Second Sight
More fluff this chapter. If anyone is feeling the lack of angst/drama and uh, also that plot we promised, don't worry, we feel it too and are impatiently headed in that direction. We're about out of backlog, though, so it's likely we won't be returning to daily updates for a while yet. Sorry about that. -Kakashiplayer
Chapter Twenty-six
It was in the middle of the night that Kumo returned, sneaking through Shimenawa's bedroom window in a way that was quickly becoming a habit for him. He dropped all of his stuff on the floor immediately within the window to free himself up to all but pounce on a certain blonde's sleeping form, cheerfully pinning him down.
"Merry Christmas, Sunshine," he whispered, grin so broad that it was nearly audible.
The Hokage of a few thousand years ago probably would never have fallen for such a tack; but Shimenawa was himself, and trusted Kumo to boot. He didn't wake at all until Kumo's breath was tickling against his face as the man whispered to him, and even then only frowned a little in half-sleep, bleary eyes fluttering open for a moment.
"nn-- whuh... Kumo? Merry Christmas..." he mumbled automatically, curling around one of the arms pinning him down as he rolled sleepily over onto his side a little.
"H-hey, now," Kumo laughed as Shimenawa tried to go right back to sleep, giving the doctor a light shake, "Is that any way to greet your husband after not seeing him for days? C'mon, Sunshine. You gotta wake up." He paused a moment, then leaned over to whisper into Shimenawa's ear, grinning to himself some more.
"...I've got presents," he crooned, sparing no suggestion in his tone.
"...nnnnnn. 'nother hour of sleep would be a great present."
The pout in Shimenawa's voice was definitely not the pout of a half-asleep person, no matter how much he might like to pretend.
"You missed Christmas Eve dinner, jerk," Shimenawa continued, laying it on thick as he rolled back over to prop himself up on his elbows and give Kumo a kiss.
"I'm sorry, Sunshine," Kumo pouted right back, at the very least sounding apologetic, "I wanted to make everyone's presents special so I had to stay away a couple days. I'll make it up to you?" He gave Shimenawa his best scolded puppy look, pressing an envelope into his hands.
"There's other stuff too, but that's the 'I'm sorry I missed dinner' present. You'd think having missed your cooking would be punishment enough."
Shimenawa blinked down at the envelope for a second as he sat up all the way, stifling a yawn. If it hadn't been... he looked around for the bedside clock... if it hadn't been seven in the morning, he might have considered lecturing Kumo about how bringing him material stuff didn't begin to make up for the far more important lack of his presence, but... it was too early. And it was Christmas. He guessed he could forgive a little.
"Should I open it now, then?" he said, but didn't actually wait for Kumo's okay before pulling open the envelope and shaking the contents out. He seemed to be holding... a reservation notice for a very expensive restaurant, two tickets to an exclusive spa, and a receipt (with all the prices blacked out) for a stay at a very fancy hotel. The dates were for the very next weekend.
He had to stare down at them for a second or three, eyes very wide, before he glanced back up at Kumo again. He wasn't sure whether to feel flattered or really guilty about the amount of money the stuff in the little envelope must have represented.
"Geez..." He stopped for a second, a little breathless, and laughed. "Okay, I'm awake now."
"I kept threatening you with a honeymoon, didn't I?" Kumo laughed quietly in response, though he looked a little bit uncertain, unsure of whether Shimenawa actually liked his presents. Maybe the spa was a little too much...? "I know you wanted a couple months to prepare, but it's just a weekend getaway sort of thing... We can stab at the real thing when you're ready, yeah?"
Shimenawa was smiling awkwardly, glancing between the documents and Kumo once again for a moment. "I probably don't want to know how much these cost, right...?"
Running a hand through his hair a little, he sat them down on the bed and leaned over to wrap his arms around Kumo, giving the man another kiss.
"You really don't have to spoil me so much. But. Thank you," he murmured, still a little embarrassed.
"Who says I'm spoiling you?" Kumo teased, bringing his arms around Shimenawa as well with a little, content sigh, "Don't you know those presents are secretly for me? Well, no, they're kinda like really expensive wrapping paper for what I really want." He nuzzled Shimenawa's neck lightly at that, looking rather pleased with himself. "You," he added, just in case he wasn't being clear or suggestive enough, because when you were Kumo you weren't usually clear enough and no matter who you were, in Kumo's humble opinion, you could never be suggestive enough.
