note: written for a couple prompts on Tumblr. the first is: "Who's loud? Who's quiet? Does one try to make the other louder/quieter? How?" the second is: "SNUGGLE." …anyway, this incorporates both!


The morning after they first...uh, yeah…Ayato wakes up all tangled up with her on the couch, late for a meeting. He curses and extricates himself and is out the door before either of them even say goodbye.

By the time he gets home, Hinami's asleep again, hand draped beyond her blanket. There's a book beneath her hand, fallen open on the floor, and he picks it up. He stands over her, hesitating. Then he sets the book down on the arm of the couch, and goes to bed.

:::

Hinami seems content to stay in the apartment all day, reading books. It is, frankly, weird. But whatever.

"We're out of food," she says one day, quietly.

"Yeah?" He usually eats when he's out, and it's been a while since he's seen the inside of the apartment's tiny fridge, so he's not surprised. "Go get some more, then."

Hinami wrings her wrists. "Will you go with me, Ayato-kun?"

"Wh...why?! I just got back home. You know where to go."

She looks down. "I'm scared."

Ayato stares. She can be pretty shy, sure, and she panicked during the raid and probably would have died or been converted into a suitcase if he hadn't pulled her out. But "I'm scared" doesn't really match up with the personality of someone that'd just up and — you know — to him.

"Don't pull that shit," he scoffs. "You can do it."

Hinami bites her lip. Then nods.

"Okay."

:::

He always gets home late, and she always seems to be sleeping when he does. Most of the time Ayato just trudges to bed and drifts off immediately, exhausted.

But sometimes there are nights when he can't sleep. When he stares at the ceiling, thinking, seething. About lost friends and fathers and sisters, about Doves prancing in the daylight while he and everyone else have to slink around in the dark, ashamed of their own existence.

During those times, it only takes about ten minutes until he hears the floor creak. The keen of his door on his hinge. The soft pad of footsteps. And then the rustle as Hinami climbs, very carefully, into bed with him.

He slows his breathing down, makes it as steady as possible, and though she pushes a hand into his crooked arm, though she pushes her forehead against his shoulder, he's sure that she can't tell he's awake.

It's uncomfortable — for just a minute. Once she's there, his heads gets heavy, fast. Fills with drowsy memories of when he only ever slept with his sister's weight beside him. He shifts a little, and moves his arm over her arm, or her side, or sometimes her head, inconspicuous, so close his curled fingers only just brush her. He's asleep before he knows it.

He wakes up before he knows it, too. Alone.

:::

Hinami doesn't leave that night to grab food, but Ayato assumes she does the next day, and that's why he doesn't bother hunting. He opens the fridge and yells when he finds it empty.

"I thought you went to get food!" he shouts, looking back at her. "Did you eat it all already?"

She holds her book to her chest. "I'll go tomorrow," she says.

"What was wrong with today?!"

"Nothing! I just...think tomorrow is better."

Ugh.

Ugghhh.

"Fine," he says, "fine. I'll go with you. Come on, hurry up, let's go."

They go that day, and thereafter every other week, to pick up food from Eto. Then, one week, Eto is empty-handed.

"What?" Hinami says.

"The Dove patrols are finally starting to slacken!" Eto explains. "You'll still need to be careful, but now you'll be able to hunt for yourself."

Eto says it like it's a relief. Hinami says, "Oh, I see," and Eto tilts her head.

"Is something the matter, Hinami-chan?"

"No," Hinami says, "nothing," but Eto is already turning to Ayato.

"Maybe you should help her out."

"What? Why!"

"Come on, Ayato-kun!" Eto says, in a sing-song. "Have a little kindness."

"Oh, how? By babying her?" Ayato demands. But Eto has already closed the door on him.

On the way down the stairs, Hinami tugs the hood of Ayato's jacket until he turns around toward her. Her eyes are wide.

"I can't do it," she whispers.

"What? What are you talking about? Is this still about hunting?"

"Y-yes. I've never to — to hunt. I always...at Anteiku…"

"Well, now's your chance," he tells her, continuing down. "It's not hard, just annoying. Humans don't really stand a chance, you just need to watch out for Doves."

