A/N: I have a soft spot for these two. Not sure I see them as romantic partners or just best friends/life partners, but their dynamic is great. I also have a soft spot for strong people fainting and being caught by other strong people. So when I learned Mutsu was a Yato, well, this just had to happen.
Mutsu stood at the prow of the ship, gazing out across the sky. Tomorrow, they would meet with some tribal leaders to finalize a sale of several hundred battery-powered, hand-held fans that Sakamoto had picked up on an impulse. If anyone would want such a thing, the people of this planet would - it was brutally hot during the day due to its proximity to its sun.
They'd already spent longer than planned here, lingering as the local tribe cooked them spicy food and marveled at the sound that the little fans made. She had to spend quite some time explaining in awkward gestures that the brightly colored objects were intended as cooling devices and not weapons after the locals discovered that you could swipe at someone's fingers with the spinning foam blades so as to cause a slightly unpleasant chafing.
The sun had finally sunk low enough that Mutsu could remove her hat and set it down on the ledge beside her. The gentle breeze felt delicious against her scalp.
"Ahahahahahot," moaned a familiar voice from behind her. "Mutsu, help me," the captain whined, tugging at her cape. His face was pale and sweaty.
She sighed. "It's cooler inside, ya know."
"Is everything prepared for tomorrow?" the captain inquired.
"Yep. Just gotta unload, grab the payment, and we'll be off this planet."
Sakamoto nodded. And then he leaned over, grabbed a bowl from the ledge, and promptly vomited in it. "Oh, sorry," he choked. "I get heatsick." He looked up to meet Mutsu's eyes, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
He was met with a murderous glare and immediately shrank back. Mutsu's fists clenched. "Oi," she intoned dangerously. "What the hell did ya just do to my hat?"
Sakamoto looked down at the object clutched in his hands. Sure enough, beneath the mosaic censors was the familiar woven straw of his first mate's trademark accessory. Definitely not a bowl. "Ah…" he said. "Hahaha."
Mutsu shoved her puke-filled hat in the captain's face and stomped below deck, fuming. "Huh? Why's it so dark all of a sudden?" Sakamoto mused aloud.
The next morning, the Kaientai unloaded the merchandise from the ships and met the local tribe at the center of their village, a large open area. As the sun climbed overhead, the tribe began to perform a dance they appeared to have prepared for the occasion, which involved a lot of spinning rapidly and arm flapping while saying "Bzzzzzz."
Mutsu tried to hang back in the shadier part of the square, but soon the sun was directly overhead. The spinning dancers flashed before her eyes, making her head pound. Eventually, a hand came down on her shoulder and she snapped to attention, registering Sakamoto's presence beside her. "Ready?" he said.
She nodded and the two stepped forward. Someone from the local tribe stepped up in turn. She raised a hand and a couple of the Kaientai brought the crates of fans forward. The man from the tribe followed suit, and another few locals laid out a cloth containing their agreed-upon payment - several large chunks of an extremely rare ore that could only be found in the sacred caverns of this region. More unscrupulous merchants might have ignored the desecration and taken the ore straight from the caverns, but Sakamoto insisted they go about it through trade.
The tribe leader was speaking to his people now, and they were examining the fans with Sakamoto's help, counting them, testing them. Mutsu felt hot. One of the Kaientai had gone to examine the ore and weigh it, and she knew she should step forward to approve the measurements, but the pressure behind her eyes was building and the scene felt far away. Sakamoto was next to her again, chatting away with one of the locals despite the language barrier, but his voice was oddly distant. The brightness was everywhere - in her mouth, in her fingers. She vaguely registered someone calling her name and tried to take a step forward.
Her field of vision blurred and tipped. Something solid collided with her - a body, perhaps? She let the brightness take over her eyes for a moment.
The world dimmed and immediately the pressure on her eyes lessened enough so she could open them. The face of her captain swam above her, surrounded by a halo of light. He was crouched over her, blocking her face from the sun. "Mutsu?" he said. "Are you okay?"
She attempted to process her surroundings. She was lying on the ground. Or not quite, her head was on something - a pillow? No, Sakamoto's lap, she realized. The crowd was silent. Her tongue felt weird, like it was too big. The worst of the fog seemed to have cleared, though. She nodded.