Shimenawa gave another short laugh at that, this one sounding much more comfortable, and leaned his face against Kumo's dark hair. It looked like he might need a re-dye soon; the silver-white roots were showing rather plainly. If he thought about it, Shimenawa realized, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen Kumo without his hair dyed...
"Well," he said with a grin, absently running a finger up and down Kumo's back, "I did get you a couple presents that aren't me, so I hope they aren't too terribly disappointing. Of course, you're welcome to me too," he added with a smirk, impulsively kissing the man's black locks.
"I dunno, Sunshine. It's kinda hard to top you," Kumo laughed in response, pause, then grinned stupidly before he playfully nibbled at Shimenawa's neck. "...unless you're me," he amended, looking fairly extremely pleased with himself for having come up with something so clever. Then again, he'd had an awful lot of practice.
Shimenawa's only respone to the comment was to turn bright red.
"Oh, but-- damnit," Kumo sighed, pulling away to smack himself on the forehead, "I set myself up all the damn time, Sunshine. You know that? You gotta start stopping me from setting myself up. We should probably go wake the boys up now and get presents opened and stuff. Because, uh, something I got Kakashi might... might... er... expire if we leave it in the box too long."
"...expire?" Shimenawa blinked, the mad blush crossing his face fading slightly as he raised an eyebrow. "What do you... hm. Well, okay. Let me get my presents out of the closet." He leaned over to give Kumo one last peck on the cheek before rising from the bed.
Kumo watched him go with a slightly longing sigh before he shook his head and glared at the medium-sized box he had left on the floor. All the other presents were in his backpack, but that one he'd been carefully carrying by hand. He crawled back out of bed as well, shouldering his backpack once more before very slowly lifting the other box from the floor.
"Got everything, Sunshine?"
Shimenawa, now clutching a number of festively-wrapped parcels to his chest, turned around to give Kumo a smile and a nod.
"Shall we?"
-----
Meanwhile, in the living room, Kakashi was curled up among the mussed sheets of the couch bed, watching Obito be decidedly antsy. The other boy had woken him up quite early, insisting that because it was Christmas he wasn't allowed to go back to sleep. Kakashi wasn't exactly clear what was so special about Christmas morning, but it was what Obito wanted so he played along sportingly, batting his tail lightly against the mattress and biting back yawns as he tried to resist the temptation to just flop down on top of his pillow again.
Christmas was always like this for Obito. Well, maybe not exactly like this. This was a definite step up from his usual Christmas. But generally speaking, Christmas tended to follow a pattern for Obito. Wake up hours before dawn, possibly skipping sleep on Christmas Eve altogether, sneak out his bedroom window or through other creative ways should the bedroom window be inaccessible for whatever reason, make a mad dash for Shimenawa-sensei's place, and lurk either inside or outside (Obito preferred outside because he could sit under Shimenawa's window and watch in like a good little stalker) until Shimenawa woke up so they could open presents. He remembered that he'd been doing it for so long, when he started he'd needed a box to put under his window so that he was tall enough to climb out.
He couldn't really sit still, pacing around the living room, glancing at the tree now and again as though it might spawn presents all on its own if he checked it enough, vigilantly listening for signs of life in Shimenawa's bedroom. He looked about ready to unwind before, mercifully, the floor in Shimenawa's room creaked and the doorknob jiggled as someone went to open the door. Obito all but tackled Kakashi to the bed with glee.
"Sensei's awake!" he declared in his not-indoor voice, cuddling Kakashi with all the force of a drive-by shooting, "We get to open presents now, Kakashi!"
Kakashi was startled a little more awake at the sudden onslaught, returning the other boy's cuddles somewhat bemusedly. Obito was never this happy to be awake in the morning. Maybe he was secretly a clone Obito, Kakashi's brain helpfully suggested as he woke up a little more. Or maybe the time axis of the universe was out of alignment and they were going backwards so it was actually nighttime. Or... maybe Obito just really liked presents? Maybe Kakashi should give him more presents.
