Much love to all who comment and read this. Your reviews make me smile. Also, Guest person/people, please get off anon so I can love you.
This universe has forever coloured how I read Lolita. Between this and Say it, I cannot read the book now without seeing these two idiots.
Notes: flirting. Sap. pure fluffy waffle. (at least until Aizen ruins it by going back to pervert land), more denial to an insane degree, continued Humbert-Aizen/Lolita-Gin, and some very busy hands (it's safe for work though, I promise!)
Chapter 3: Your Hand fits Mine
Why don't you go try it on?
Gin blinked in surprise.
"Here?" Gin asked, raising his eyebrows. Clearly not expecting this. Or either expecting this and playing innocent. Sousuke suspected the latter. Surely, Gin was not that naïve. Nobody was that naïve.
"Yes. Here. I want to see how you look in it."
"Right here?" Gin asked again.
Sousuke smiled. Yes. Here. Strip for me. Give me a show.
"There's a bathroom down the hall on the left." he replied. "You can change in there. If it doesn't fit, then I can have it altered."
"Alright." Gin answered, taking his new clothes and striding off to the bathroom. A big smile on his face. Aizen watched him go, with a feeling of keen anticipation. He hoped the uniform would fit. He hoped Gin would like it. He hoped the dark ebony colour wouldn't make Gin look too pale or ill. He hoped... he hoped a lot of things. But most of all he hoped he wouldn't blow it with Gin. That he wouldn't get himself too excited and push him away.
What is wrong with me? He tried to shake away his worries. Of course he will like it. Of course I won't blow it. This is a game, like any other. I am an excellent chess player. I should not be this nervous.
But he was.
He sat on the sofa, frowning, arms folded across his chest. Brooding quietly. Silently telling himself to get his shit together, that Gin would be impressed whatever he did, that Gin must like him even a little bit otherwise he would not have come here. But still the doubts clawed at his insides, whispering what if?
Only Gin's teasing, lilting voice cut through the din of his thoughts.
"How do I look, Aizen-san?"
Aizen looked up at him, all elegance and beauty in his new black uniform. As expected, the fit was perfect. And Gin's light skin and silver hair stood in stark contrast to the dark colour. It even brought out his crimson eyes, which he was treated to a very quick glance at. The sight took his breath away. It was fairly safe to say, if Sousuke had been holding something, he would have dropped it by now.
Close your mouth, Aizen-sama, Kyouka Suigetsu you prompted. You are catching flies.
Sousuke closed his gaping mouth and swallowed. You are the most beautiful thing I have seen all day.
"I like it." he smiled brightly. "It suits you. And the fit is perfect."
"Ya think so?" Gin asked, turning so Aizen could see his back. "Feels kinda weird, ta be wearing black after so long."
"Oh, yes, I definitely think so." Sousuke smiled at him. "I must say you look very dashing."
Gin laughed then. A nervous, self depreciating, incredulous laugh. "I dunno. People say I got about as much appeal as a kidou textbook. That's ta say, none."
Sousuke raised his eyebrows. Are you kidding? He thought, incredulous and outraged. Are you fucking kidding? Please tell me you are fucking kidding. You are a gorgeous creature.
"Oh, I don't know," Sousuke told him, smirking across at him, "I've never taught anyone who didn't open a high level kidou textbook and say fuck me. And believe me, I've taught a lot of people."
Oh, very smooth, Aizen-sama. Kyouka giggled. Very smooth.
Gin's light cheeks flushed a wonderful shade of pink, then red, as he digested Sousuke's latest comment.
"I... ya can't just..." Gin fumbled around for words. Some words, any words, to answer that. Finding none, and unable to take his future vice captain's chuckling at him, he settled for covering his face with his hands. "Ya can't say that, Aizen-san!"
"Why not?" Sousuke asked, "It's the truth."
Gin groaned audibly out of embarrassment. It was so adorable, Sousuke had to laugh.
"Don't you fuckin' laugh!"
Sousuke's chuckling subsided, albeit slowly. He rested his chin on his hands, elbows on his knees. "I'm sorry, that was terrible. Forgive me."
He watched as Gin slowly uncovered his face, letting his hands drop. Sousuke kept his eyes on Gin, enjoying the pink tinge to his pale cheeks. The clenched fists.
"Here," Sousuke patted the space next to him on the couch, "Come, sit and finish your tea."
Gin fought a scowl, and trudged over to him, sitting down next to him with a huff. Sousuke reached across to the coffee table and passed Gin his mug of tea. Which the boy gratefully sipped, just so he wouldn't have to talk for a moment.
"I'm terribly sorry, Gin." Sousuke said, after a few moments of quiet in which Gin's eyes roved over every piece of furniture in his living room, rather than at him. "That was rather inappropriate of me."
"Ya think?" Gin glared at him. Though only to hide his embarrassment at having such a thing said to him.
"I meant it to be flattering." Sousuke admitted, eyes cast down to his mug of tea in his hands.
Gin huffed quietly. "That's yer problem." he said. "Yer too flattering."
