Hey there, everyone! Thanks for choosing to read the next installment of "The Tourbus Chronicles"! This one's not so much specifically comedic as the last one, but hopefully it's still at least a little funny, and a little interesting.
But hey, if you don't like it, that's okay. I'm not as fond as this one, either, but my muse threatened me with no chocolate for a year if I didn't write it. So, here ya' go.
Warnings: Shounen ai. Language?
Notes: Intentional OOC-ness. It's called artistic license and a desire to see a cuter side to Yuki Eiri and a... firmer (?) side to Shu. Also, takes place outside official timeline.
Disclaimer: Gravitation and its characters are not mine. The idea for the bus is mine, but, I don't really mind if anyone wants to work on similar ideas. The more the merrier!
Ch. 2 - Ice? Or Tickles?
"Goodnight everybody! Thank you!" the hot band Bad Luck rushed off stage as a wave of raucous yells and cheering accompanied their final applause for the evening.
In the wings, Yuki had stood staring at the concert in progress, watching as his lover pranced about in those skimpy clothes, singing his little pink heart out. Now, he braced himself for impact as the genki pop star hurtled toward him.
He was a mere one-and-a-half seconds away from impact, in the middle of a cry of "YUKI!", when the heel of his right-side metallic-blue thigh-high combat boot decided it didn't want to stick to the floor, resulting in a spectacular "fwoosh!" as Shuichi stumbled to the ground.
Yuki, caught rather off-guard, raised an eyebrow at the display before him. It took only a moment before it occurred to him that he should check on the boy. He kneeled, and looked into those wide blue eyes that gazed up at him.
"You okay, brat?" he asked, trying not to sound too soft-hearted.
The little rock-star blinked those huge eyes. "Yuuukiiii," he crooned. He blinked shiny eyes again and pouted, pointing down at his foot. "I broke my ankle!"
"No, you didn't."
"Yes I did!"
"No,"
Another pout. "I sprained it, then, and they say those are even worse than breaks!"
The novelist rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm going back to the bus."
Blue eyes widened. "You can't leave me here all alone!"
"You're not alone. Hiroshi's right over-"
"Yuki!"
Another sigh. "What?" he asked wearily.
"I want to go with you!"
"Fine. Come on then, damn brat!"
"Yuki!"
"What?" he asked, losing his temper.
"I can't walk!"
"So?"
A grin. "Carry me!"
Yuki's jaw dropped, just a little. "What!"
Shuichi bounced a little, as much as he could while so... incapacitated, and was grinning like an idiot all the while. "Carry me, Yuuuki!"
Yuki growled. "No."
Shuichi giggled. "Yes!"
"No."
"Yes!"
"No."
"Yes!"
"No!"
"What's going on?" K, the manager of Bad Luck, walked up and broke into the argument.
"Nothing," Yuki muttered.
Shuichi glared at his lover before he answered with his side of the story. "I broke my ankle and Yuki won't carry me!"
K looked alarmed at the news. "Which ankle?"
"My right one," Shuichi answered.
K knelt and used his large hands to examine his singer's ankle, right through the boot, which was impressive, because those boots were made of synthetic leather, which isn't exactly thin.
"It's not broken," he declared in an authoritive voice, for once using simple Japanese without throwing in strange and often poorly-used English words. "If it hurts, you probably just twisted it. It needs ice and rest. Take him back to the tour bus, and take care of him." This last statement was directed at the irate writer.
The irate writer who growled again. "Why should I take him back? Why can't you do it?"
"I have other duties with the band that I must attend to." K smirked.
Yuki glared.
K flashed his gun.
Yuki capitulated. "Fine, whatever," he muttered.
"Yay!" Shuichi was overjoyed.
"Damn it, brat, you're heavy!" Yuki, after carrying his lover the extraordinary distance of one hundred meters from the stage, out the back door of the auditorium, and to the bus, was now panting heavily from the exertion.
"I am not!" the singer responded vehemently. "You're just out of shape!" He emphasized his point with a poke to his lover's shoulder, which didn't really emphasize anything other than that he was making a point. He followed up with a smirk-ish grin and crossed his arms over his chest, confident that Yuki couldn't riposte because one arm was holding the singer's legs while the other was supporting his back.
Yes, Yuki was carrying Shuichi in that ever-romantic "bride style". And Shuichi was soaking it up.