He looked over at the fairy lights on the Christmas tree and asked them to twinkle a little harder.
"Merry Christmas," Shimenawa said, smiling, as he stepped into the living room with presents in tow.
"Merry Christmas!" Obito sang back, rolling over Kakashi again to hop off the couch bed, dragging the kitsune with him. "Oh! Kumo's back," he noticed aloud, not exactly upset about this development but a little bit less enthusiastic than he might have been for someone who was not-Kumo. But hey! Kumo's presence meant more presents! Obito could definitely handle that.
"Can we open presents now, Sensei?" he pestered, pulling Kakashi over to the tree with him, "We can open presents now, right?"
"At least let me put these down under the tree first," Shimenawa said with a laugh, carrying over the presents in his hands to do just that. There were already a couple small ones sitting under the tree, but the doctor had kept most of them in his closet, the same way he always did. (After all these years, Obito had surely figured out where Shimenawa was hiding them, but he had to give the boy credit for one thing; Obito never snooped. At least not since the one year when Shimenawa pouted him to death about it.)
Something had roused Kakashi's attention as he came more fully awake; he looked a little confused as he glanced around, gaze finally settling on the newly-returned Kumo as the man walked into the room.
Kumo waved to the boys as he entered the room himself, carefully setting the one box in his hands back down before unceremoniously dumping the contents of his backpack out. He caught his weapon stash and wad of clean but crumpled clothing before they joined the presents under the tree and shoved those back into the bag.
"Have at it, then, boys," he grinned, gesturing to the presents, "Just save that one I put down for last."
Several minutes of paper-shredding and miscellaneous exclamations of delight, all but one of the presents were opened and there was wrapping paper scattered all the way into the kitchen. Obito was very, very content with his hoard. He'd gotten everything from snack foods to comic books and a cookbook and socks, and, oh, a DVD called Zombie Ninjas from Mars (that Obito raved about for at least ten minutes) to a full cutlery set from Kumo (he was beginning to get the hint, honest) and when he'd pouted about not getting anything from his boyfriend, a box of fresh taiyaki appeared all on its own from the back of the Christmas tree.
Shimenawa found himself with a '#1 Mom' apron from Obito along with a specially framed picture of Obito and Kakashi--it looked as though Obito had taken the picture himself because the two of them were awfully close to the camera in the shot, but it was the thought that counted? And it seemed as though Obito had cut-and-pasted a photo of Kumo passed out and drooling onto his pillow into the corner of the picture. From Kumo he received a few slips of paper reading 'something you can't open in front of the boys', punctuated with a doodle of a little, grinning demon.
Kumo unwrapped his chocolate with some measure of happiness and his nylon shirts with absolute glee (Shimenawa couldn't help blushing again) and beamed over every one of the CDs Obito had bought him.
Kakashi, meanwhile, discovered that he had been given a comforter with little foxes all over it and the candy canes he'd been wondering about since Obito and Shimenawa went shopping from Obito, and pretty marbles and a fuzzy sweater from Shimenawa. He hadn't seemed to have gotten anything from Kumo, but then there was still that last box. It had a little tag on it that might had been his name, but it was written in Kumo-scrawl so it was hard to tell.
"It smells like cat," he noted curiously, completely ruining the sense of suspense in the rest of the room as he reached out to pull off the festively-wrapped, hole-ridden lid.
And sure enough, curled up in the box atop a couple of towels was a tiny, greyish tabby kitten, not any bigger than Kakashi's two hands put together and quite completely as fluffy as his tail. It uncurled as the light met its eyes, blinking open two big brown orbs to stare up at the very, very wide mismatched pair regarding it with some wonder from above the box. Then it started making tiny mewls, rising up on its stubby, fuzzy paws to start toward the box's edge.
Kakashi glanced up at Kumo with very wide eyes, looking hesitant, like he wasn't sure whether he was allowed to touch.
