Title: New Moon on Monday
Characters: Anotsu/Rin
Word Count: ~1.010
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Written for Senri for Yuletide 2008.
Summary: If they don't reach Kaga soon... she'll be going spare.
Rin is frothing. She's frothing a lot, lately.
Wait, that's not the right word. It's an impotent rage, really, a fist-clenching, nostril-flaring anger that... makes her look away. If she so much as opens her mouth now she's going to scream, and what good would that be?
It would only take one look from him to feel make her feel silly. Like all those times he's stopped in his tracks and turned to watch her. He's never stopped to help, no. But he hasn't laughed at her either, so Rin likes to tell herself that it's a hunter's gaze, this calm assessment of her. When she's not panting too hard, scrambling over rocks and about to lose her footing, she tries to stare right back.
Stare back and tell him he's about to become the hunted.
If only it wasn't so freaking hard to keep up with him.
Sometimes, struggling uphill, she watches his muscles move. If she's close enough, she can smell them, too; a hint of sweat and pine and something else she's come to think of as male.
---
The water is freezing, but it's good, clean water, so Rin wades in a little deeper, one step at a time. Immersed to her waist, she can still see the pebbles at the bottom: flat, round, and grey, with just a hint of green. Her hands are making these silly swimmy whorls. They're skirting the water as if shooing it. Lame, she chides herself. It only takes a deep breath and resolve, and she's in - gasping spluttering laughing despite herself, flailing to get back on her feet and hobble out.
Just as she' s approaching the riverbank, their eyes meet. Gods only know how long he has been watching.
And even now, with his gaze calmly undressing her, Rin frothes. It's not so much that she's frothing for modesty's sake - or perhaps she is - no, she's frothing because he's just like them. This lean, bloody-minded hound she hates so much... in the end he's just a man.
The sort who make their wives walk two steps behind them and expect you to fall over backwards when they so much as grab their dicks to pee. Doesn't even look interested, does he.
"Had a good eyeful?" she quips. Her teeth are chattering.
Anotsu continues to look at her as if she were a tree stump. Then he jerks his head aside, nods at a small heap of fish. When did he catch those? "You may want to build a fire. Unless you prefer them raw." His eyes travel back to Rin's body and slide down her hips. "You've grown thin."
In her mind's eye she hawks and spits because, really, he's just one of them.
---
You've grown thin. The fucking nerve.
Rin frothes away, trying to get some sleep. She twists on the ground to accommodate her aching body, but with all those rocks and roots digging into her there's just no way. The wind is loud up in the mountains; a constant sighing and shifting as if the kami were restless.
She closes her eyes - squeezes them shut - because he'll be up and running again come sunrise, and she'll be damned if he leaves her behind. She squeezes her eyes a little tighter when, suddenly, there's a hand on her waist. Its warmth travels up her ribs and down her flank. Sluggish, not comprehending, Rin angles herself to better soak up the heat until... until it's slid between her legs.
No, she whispers. She wants to rip herself away from that hand, only to find she's parting her legs instead. Just a bit. Just enough so it won't hurt. Her breath hitches, then turns into a moany whimper.
Of course, that's what it boils down to, doesn't it? A man and a woman out in the woods, with no-one close, no-one to hear.
He could kill her and leave her body for the animals to chew on, and Manji wouldn't find a single bone. Scared now, she rolls onto her back and kicks out, treading air until something makes her pause.
The embarrassing thing is, Anotsu isn't even close. He lies curled at the edge of their camp fire, several feet away, arms loosely wrapped around himself. "Can't sleep?" he says. His voice sounds faintly amused.
Rin blushes. She doesn't answer, but she throws him an angry look before stomping down to the river. She needs to cool off.
---
He is not there when she returns, but his weapons are. Good. So he can't be far, hasn't ditched her yet. No signs of a fight either, she notes with relief; while it would be funny if a beast had dragged him off, it would put Rin in a disagreeable spot, too.
"Anotsu," she calls. Leaving off the honorifics, as always.
"Anotsu?" It sounds timid even to her own ears.
The woods are a little too dense, a little too dark for comfort. Rin tries to overcome that by keeping the fire in sight, expanding her search a few feet at a time. Until she sees it... sees him. Or, more precisely, what she sees is a white wrist.
That's... Mentally she's a-splutter with indignation while her mouth is catching flies. The way he is bringing himself off, leisurely, with those unhurried, economic flicks of a wrist, that's just... that's...
Indecent, is what it is.
Hurrying back, she steps on every twig, kicks up every loose rock to let him know she's seen him.
"Can't sleep?" she snaps as soon as he returns. It's completely involuntary, but she can't help fastening her eyes to his hand, wondering where he wiped it.
"No", he says simply. "Just like you. Must be the New Moon." Offering nothing else, he folds into a brushstroke by the fire, his curved back an invitation for Rin to pummel or, at the very least, stare holes into.
Rin makes a disgusted little "rmpfh" and looks up at the sky. If they don't reach Kaga soon... she'll be going spare.
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fin
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