She doesn't answer. When he looks back, and up at her, she's pale. Paler than the night he first saw her, fleeing the wreckage and blood.

"You're a ghoul!" he snaps. "You have like two types of kagune, for crying out loud! Follow your instincts. You can do it."

She sways.

"You really think so?"

"Are you joking? Are you even listening to me?!"

She nibbles her lip. Then nods.

"Okay. Yeah. I can do it."

:::

Twice that week, when he's awake enough to hear her come to his bed, it's not the floorboards or footsteps that cue him. It's her growling stomach.

:::

Ayato tails her.

She's easy to spot — for him, anyway. She's too hesitant when she walks, too suspicious. It's a fairly warm evening but she's wearing layers and a hood that drapes over her brows.

Here's something else that's obvious: she has no idea what to do. Aimlessly, Hinami follows lone stragglers down dark alleys, and allows them to escape unscathed. One time he actually spots one of them turning and asking for her number, and she runs like she's the one being hunted.

He snorts. Well, everyone has to find their own way to make it. It's not like he's her big sister or anything. He turns away.

Later, Ayato winces. His lip is bleeding, from biting it all day.

:::

For the first time, he comes home and she isn't there.

He almost walks back out to check that he's in the right apartment.

"Hello?" Ayato calls. But no answer comes. The lump in the couch blankets is just a lump. The books, too, are all in neat columns against the wall.

It's already night. Where the fuck is she? He flings the food he got into the fridge, and waits.

He wakes up to the sound of the bed creaking, and almost flips out. His kagune spark; he lunges at the intruder, and grips only familiar skin. Familiar, whole skin. It takes only a couple more brisk pats to determine Hinami is, in fact, in one piece.

"Sh-shit," he hisses, "where —?"

Where the hell were you, he is going to ask, but a mouth, smashed into his, cuts him off. Her tongue flicks against him, warm and wet, and alongside her own flavor he tastes something else: a tang, a sweetness.

Good, she found the food in the fridge.

Something's off, though. Her hands are fumbling at his blankets, yanking them messily aside, and the hands she slides up beneath his shirt and onto his belly are trembling.

And freezing. He yelps against her mouth and snatches her hands instinctively.

"S-sorry," she whispers. Her eyes are glassy. Her whole body is shaking, he realizes, and her eyes are ghoul-black. He swallows. It doesn't take an idiot to tell that she's still hungry, and not in the "I'm-starving" way.

She stares at him, and he looks away, lips pursed, heat rising to his face. He rubs her hands vigorously in his, exhales onto them, and after they're a little warmer he places them back on his body, somewhat lower than they were before.

She doesn't need any further encouragement. She pushes her body against him, and he can't help a decidedly uncool groan. Her eyes widen and she covers her mouth, failing to suppress a giggle.

"S-stop!" he stammers, mortified. "Don't laugh!"

She lifts her hand away. She isn't giggling now, but her grin is wide and ridiculous.

"It's okay, Ayato-kun," she whispers. "I — I really like it."

"Y-you what?!" He stares at her, not sure if he's red or if he's pale. "You weir — haahh —!"

His voice cracks with a well-timed (and well-positioned) grip of her fingers. His whole body tremors. He slaps his hand over his mouth, which ends up shielding it effectively from further kisses; but she isn't dissuaded. Her forehead nuzzles up beneath his chin, and the suckle and warmth and softness of her lips making their way from throat to collarbone makes him dizzy.

She feels so nice. She feels so — so good. His hands twitch, helpless. His chest surges, his heart balloons, and he thinks, She's so pretty, she's so, so pretty; and, Stop, stop, don't, don't — what if she's too weak after all?

Oh, wait — wait — she's saying something to him. No, she's repeating something to him, has been repeating it for the past forever. Her voice is a feathery murmur.

"You like it too, right?" Her eyes are glinting mischievously, hands drumming lightly on his belly. "Right?"

He glares her over his white knuckles, then smacks his hand down on the bed. "Like I'd ever —"

And then his voice breaks again, with a moan, as she kisses beneath his navel, and further.

:::

Days later, when Ayato opens up the fridge to replenish it for her, he's startled to find something already in it.

He lifts it up, turns it in his hands. It's the food that he got for her, before.

It's completely untouched.