"Go on. She's all yours. Give her a name or something," Kumo reassured with a light laugh that startled the small creature, making her turn her head in the general direction of the sound. But Kumo was far too big and tall and far away for the little kitten to see so she turned her attention back to Kakashi. She made wanting to be held cries and pawed the side of the box, not quite heavy enough to tip it over. And she made slightly distressed, lonely-and-starting-to-get-cold colors, because her box had been warm until the lid was taken off but now she was beginning to feel a chill. Kittens weren't terribly good at regulating their own body temperatures.
Blinking down at her a little uncertainly, Kakashi reached a hand into the box for the kitten to sniff a moment, and then another hand in to carefully pick her up. He nestled her against his chest in the crook of one elbow and started petting the tiny body with a finger; before long, he could feel little pinpricks through his clothes as she began contentedly kneading her claws.
"...I really have a cat?" Somehow this was a surprising and unexpected development. He looked back up at Kumo for confirmation again, not entirely sure this was actually happening in the real world, not just his head.
"Yeah, you do," Kumo nodded, "Heard you weren't a dog person, and the poor thing really needed a good home." And it was part wish-fulfillment on Kumo's part. He'd always wanted a puppy or kitten as a child, but god forbid his dad ever contribute to letting him enjoy a solitary moment in his life.
"So," he smiled, slipping his arm around Shimenawa's waist as he spoke, "Do you know what you're going to call her, Kakashi?"
Kakashi looked down at the little kitten for a while longer, stroking her soft, downy fur with a finger and regarding her thoughtfully. She'd settled down against his body after just these few short moments, quieting and closing her eyes to snuggle against his warmth sleepily. Even her claws had ceased their kneading; only her stubby kitten-tail continued to pad a faint, slow rhythm against the side of his pajama-clad arm.
She was really quite well-mannered, for a kitten.
"Umm... Lady," he decided with a sudden smile, feeling even more inordinately happy than he had last night when cleaning lady's pig had come to play. This kitty was his.
"Lady?" Kumo repeated, glancing at Shimenawa just to see his reaction, "That's a good name. Well, then, welcome to the family, Lady." The kitten, warm and content, was fast asleep and so didn't respond. She barely even shifted when Obito prodded her experimentally on the leg, only moved the limb out of reach and tucked her small face against Kakashi's chest before she was out like a light again.
"...she's kind of cute, I guess," Obito admitted grudgingly, hugging his Zombie Ninjas from Mars DVD to his chest.
Shimenawa grinned a little awkwardly and scratched his head, unable to help feeling a little surprised. So Kakashi had a cat... which was to say that Kakashi and he now had a cat, because as enamored as Kakashi might be with the animal (and it was undeniably adorable how he was cradling it now, scratching behind its tiny ears and looking about as pleased as Shimenawa had ever seen him), the doctor could pretty much guess how often he would remember to feed it and to whom the responsibility was going to fall in his place.
Ah well... it was, admittedly, a very adorable little cat.
"She seems to have taken to you already," he observed as he walked over to crouch down next to Kakashi and lightly run a finger over the kitten's fur himself. It was downy-soft. Such a fragile little thing...
"You'll have to be really careful with her, you know, right?" he said seriously to Kakashi. "You could hurt her really easily. Even just by squeezing too hard..."
"I know that, Sensei." The kitsune pouted at him a little, looking slightly offended. Shimenawa responded with a laugh and a quick ruffle of his hair.
"Okay then. You can never be too sure."
The four of them enjoyed looking over their presents and laughing and teasing each other and eventually Shimenawa was cajoled into trying on his new apron, but both Kakashi and Obito were looking increasingly sleepy. Obito, however, was too stubborn to sleep and like hell Kakashi was going to bed with the new kitten without him. Catching on, Kumo put up a large pretense of being exhausted as well and told the boys to go to sleep, dragging Shimenawa to the bedroom. There were still more presents for his Sunshine to unwrap, after all.
Lady was the one who woke up first, some time mid-afternoon. She walked all over Obito's face trying to get to Kakashi's head, but somehow the former Uchiha slept through little paws stepping on his cheeks and eyes. The kitten was a little bit hungry, but mostly she wanted to prove to her mommy that she was a big girl now. Settling herself down on top of some of Kakashi's hair, she put one paw down on Kakashi's forehead and began to groom the side of his face with her little, barely scratchy tongue.
