Knee-High Galoshes
The Weaver Atropos
((Time Frame)) November 28, 1:15--3:55
((Warnings)) One-shot, RanKen, humour, Aya-aroused Ken
((Comments)) Based on a true story. My basement flooded today. It was a mixture of rain and a ruptured pipe somewhere in the bathroom. Glorious septic tank flooded. Everything that happened here pretty much happened at my house. Sad, but true. Even the wrestling bit's accurate. The salamander was there, too.
As for other things, this is the first ficcy I write where Ran and Ken are already established lovers saved myself the angst and drama, if you will. I rewrote the ending three times. This one came out the best, I think
Knee-High Galoshes
It was another fine day at the Weiss household.
Omi was tending to the customers with a pleasant smile, Aya was in the midst of roaring for all the schoolgirls without bounty to go home, and Youji was whispering flirtatiously to a young woman of nineteen. All was good with the world.
And then…
"Where's Ken-kun?"
Damned be the one who looks a gift horse in the mouth.
"Aww, shit!"
Omi's customary smile wavered and his eyebrow quirked in irritation, Aya, for once, spared the new troupe of entering schoolgirls, and Youji, strangely enough, bypassed a voluptuous woman of twenty-three.
Then, someone from Ken's fanclub, encouraged by the first fool who had uttered news of his absence, jumped up excitedly, "It's Ken! It's Ken…I'd recognize that dirty little potty mouth anywhere!"
Before there was any need for Youji to jump in and restrain Aya, the semi-jealous owner of that 'little potty mouth,' the chocolate-haired youth himself appeared at the top of the stairs leading to the Koneko's basement and Weiss' secret headquarters. He looked positively stricken.
His fans 'ooed' and 'ahhed' at the glorious absence of a shirt.
Blushing despite himself, and pointing to his jeans—which were wet to the knees—he let out an eloquent, yet poignant remark. "The toilet's flooding."
In a matter of seconds, Aya had moved past Ken, thundering down the steps with all the fury of a forlorn, horny teenager, and Youji had, rather slyly, but unsuccessfully, attempted to slink away with the rest of the girls Omi had very politely shooed away.
It was, in all, a normal day at the Koneko.
Except that their toilets didn't normally flood…nor did they often find Ken's shirt floating away amongst three-inch high water. They all turned curiously towards him. Ken shrugged, "What? I needed something to stop the flooding….and I sure as hell didn't think Aya-the-Anal would appreciate me going upstairs in smiley-faced boxers."
Youji raised an eyebrow and tugged curiously at the waistband of the brunette's jeans, wanting to see if Ken's description was accurate, only to have his hand smacked away by Omi. Aya, meanwhile, was assessing the damage.
Kneeling beside the overflooded septic tank, Aya's eyes narrowed when he felt around for something, and didn't find it. He turned incriminating violet eyes in Ken's direction. "Did you happen to shift the toilet off its axis?"
From his position beside Omi, Ken winced, action implicating in and of itself. When he shifted to face Aya, the young man nearly shriveled under the interrogating gaze. "I might've…you know…pulled a bit…'cause the water was comin' up and I—"
"Go upstairs and get towels, Omi."
Offering Ken a sympathetic look, the young man sloshed through the water, curbing the urge to complain at the water seeping into his brand new sneakers, and bounded up the stairs to the Koneko, and up yet another flight to their apartment.
"It's raining, Aya."
"Brilliant observation, Kudou."
Youji raised his arms as if in surrender to Aya's biting remark, knowing that the redhead was hardly in the mood for teasing, and pointed with his head at the toilet. "It's not broken, is it?"
Aya shook his head no, "It's not what's leaking, there's prob—"
The tall redhead was cut short when a renewed wave of water seemingly bubbled from the bathroom, sputtering and fizzing in every which way, looking for all the world like someone had toppled over a ten-ton gallon of effervescent pop. The three Weiss stared at it as though dumbfounded, before each heading off in a random direction, Youji smartly diving towards the projector screen and computer, lifting up the powercord-extension before it could come in contact with any water, and Ken picking up the area rug with slight difficulty. Aya had run in front of the boiler, seeking to protect it with his own body should he have to, and finding himself quite useless in the effort.