Until, upon boarding the bus (admittedly a somewhat difficult feat), the novelist dropped his pink-haired burden on the cushy couch.
"Baka," he muttered.
The vocalist pouted for a moment, before he thrust his right foot into the air. "Ice!" he demanded.
The writer grumbled the whole way to the built-in refrigerator unit and as he got a few ice cubes into a bag, then found a towel to wrap the whole bundle in. He returned to the couch and thrust it at his lover. "Here."
Shuichi pouted again. "Yuki! You have to take my boot off! I can't do it by myself!"
Yuki rolled his eyes before he dropped the ice onto Shuichi's exposed belly, causing a small frantic scramble to remove the cold object from sensitive skin. Ignoring the indignant cry, the tall blond man examined the boots his lover was wearing. Metallic-blue thigh-high lace-up boots.
Thigh-high. Lace-up. Laces all the way up to the thigh. That lovely, shapely thigh... That lovely, shapely, very ticklish thigh...
Yuki smirked. He placed his hand at the top of the laces, and oh-so-slowly trailed his fingers up and across Shu's inner thigh, stopping mere centimeters from the edge of the black hotpants his lover wore. He looked up with an evil-devilish expression on his face.
Shuichi had tensed up the moment Yuki's teasing fingers touched his skin. He shivered as said fingers trailed up and up and... up! God! That tickled!
"Yuuuki! Stop that!"
"No."
"Yes!"
"Haven't we already had this conversation?"
Shuichi glared. "Don't. Tickle. Me."
Yuki looked back down at the thigh in question. "Like this?" he asked, as he ducked his fingers down to the back o the singer's leg and wiggled them into the soft flesh found there.
"YEEK!" Shu screeched, jerking his leg away as best he could. The tickly fingers stopped.
"Yuki! You jerk!"
The writer looked back up and... pouted. Yes, he really pouted. "I am not," he murmured softly.
The new glare that the singer had created softened. "But you tickled me. You KNOW I'm ticklish." He threw his own pout into the mix.
Yuki's pout mutated back into a smirk. He leaned closer and whispered into Shu's ear. "Yes, I know. That's why I tickled you. To see you squirm." He instigated another bout of tickling on the singer's thigh.
"YUKI!" Shuichi hollered. He jerked his leg out to the side, seeking refuge from the waves of tickliness washing over him. This inadvertently opened his legs to the writer, Yuki leaning neatly in between, putting them both in a compromising position. Not that either was really thinking that, focused as they were on the one-sided tickle war.
"Yuki! Don't! Stop it! Yuuukiiiii!" the poor young man protested despite being forced into laughter.
"Muahaha." Yuki attempted a low, evil-sounding chuckle. Really, it only made Shu laugh harder.
"Ahem." A quiet cough sounded from the doorway.
The lovers stopped their antics and looked over to the door to the bus. K was leaning in, on the bottom step, with an eyebrow raised and his gun, thankfully, holstered.
"I thought I told you to ice his ankle."
Yuki glanced around and quickly grabbed up the little ice bundle, holding it up. "I was."
K's eyebrow crept up a notch higher. "Riiight. It might work a little better if it was actually on the ankle."
Yuki could feel the heat of Shuichi's full-body-blush as the singer realized the scene the two of them made. He glared in their defense at K. The manager, miraculously, not only got the hint but took it, too, as he stepped backwards off the bus step and left the two of them alone.
"See!" Shu squeaked as the door "whooshed" closed. "You shouldn't tickle me!"
Yuki looked back at his lover, and took a moment to rake his eyes over the boy's lithe form. He smirked. "The risk of getting caught makes it that much more fun." He leaned down to kiss the singer.
Shuichi sighed when the kiss ended. He opened his eyes to see Yuki employing his own version of the puppy-dog eyes look. NO ONE, EVER, got to see that look, except him. It always made him more into a pile of mushy goo than Yuki could ordinarily manage.
"Oh, fine. I forgive you. Now off the boot and ice my ankle!" He demonstrated by once again raising his leg and pointing down the length of it.
Yuki was tempted to continue their game, but sensed that Shu wasn't really in the mood to get caught like that by anyone anytime soon, and so complied with the pop star's request.
He did take a few liberties undoing all those laces, though.