Kakashi frowned slightly as he became aware of something warm and wet rubbing against one of his cheeks, and he made a little noise low in his throat as he cracked an eye open, beginning to return to wakefulness. Oh -- it was Lady. A sleepy smile crossed his face as he reached up to pet her, the idea that she might want something not quite registering yet.
Lady pushed her head against his hand, nuzzling it briefly before going back to her very serious work, pushing down a fraction harder on his head (which wasn't very much when you were a kitten the size of someone's cupped hands) to hold him still. She tried to clean his eyebrows, which wasn't quite as problematic as when she decided his eyes needed cleaning as well.
"Nn--" When tongue met eyelid, Kakashi nudged her off his face automatically as he started to uncurl from Obito and sat up, only to have little claws stick in his hair so that he now had a kitten riding on his head. He blinked upward automatically, tilting his chin a little, but of course there was no way he could actually see her.
Obito's eyes were open at that point and he was wondering why his eyeball hurt. That passed after a moment, and he squinted up at Kakashi, thinking of all the things he could be saying. Like, 'Good morning'. Or 'Merry Christmas'. Or 'Come down here and let's make mad, passionate boy-love'. But no, instead he found himself saying, still sounding half-awake.
"...Kakashi? 's... 's that a... what's the cat doing on your head...?"
Lady was busying herself with making a nest of Kakashi's hair, kneading his scalp to get it all comfortable for her.
"I guess she's... ow." Kakashi's gaze was still trained upward, perhaps hoping for a glimpse of protruding paws or tail. He trailed off midsentence, however, as he realized he didn't really know what she was doing; the faint gentle contented-maybe-slightly-hungry colors he could sense from her were not particularly enlightening.
"...hanging out?" he proposed quizzically.
"...on your head?" Obito blinked, then shrugged and yawned, snuggling his cheek into his pillow, "Come back to bed, Kakashi We have to start a tradition of Christmas cuddles and possibly Christmas being-naked-under-the-covers-together."
Lady inched forward on Kakashi's head, completely oblivious to Obito's words, and dangled her paws to where Kakashi could maybe see them. She sent him a few colors that were polite and quiet but definitely hungry, along with a little yawning mewl that begged for attention and food. Possibly warm cream. Yes, she agreed with herself, and made another tiny kitten sound to confirm that she definitely would like some warm cream.
Kakashi reached up to poke at one of the paws, debating to himself with a slight, thoughtful frown. Obito wanted to cuddle... but Lady was hungry. But Obito... but it was his kitty and he needed to take care of her but, but cuddles, with Obito, but...
"Um... Lady's hungry," he said with a mournful sigh. He jostled the little kitten slightly as he leaned over to give Obito a kiss, nuzzling his face for just a moment before turning to rise from the bed. "So... I'll find her food and... then we can have cuddles?" he requested, looking back with his best pleading expression. "...And naked-under-the-covers. And stuff."
Obito made a part glowering, part pouting, part disappointed, part sad, and part angry expression. The result was that he looked somewhat confused and a little bit shocked and maybe a little like he'd stubbed his toe.
"Fine," he sighed, being as good of a sport as he could manage as he flopped back down onto the bed and pulled the covers over his head. Stupid Kumo. Stupid Kumo and his kittens.
Kakashi looked a little unsure of himself at the other boy's reaction, but, well, his kitty was hungry, and it just wasn't nice to make things go hungry. He and Lady departed to the kitchen looking for the shopping bag full of food Kumo had brought, not to mention... there was a carton of cream in the fridge still, wasn't there...?
Once in the kitchen, Lady hopped down from Kakashi's head, landing on the kitchen table. She paced around in a circle once, then sat down, watching Kakashi expectantly. Once she saw that he was, in fact, looking for food, she busied herself with cleaning herself, daintily licking her front paws one after another. Humming contentedly, Kakashi set out some cat food for her atop the table and then put a saucer of cream into the microwave to warm for a second or two, tail swishing around his legs as he moved to and fro in the kitchen. He set down the saucer and afterwards supposed some water was in order too; after he'd taken care of that, he stooped to rest his chin atop the table and pet the little kitten as she lapped at her food, smiling. A moment or three later he bounced back off to the living room to pounce on Obito. The lump of blankets that was Obito seemed to perk at being pounced upon, arms wrapping around Kakashi for immediate snuggling.