By the time Omi came down, to threatening shouts of different tonalities, no less, it was to an amusing picture. Youji, it seemed, had jumped over the couch to save whatever power-operated systems there were downstairs, as to avoid a short-circuit, and remained bent over in a rather promising position. Aya meanwhile, was standing, open-armed, before the boiler, looking like a melancholic Juliet awaiting her Romeo…Romeo who, standing just a few feet to the left of him, seemed to be looking for a part as a stagehand in Aladdin, as he was holding the Persian rug Manx had gotten for them preciously above his head.
Omi was stirred from his stupor by a less than friendly jolt to the head, coming from Youji who had tossed the computer's mouse in his direction. "C'mon, Omittichi! I can't stand like this forever."
Reacting quickly, the young blond made a point of throwing the towels he'd gathered into the areas where the most water had accumulated, first relieving Ken of the rug and helping to gather it up, and later Youji, who'd whispered a most illicit vow in his ear.
A few hours later found the Weiss padding around sluggishly through the remains of their slushy basement, picking up idle towels and moving towards one of three buckets—one their garbage can, which Youji had gone upstairs to fetch, and tossed out its entire contents out onto the Koneko floor—stems, petals, and dry potting soil—for the next to find. The other was an old paint can that Ken had absently reached for when Aya had asked if he had yet done something to stop the continuous outpour of water. Yes, he had said, and proudly raised the rusting, paint-encrusted can to prove his point. The last recipient had been found by Omi, who had—rather unknowingly and to his chagrin later—picked up an old urination pail, used by someone in the house's past. Youji had suggested Mrs. Momoe with a teasing smile.
The mood had moved from aggravated and irritated to lethargic and playful a long while ago. They were bonding. And what a gloriously bonding experience to live through.
"You know," Ken began, squeezing a dark magenta towel he guess belonged to Aya, "I pity all those people in the 17th century who had to squeeze their laundry like this."
"Oh yeah?" Youji struggled to gather a heavily-weighed down comforter Aya had tossed downstairs when they'd run out of towels to soak up the accumulating water, and readjusted the weight of it in his arms. "I heard their hands were chapped and bruised."
"Mine are purple." It was an absent observation on Omi's part.
"Mine feel like they're bleeding." Ken.
"The women loved me for my soft hands!" A soft lament by Youji.
"Mine look the same." Aya.
Three heads turned towards their usually stoic leader and peered curiously at his hands. Ken, being the closest, leaned forward curiously, only to find that—indeed, his lover's hand were anything but red, or chapped, or even the slightest bit bruised. He pouted. "That's not entirely fair, Aya."
A pale crimson eyebrow rose curiously. "How is that so?"
The brunette presented his hands as evidence. "Mine are purple."
"And…?" The slightest bit of disinterest on his part.
"They're purple!"
"I'm not disagreeing with you. They are purple. I don't see the point of your argument."
"What I think our dear Kenken here is trying to ask is," Youji interrupted, "iswhyyour hands aren'tas red as his."
Aya shrugged. "He's not used to hard work. And neither are you, or you." He pointed at both Omi and Youji.
Ken huffed up to his lover, jean legs rolled up and wrapped with bags to look like galoshes, yet trying to look intimidating just the same. "What's that supposed to mean? Are you calling me lazy?" He cast the room a dramatic flourish with his arms, " 'Cause in case you hadn't notice, I've been sweeping up this entire mess with you!"
"I didn't say you weren't. I just said you weren't used to the hard work."
"And how the hell is it your jeans aren't wet?"
Aya smiled slightly, a gesture reserved solely for the brunette, and shrugged, "I didn't go around stomping like a madman when Youji used your shirt to plug the toilet's drainage hole."
The soccer player's cheeks twinged pink. "It was my Brazil jersey! My Brazil jersey!"
Youji turned towards Omi with a conspiratorial whisper, "It was about time the damned thing went to the garbage, it had holes and spaghetti stains all over the place."
"I heard that!"
"Yeah? You're gonna deny it, septic boy!"
Ken's cheeks burned as his temper made an appearance, and before Aya could even think to restrain him—not that he would've, anyway—he had jumped on the jade-eyed blonde, so that a loud 'thwap' echoed as both bodies made contact with the water-dampened sheets, blankets, pillows, and towels strewn all over the bathroom floor. They rolled around unperturbed for a while, until Ken made a point of sloshing Youji's face repeatedly in his playboy sheets, whereupon Aya and Omi decided it was time to separate them.
"Septic-boy!"
"Playboy-lover!"
The two paused. "Is that an insult?"