Sousuke's smile tugged the corners of his lips up. "Oh? Am I?"
"Don't play dumb, Aizen-san." Gin retorted. "It really don't suit you."
"And what does suit me, then?" Sousuke asked, intrigued now. Here was that sharp wit Gin had. That fire. That challenge.
"Now, now," Gin grinned at him, "It aint much fun if I just tell ya. I thought ya were smart."
"I am smart." Sousuke told Gin. More than a little arrogant.
"So, tell me, then," Gin pushed, voice teasing and devious, "Tell me, what I think suits you."
The smirk in that moment that spread it's way very slowly across Sousuke's face was so full of cunning deviousness. "Oh, that is quite simple, Gin." he said, with as casual an air as he could scrape together. Taking a long sip of his tea before continuing, for the effect. "I think you suit me most perfectly."
Gin balked again. Blinking with the surprise and fighting the rising blush in his cheeks. "Eh?"
"You heard me."
Gin's cheeks flared a bright red again, his mind no doubt running rampant with all sorts of images. And Sousuke wondered just how far he could push it. How much he could get away with.
"Our hands, for example." he went on, his hand creeping along the space between them like a spider hunting his prey. His fingers slotting themselves in between Gin's and moving forward so their hands were connected. He lifted their conjoined hands up, so Gin could see. His fingers closed around the back of Gin's hand, holding it. Gin's fingers were more hesitant in their embrace. He noted how soft and smooth Gin's hands were compared to his own rough and calloused ones. Lolita's fine and delicate fingers linked with Humbert's, sharing a moment together.
"Your hand fits mine, don't you agree?"
"I..."
Gin struggled to find his words again. But then, Sousuke did have that effect on people. To have them stumbling around for some words, any words, while he charmed and smiled and made them bend to his will.
"I think they fit together perfectly. Our palms... our fingers..."
"Umm."
"Your fingers are beautiful, you know, Gin. So slender, so perfect."
"Aizen-san..."
"Yes, the whole carpus, your strong shapely wrist... so beautiful."
"I don't..."
He watched Gin try to remember how to breathe, chest heaving from the effort. The light blush colouring his cheeks returning in full force. Heat flooding into his young body at the touch of his superior's hand. Gin had no words for him, no ability to form them. The room was quiet enough for Sousuke to hear his heart beating, thumping like a drum against the confines of his chest. Gin's heart was probably doing the same, so powerful was the spell being cast over him.
"Have any words?" Sousuke asked, a little amused, watching Gin blush more, "No, of course you don't. You've probably never had anyone compliment your hands before, I imagine. But they are, Gin, they are beautiful. Perhaps the most lovely hands I have seen."
The smile that crossed Sousuke's face in that particular moment was probably one of his most genuine smiles. A soft smile, full of content, stripped of all deviousness and malice. A lover's smile. Soft and warm.
"Not like my hands," he continued, frowning down at his own paw, still clutching Gin's. Noting how Gin made no effort to disengage them. "The callouses. The flat fingertips. Thick knuckles. They aren't pretty."
He recalled a line from Lolita. Where the narrator compared their fingers:
The phalanges, the whole carpus, the strong shapely wrist were far, far finer than mine. French epithets, a Dorset yokel's knuckles, an Austrian tailor's flat fingertips – that's Humbert Humbert.
It was like it was written about him and Gin.
Gin's voice was little more than a whisper, cutting again into his thoughts. "No."
The word took Sousuke by surprise. Put an immediate halt to his train of thought. He raised his eyebrows, slightly incredulous. Now, this, was not expected.
"No?"
"I mean," Gin caught himself. Sousuke was not meant to have heard that. But it had come out louder than he'd intended it to. "Ya got..." Gin flushed a brighter shade of rose, "real nice fingers. They aint ugly at all."
Sousuke could feel his heart of ice melt and drip down his insides. That warm sensation spread rapidly through his being again. That same soft, warm smile creep over his face again.
"Ah, really?"
Gin hesitated, but only for a moment. "Yeah. Ya do."
"Well, if you think so, then I'm happy." Sousuke answered, his smile bright. Real. Nothing like the false one he presented the world. He disengaged their hands, relinquishing Gin's fingers so they could settle back in their place by his side. His eyes drifted over to Gin's face, to his soft and clinging smile. He wondered what Gin was thinking about, to make him smile like that. Unlike many others, Gin's thought processes were still unreachable. The boy liked to keep his cards close to his chest so no-one could see them. Not even Aizen Sousuke.
Though he hoped in time, that would change.
"Though it does make me wonder," Sousuke continued, "if other parts of us will fit together as well. Like our lips perhaps." he smirked over at Gin, "Other parts of our anatomy."
Gin flushed beet red at that lewd comment, and Sousuke laughed, "Ah, but don't listen to me. I'm being highly inappropriate again, I'm sorry."
He left Gin to his embarrassment, trying not to chuckle at him and how adorable he was, and then diverted their talk to more mundane matters to let his darling calm down. Listening to Kyouka Suigetsu scolding him for ruining such a romantic moment.