"Welcome back!" Obito grinned, squirming his way out from under the covers. "Now, about that naked thing..."
However, the moment Lady realized Kakashi had left her, she stopped eating and began to cry pitiful little mewls, sending scared and distressed colors out because she could no longer see her mommy.
Kakashi looked back toward the kitchen automatically, seeming rather distressed himself. He really wanted to stay here with Obito, but he couldn't leave his kitty to be scared...
"Um..." He glanced over at Obito again with an apologetic sort of frown, looking like he expected to be scolded.
"Oh for the love of--" Obito rolled his eyes and shoved his head back under the covers, "Go do whatever you want."
The kitsune stared down at Obito's sheet-covered form until he couldn't ignore the pitiful cries from the other room anymore, and then returned unhappily to the kitchen.
"We made Obito mad," he informed the kitten, walking over to the table and plopping down in a chair next to her with a mournful sigh. As soon as Lady saw her mommy come back, she quieted, padding up to Kakashi. She stopped directly in front of him and pushed her head against his cheek, nuzzling him. She then put her paw over his mouth and leaned forward to lick his nose.
"...least you're not mad at me," Kakashi said, pouting a little as he scratched under the kitten's fuzzy chin with a single finger.
It wasn't exactly like having a dog, he decided with a sigh, but she was really quite wonderful in her own way. Lady purred with delight at the chin-scratch, nuzzling Kakashi once more before climbing onto his shoulders. She curled around his neck not entirely unlike a muff, then yawned. Settling down, she purred against Kakashi's neck and soon was well on her way to drifting back to sleep.
Kakashi had been sitting there a couple minutes, considering whether to go back into the living room or not, when the phone on the wall began to ring. He blinked at it for a second or three, watching it ring once, twice, thrice... Kakashi didn't usually touch the phone anymore, not after that one time when a patient's mom called and he sorta kinda didn't quite explain right and she thought he was on drugs and hung up all mad and Sensei got all embarrassed and Obito got mad at him. But. Well. No one else was answering it, and he was just sitting here staring at it...
"...hello?" he said hesitantly into the receiver, a few moments later.
"Umm-- hi..." The voice on the other end of the line sounded somehow sort of embarrassed. "This is Hayashi Tenzou... Is this Dr. Shimenawa's house? I was told that Kubutsu Kumo is staying over there..."
Kakashi paused for a second, frowning. Who-- ...oh wait, he meant Daddy. Of course. Kumo. Kakashi knew that. "Y...yeah, he is," the kitsune murmured into the receiver. He was afraid to talk too much in case he started saying things wrong again.
"Oh, great! Can I talk to him? Just tell him it's Tenzou, he knows me."
"Um, sure... let me find him..."
Kitten in tow and phone in hand, Kakashi padded down the hallway to the master bedroom, knocking softly on the door.
A chorus of extremely colorful swearing answered him, followed by the sound of something heavy, like a full grown, fairly muscular man, hitting the ground. A half minute later, Kumo was at the door, dressed in a sheet, carefully blocking the view to the rest of the bedroom with his body because, well, someone was still in there and there was no longer anything but pillows on the bed.
"...ah, yeah, Kakashi?" he coughed, turning an interesting shade of pale green to see his son on the other side of the door.
"Phone." Kakashi petted the kitten curled around his neck and smiled rather obliviously, handing over the receiver. "It's somebody named Tenzou."
After a second, however, he frowned, glancing down toward the sheet wrapped around Kumo's waist.
"Um, sorry... were you busy?" he apologized, blinking.
"Busy? Uh, of course not! Just. Uh. Sleeping. Thanks," Kumo grinned not-suspiciously-at-all, "I think your boyfriend misses you. Why don't you go see him? Love you, son! Okay. Later." The door closed again and Kumo carefully locked it once more. He cast an apologetic glance at Shimenawa, who seemed to be snickering a little, the jerk, and pointed at the phone. "Old army friend. This'll only take a few minutes, I swear." Then he brought the phone up to his ear.