Meanwhile, Aya was restraining the brunette with a steady arm, already quite used to his outbursts, and knowing—better than anyone—that he would be spent in a few hours, but in a complete hair-trigger state by night. The entire situation was the oddest he would have ever described. From the cold, wet feeling of having his soaked socks cling to his toes, to the strange sensation of having Ken's only recently wettened locks spritz water over his face, to feeling the brunette's strong, lean body pressed against his own, rippling muscles discernable beneath his drenched front and back. He could feel the warmth Ken radiated, even through the bitter moisture that clung to the boy's every curve.
It was the strangest feeling he ever remembered having felt….and also the most arousing.
It was beyond him how Ken had managed to get himself sopping wet from head to toe, when all that was wet of his own persona were his socks, and maybe the very bottoms of his jeans. The brunette had even rolled up the cuffs of his own, as though to avoid wetting them, only to fall in the thickest puddle a few minutes later, effectively nulling the entire point.
Still, it was endearing. Aya loved, and would admit it, although with reluctance, the sometimes petulant and demanding nature of his lover. It was part of what made him who he was. Ken could trip, fall, curse, and whine all he wanted. Aya knew there was more to the brunette than the others perceived. Perhaps, he conceded, the ones who knew Ken were the ones who scarcely knew him at all. His fanclub had certainly hit the nail on who he was. Ken wasn't clumsy—he couldn't possible be. Otherwise, how would he prove an effective Weiss? So what if he wasn't verbose? Most people who were, were mostly highfalutin, pretentious individuals anyway. And what of his eloquence? Sure, Ken might not be the King of Verbal Deliverance, but he was kind, simply, and gentle. More people confided in him than they did in Omi…and purely because they knew Ken could understand them.
Ken was down-to-earth, friendly…easy-going. It wasn't a wonder he had fallen in love with him. Even after the brunette had socked him a good one, or maybe even on account of it, Aya had admired his internal strength. Ken didn't have a front—he was who he was, regardless of what anyone had to say about it. And perhaps that was why he hadn't been all that intimidated by Aya. Maybe that was why he hadn't been afraid to confront him…or come to care for him eventually.
Hidaka Ken was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for.
Aya was eased from his internal reverie, by his lover's absent writhing. "Lemme go, Aya—I'm gonna go bash his brains in!"
Across from them, Omi was having more trouble restraining the tall, lanky blonde. He was shorter than Youji—a good foot and a half smaller—and hardly of his muscular structure. Omi was of a sinewy build where Youji was that of coiled, latent muscle. Should he choose to be rougher, he could easily toss Omi aside. But he didn't. He wouldn't ever to anything to hurt him.
Sometime after that, Omi managed to calm Youji off enough to lead them into the adjoining garage, under the pretense of looking for some fans to help dry off the mushy floor. Aya and Ken remained in the meeting room, the brunette wrinkling up his nose at what he saw. "We're never going to finish…"
When Aya didn't respond to his comment—even with his usual grunt of an answer—Ken looked up curiously to find him squatted near the pipe of the toilet, which Aya had ended up wrestling from its juncture in the floor, arms wrapped across his knees and head rested on his forearms. He came up silently behind him, admiring the curve of the redhead's backside momentarily, before wrapping his arms about him, letting Aya's back be nestled into Ken's chest. It wasn't always they sat in that position, or had the opportunity to snuggle, outside of the occasions during which Aya snuck into his room with licentious intentions, whereby Ken responded a few days later with an attack of his own.
They hadn't made their relationship public. Not that they could, considering homosexuality was still a taboo topic, however open-minded the new generation be. Youji and Omi knew about it, but they had never intended to keep the fact from them, so that was perceptible. If anything, Aya and Ken gained some sort of tacit support from the two, as neither had openly—or even subconsciously—rejected them as a couple.
Still, moments like these, where Aya was cradled amongst Ken's arms, were rarer still, because the redhead had gotten it through his head that it was he who had to protect Ken…not the other way around. Regardless, Ken had never been the type to believe that a person—however more emotionally guarded or stable they might be—didn't need reassuring attention at some point or another. Besides, he was a snuggler, and his small surreptitious touches were in part thankful reciprocation for all those times Ran had held him close as he slept.
