoyed sigh. “I was worried, Captain. And I was unable to follow.”

She looked at him under the jagged black fall around her shoulders. Severely cut at the ends, uneven, yet somehow still flat and perfect and cruel and just the way he loved it.

“…I was so very ineffective…”

“You? Never.”

“You knew, didn’t you, what it would come to…”

“Sousuke-kun was always a little unfathomable. Did you know, it has been so long…” Shunsui breathed out slowly through his nose. “…since you’ve let me touch your hair.”

“Captain…” Nanao began, in reflexive exasperation. Then she leaned her head to the side, let her weight fall a little more heavily to her left, looked sour and said: “I’ve never let Captain Kyouraku do anything.”

“And oh have I ever, ever known it—once,” Shunsui pointed out. “Before I was your Captain. You let me. Without even the sweet, sweet sting of your hand. And…”

“Captain.”

Her hips rested more than an easy reach away, but she was worth the effort. Shunsui bent sideways, feeling the ache in his bones from the earlier fight flash a little like the fireflies that had begun to settle with the evening. He wasn’t…as youthful, as he once was. He folded his arm around her waist, rested his fingers limply and practically chaste against the edge of the bath and the outside of her thigh. He leaned over and felt the barest brush of her hair against his nose and his lips. It was slightly cooled by condensation. She didn’t move.

“And once more. When it tasted like fire and funeral ash. I prefer it now. So hard on me, my lovely! …I have never not appreciated it. I prefer it. Like now. Your hair, it tastes like…”

“Soap,” said Nanao, when his lips met the press of her bangs against her temple. She let him. She let him…“That is soap. I already bathed an hour ago.”

“Oh,” said Shunsui. “I see.”