Authors note: Oneshot. NaruxMai. I own nothing.
Naru sighs, caught in the warm oblivion that is a bottle of Captain and a bland hotel room shared with his assistant. He traces languid shapes on his hand, just because it feels so good, and because if he closes his eyes, he can imagine there's someone else behind those feather touches. Hara-san, or some beautiful, nameless girl, or maybe Mai.
But, no, that's a few more drinks away. Another few bottles, because Naru's never been into younger girls, and definitely not his brat-faced tea girl; because that would be wrong, and completely abnormal. And if there's anything that Naru has always strived for, it's normal.
But Naru can't help thinking, in the sweet haze of alcohol and fear, is that his tea girl is all he's got left in the world. All he can really count on anymore. And it's sad and wrong and painful, but at the same time it gives him some hope that there can be more to this life of death and destruction than watching himself harden and darken until he's no longer recognizable as the boy who loved, the boy who wanted to be something.
Mai is all he has left of himself.
She doesn't say a word as he stumbles to the couch they've been gifted with in their current hunt. Nothing about the random intensity that Naru is focusing on his own skin, nothing about the sad and fearful look that he can't wipe from his features. Mai's always been good at ignoring the abnormal, though.
But Naru is too drunk and tired and hurt to return the favor of feigned ignorance, and he traces lost shapes on his assistant's back with long, gentle fingers once she moves to help him to a bed, trailing down her spine and tracing the line of Mai's skirt with a distant curiosity that is slowly morphing into a warming want.
It's been too long since he's been connected to another person, and Naru is afraid he might lose himself in this distance of alcohol and the constant sound of Lin's typing in the next room. There's nothing to tie him down anymore, nothing to keep him from remaking himself every time he leaves...nothing but Mai to keep him sane, to remind him who he is.
So when Mai scoots over and stills his wandering hands with her own, warm and delicate, Naru can only stare at her with hope in his eyes, unable to say what he needs.
Make me real, he wants to ask. Make me whole again.
But they've never needed words. Not before, not now.
Mai traces sigils on his skin, harsh and light and beautiful, and writes the language of angels with her toungue, across Naru's throat and chest.
For the first time in too long, Naru finally feels like he has a hold of himself, a grasp on who he was, and who he is, and who he will be, someday. Mai's touch grounds and reassures him that the answer is somewhere, waiting to be found in a stray word or touch, a bruising grip or a soft caress.
Life is a journey, and Naru knows that this is his: these gentle moments with her, and later, the harsh realities of ghosts and demons. And for now, quiet as he is with the bravery of Captain Morgan, he will flinch from neither.
Nevermind Lin, and his scowling.