He liked calling him Ran. He only ever whispered the name…at night, when the redhead's eyes were closed shut, and his breathing was nothing but a steady, rhythmic inhalation that helped lull him to sleep. He remembered how his heart had filled with warmth when Ran had confessed his real name to him. There had been tears involved, though Ken couldn't rightly tell to whom they had belonged. Had Ran been crying? If he had, then his tears had certainly intermingled with his own.
Ran was a lot more sensitive that Ken would've guessed. He was always such a great, big, towering persona that Ken had never really thought it possible for the crimson-haired assassin to be anything but. It had been a long time since that initial perception had been shattered. He had seen Ran at his worst, when his insecurity was expressed through anger, his infernal, light-stepped pacing, his nightmares, and his tears.
"Whatcha looking at?" As he spoke, Ken absently nuzzled his cheek against that of his lover's, shivering a bit at the cool temperature of Aya's body. He was always cool to the touch, like smoothened marble.
"Salamander." Aya pointed. The brunette leaned forward curiously, hearing Aya grunt at the weight suddenly placed at his back, and saw the tiny, reptile-shaped animal standing rigidly still, kept in check only by Aya's prodding with a wet towel. "He's scared."
Ken craned his head questioningly, "He's scared? How can you tell?"
The squatting man shrugged. "Wouldn't you be? Someone just opened up your home and left you vulnerable. He's all alone now."
"Hmm…yeah…I hadn't thought about it. Are you cold?"
Once more, Aya smiled at the youth's attempt to change the subject. It was a strained gesture, one that he was only just beginning to reaccustom himself to, but it conveyed his thankfulness at the intention just the same. "Are you cold?"
Ken shivered against the redhead's back. "Just a little bit." His lips grazed the nape of Aya's neck.
"It's because we've stopped moving so much."
"Mmm hmm, yeah."
"Are you listening to me?"
"Yeah…" Another kiss at the base of his neck. "It's 'cause we're not movin' See, I heard you."
Aya turned, shifting so that the soccer player fell into his arms, and nudged his ear with his nose. "I'm icky…" Ken protested, knowing how much his lover disliked disorder and lack of hygiene.
"So am I."
"Not as much as I am."
"I don't care."
He was caught somewhat off guard by the comment. It wasn't often Aya said something of the kind. Everything mattered to him—everything held some sort of inexplicable greater importance in his mind. To hear him suddenly say that he 'didn't care' was strangely arousing. A slight tingle of anticipation ran through the brunette's body.
"What are you going to do to the salamander?"
"I don't know. Let it find another home of its own, maybe." A playful nip at his earlobe.
"And what if it gets lost?"
"It won't." Soft, marbled fingertips ran across the moist fabric of his shirt.
"How do you know?"
"It always goes back." A sigh at the back of his neck.
"Back where?"
"To the place where it was found."
"Ooh…"
"I'm hungry."
"Ooh?"
Aya's deep, rich laughter echoed in his ear. Only he had ever heard him laugh since they'd entered Weiss. He wished he'd do it more often. It was a pleasant sound—husky, a flowing tenor of a timbre. It brought up just the faintest stirrings of desire in his groin. He squirmed uncomfortably on account of it.
"What's wrong?" The fingertips at his abdomen had stilled a long while before he had laughed.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nope. Nothing."
"Okay…"
"Oh, fuck."
Aya was momentarily startled. Ken wasn't the type to curse—at least not offhandedly the way he just had. Curious, and knowing that wherever there was frustrated Siberian, there was also a passionate one, he ticked Ken's tummy experimentally.
"Stop it, Aya."
"Hmm, why?"
"Cause, I'm icky."
"I thought we already went over that—"
Ken frowned. "You're awfully clueless half the time, for someone who prides himself on always being observative."
Amethyst eyes looked interestedly into chocolate ones, the young man his arms having turned around to meet his gaze defiantly. He was momentarily taken with the mocha-colored strands of hair that were flying each and every which way, amused at the mussed and tousled condition of his hair. It reminded him of what Ken looked after…
"Oh…"
Ken blushed slightly at Aya's realization, "Yes. That's what I meant."
The redhead gathered his lover in his arms. "I don't mind if you're icky."
"No?"
"No."
"Even if my hands smell like septic tank?"
There was a slight pause. "You can always wash them."
"Wash them?"
"In the shower, even. I could help."
Ken grinned and shot up, Aya following slowly after him, racing up the stairs to the Koneko.
Yes, it was another fine day at the Koneko
Owari
Review? The salamander would appreciate it...