"You still have some uncanny sort of timing, Tenzou," he laughed in a way of greeting, "Now to what do I owe the honor?"
"Hey, Kumo, you sound good!" The voice on the other end of the line was slightly teasing. "Oh, nothing special really... Just I'm on leave for a couple weeks and so I'm back in town right now. Thought if you had the time to spare, maybe sometime between now and New Year's we could get together for a drink or two. Celebrate the season and all that."
"Yeah, that sounds great," Kumo agreed quickly, partially because he'd honestly missed his friend and mostly because, well, Sunshine was waiting for him, "How about I meet you at the usual place tomorrow at four? Okay? Great. See you tomorrow!" He waited long enough for Tenzou to say a startled 'bye' before he hung up and dropped both the phone and the sheet, offering Shimenawa a slightly sheepish but mostly playful smile.
"Sorry about that, Sunshine. Now, how will I ever make it up to you...?"
"You really didn't need to hang up so fast on your... friend?" Shimenawa paused to raise an eyebrow on him, and then laughed a little, stretching luxuriously atop the rumpled, sheetless bed. Like Kumo, he was quite naked.
"But I'm sure you'll think of something," he surmised cheerfully, with an inviting tilt of the head. Mussed golden locks brushed against his eyelashes as he smiled.
"Mm, I think I have some 'I'm-sorry' massage oils around here somewhere," Kumo mused back, crawling back onto the bed. He reached over to the nightstand and found said massage oils, still bound together by thin plastic. He pulled the wrapping off and inspected each bottle.
"Now... Spearmint, cinnamon, or coffee?" Kumo read off the labels, then grinned, "Well, Sunshine, no matter which you pick you're going to smell delicious, and you know what happens then, right?"
"If it involves eating me up, I might have to laugh at you some more," Shimenawa warned, grinning and tugging the man down for a kiss as Kumo walked back over to the bed.
"Hm. I think I would like to be minty today," he decided brightly.
"It's crippling to laugh at a man who's undressed, Sunshine," Kumo commented lightly back as he set the other two bottles of massage oil down. He uncorked the remaining bottle with his teeth, possibly just to look cool, and poured a small amount of the fragrant oil into his palm. The cork and the bottle were set down on the nightstand as well, so that Kumo could evenly distribute the massage oil between his hands, smiling at Shimenawa now in a much more subdued and affectionate fashion.
"Lay down for me, Sunshine?"
Obediently, Shimenawa stretched out on his stomach, one sky-blue eye still lazily tracking Kumo's movements from below.
"You spoil me way too much," he said with a quiet laugh. "I'll have to find a way to make it up to you later..."
"Don't worry about me so much, Sunshine," Kumo smiled back as he brought his hands to Shimenawa's shoulder's, slowly working his way down, "I spoil myself plenty too. You don't think 'massaging Sunshine with scented oils' wasn't on my top ten list of things to do, or, well, dream about doing in great depth before I died?"
"I guess I'll take that as a compliment," Shimenawa said, laughing a little as he gradually relaxed contentedly against the bed. He couldn't see too much of Kumo from this angle, but continued looking anyway regardless, watching the wiry, well-toned muscles move under Kumo's skin as the man moved back and forth.
"Mm..." He smiled a little as he inhaled deeply, taking in the sharp scent of spearmint. "Feels nice." After a little while, he let his eyes drift blissfully closed.
"Only bad part about this," he murmured, still smiling, "is you get to put your hands all over me, but I have to just lie here."
"I'm sure you'll suffer through it somehow," Kumo teased back with a slight shake of his head, "but if it bothers you that much, Sunshine, I'm sure we can work something out later. I like coffee? And, uh. My. Hm... legs are sore. Think you can do anything about that?"
"I'd be happy to..." Shimenawa paused and looked thoughtful for a moment.
"If you give me another kiss," he concluded with a smirk.
"I'll give you better than that, Sunshine. I'll..." Kumo grinned, leaning in close to whisper something so completely lewd that even a dedicated porn writer would have blushed (so clearly his Sunshine had no chance; the doctor went bright red). Then he kissed Shimenawa as requested before reaching for more massage oil.
Christmas was only beginning for them.