"Ahahahaha good," her captain said. "I was worried for a second you might've passed out."
She did pass out, she wanted to grumble, but she felt too weak to argue. The gaze of the Kaientai and the locals felt suddenly awkward and she attempted to sit up, intending to excuse herself politely and hurry back to the ship to rest.
Her legs were shaky and when she made to stand, her knees buckled. The crowd gasped audibly as she fell, reaching for Sakamoto's arm. He gripped her elbow, keeping her more or less vertical.
"Wow, you're really clumsy today," he said. Mutsu considered punching him in the face, but she was overcome with another wave of dizziness and sagged against Sakamoto. The man quickly looped his other arm around her waist to keep her from slipping to the ground again.
He frowned at her, finally growing somewhat concerned. His head was still blissfully blocking the sun. "Oh! Could it be you're sick?"
"The sun," she mumbled.
The captain looked up as if he'd just noticed there was such a thing, then back down at her. "Why aren't you wearin' your hat then?"
At that, she did punch him. The crowd cheered. Less, she supposed, at her act of domestic violence than at the proof of her recovery. It was a weak enough punch that Sakamoto kept his grip on her, but it still felt good.
One of the local children scampered forward and thrust a skin of water into her limp fingers, which she accepted gratefully. She brought it to her lips with shaky hands.
Once her vision had cleared a bit, she met Sakamoto's eyes, which were studying her face above the rims of his trademark sunglasses. "Can you walk?" he asked, with uncharacteristic seriousness. "We need to get you back to the ship."
"But the trade," she said, throwing a glance at the crowd of locals who were murmuring to themselves, no doubt appalled at the weakness of the foreigner woman.
"Ahaha, always the businesswoman," he said, smirking. "I'll finish it up in a minute. Ya know, it's very rude to fall asleep during negotiations."
She scowled. "I just gotta sit in the shade for a bit. I'll be fine."
He nodded and lowered her gently into a sitting position. He pulled his jacket off and tossed it over her head as a makeshift umbrella, which, she had to admit, worked fairly well at keeping the sun's harsh rays off of her.
Then he swaggered off towards the tribe leaders. There was a great deal of pointing and gesturing and laughing but Mutsu found it difficult to pay attention. After a few minutes, the other Kaientai members scooped the cloth full of sacred ore while the captain returned to Mutsu. "All done," he reported, kneeling next to her and pulling her onto his back.
"Hey," she said weakly, "Let me down, I can walk."
Sakamoto ignored her, tightening his grip on her thighs and sauntering off towards the ship. She sighed and buried her head in his shoulder, the darkness cool against her burning skin. "Sorry," she said softly. "Shouldn't have come today. Probably thought I was weak."
"Ahahaha nonsense!" the captain said, rather too loudly considering her proximity. "As it is, they gave us quite a discount for our trouble - three times the ore we were expecting! Must have thought I was quite the gentleman, catching my lady as she swooned... drama is good for business, ya know."
Well, Mutsu considered, perhaps her vulnerability wasn't such a bad thing after all. That didn't stop her from feeling like her whole body was on fire, though. "This is all your fault," she grumbled.
Sakamoto's stupid chattering and laughter accompanied them all the way back to the ship, but she let herself drift into a comfortable state of non-awareness.
He let her down once they reached her bunk and pulled a blanket over her. "Thanks, Tatsuma," she said.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, you better recover fast now! Can't have my first mate keeling over, ahaha…"
She nodded but she was already nearly asleep. Sakamoto laid a hand on her warm head for a second before departing, returning above to assure the crew of her returned health.
When Mutsu awoke a few hours later, feeling fully invigorated and only a little embarrassed for her earlier weakness, it was completely dark. And it smelled like… straw? She put a hand up to her face and lifted the object that was blocking her vision.
It was a hat. Not her old one, which had been fraying at the edges even before its unfortunate encounter with the contents of Sakamoto's stomach, but a brand new version, tightly woven and blissfully clean. She let out a hearty laugh as she kicked off the blankets and positioned the new accessory on her head, ready to emerge into the sunlight.