Title: Awakening 1/?
Author: gypsygrrl420
Characters/Pairing: Shuuhei, eventual Kensei/Shuuhei
Rating: PG13, (Eventual NC-17)
A dry rustling noise close to his ear yanked him from fitful sleep to full consciousness, but he kept his eyes closed and his body as relaxed as possible to preserve the illusion of slumber while listening to the silence pervading his room, trying to pinpoint its origin over the rushing hammer of his escalated heartbeat.
Nothing.
The only sound that came to him was that of his own carefully regulated breathing, but he knew something had woken him.
Still pretending to be asleep, he cautiously loosened his hold on his reiatsu and extended delicate tendrils of spirit energy seeking outwards, with no result. Either the noise had come from an intruder capable of completely masking their reiatsu—a notion he dismissed almost immediately, as there were very few shinigami who could do so, and of those few none who would be so impolite as to invade his bedroom without invitation—or he was alone and the sound was merely part of the vivid nightmares that had plagued his sleep ever since the end of the war. That explanation was far more likely than finding someone lurking in his bedroom, and after a few more moments of hearing nothing but silence, he chalked the noise he'd heard as a product of yet another bad dream and made a conscious effort to relax back into the soft mattress beneath him, chuckling darkly at his paranoia…
He froze when he heard something rustle right next to his ear, adrenaline spiking anew as he realized that the sound hadn't been his imagination or part of a nightmare. There was something in his bed, something he couldn't sense at all, and Kazeshini was clear across the room and out of reach.
A dusty, faintly spicy scent teased his nose, alien yet at the same time oddly familiar, and he was suddenly hyper-aware of his nakedness when he felt a ghosting touch of something infinitely soft brush against his bare side. Not only was there something in the bed, it was close enough to touch.
Swallowing hard against the panic threatening to overwhelm him, he reminded himself that he was a vice captain of the Gotei, and lying there with his eyes pressed closed and hoping that whatever was lurking beside him would simply go away like a child was cowardly and downright stupid.
Bracing himself for attack, he opened his eyes.