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Shigure has a nose like a bloodhound. He always has. It came with the territory of being the dog. Everyone he has ever cared about he has memorized by scent.
Hatori, in Shigure’s opinion, has always smelled just a little bit like the sea. Maybe, it was his diet, maybe it was the salt content of his sweat. Hatori never swam, never visited the ocean if he could help it. It was in his nature to deprive himself in those ways; to hold himself upright and apart from the small pleasures of life, in much the same way it was in Shigure’s nature to indulge, in entertainment, in comfort, in hope. But Hatori, in all his ascetic refusal of the water still smelled of the sea. Because it was his nature. Because he was the dragon.
Tabacco was also a smell that lingered on Hatori, one of his few indulgences. Sitting together in the cold spring air, Hatori leans closer to Shigure to ash his cigarette into the tray sitting between them, and Shigure can smell the fresh smoke layered over the stale. As he leans back away, Shigure lazily studies Hatori’s long boned hand as he brings the last of his cigarette to his mouth and breathes in until the ember reaches the filter.
Shigure knows he should go home. He knows that there are carefully packaged leftovers in the fridge and a cheerful note from Tohru telling him she saved him a serving in case he was hungry. He knows that lingering with Hatori won’t take him anywhere he particularly wants to go, but he can’t yet bring himself to leave. He stubs out his cigarette and leans into Hatori’s space.
“Haa-san, can I have a drink?”
Hatori looks at Shigure witheringly without turning his head. “I’m tired. You should go home.”
This isn’t what Shigure wants to hear, and the anger that has been quietly smoldering in him for the entire evening licks up and burns in his chest. “Oh come on, I’ve had a bad day.”
Hatori relents.
Shigure grins and claps his hands. “Yay!”
They stand and drift into Hatori’s kitchen, where he pours them two whiskey neats. Shigure doubts that Hatori really enjoys drinking whiskey neat. He doubts that Hatori enjoys drinking in general. He follows Hatori to his living room and sits across from him.
Hatori sips his drink expressionlessly.
It makes Shigure want to throttle him.
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asks instead.
Hatori doesn’t react. He just takes another quiet sip of whiskey.
“What? Am I not allowed to ask you about your life?”
“I don’t see why I should bother answering questions you already know the answer to.”
Shigure pouts and takes sip of whiskey. He doesn’t mind whiskey neat, not his favorite, but there’s something pleasant in the warmth as it goes down. “You’re losing the prime years of your life, Haa-san.”
Hatori doesn’t humor this with a response either.
They finish their drinks and Shigure takes their glasses to refill them. He returns with another few fingers of whiskey and sits down next to Hatori. He wants Hatori to do anything. Say anything. To stop sitting there looking like he’s waiting for it all to be over. Shigure thinks that maybe that expression will be etched into his pale face forever. What a waste.
“You’re lucky you’re handsome,” Shigure says. Your personality has all but withered away, he doesn’t.
Hatori peers over the rim of his glass, sets it quietly back down on the table. “So are you.”
Shigure drains the rest of his whiskey and hisses a breath back through his teeth. “Ah, don’t I know it!”
He meets Hatori’s eyes. Black eyes. Quiet, drawn expression. Inert. Shigure remembers that once, there had been a dim light in his stern eyes. And Shigure hates him.
So, Shigure smiles, closes his hand around Hatori’s wrist, leans in and kisses him.
There we go, Shigure thinks, a reaction.
Hatori kisses Shigure back with something that doesn’t resemble resignation so much as inevitability. A determination to see something through to the end. Shigure sticks his tongue in his mouth.
This is not the first time this has happened, but they don’t talk about that. It isn’t the second, but they don’t talk about that either. But it has happened very rarely. There’s no script to it. Only the familiarity that comes with growing up stuck to each other like burs.
Shigure slings a leg over one of Hatori’s and slides a hand through his hair. He opens his eyes for a moment while he kisses him. With the distance and movement, Shigure can only just make out the lattice of scars twisting Hatori’s eye. He cups Hatori’s jaw, feels Hatori’s teeth bruising his lip, takes uneven breaths through his nose.
Shigure pulls away, re-situates himself, and presses his mouth to Hatori’s neck. Hatori inhales sharply and Shigure grins, setting to work loosening his tie and getting the top handful of buttons undone. He’s always been so buttoned up. Hatori is a parody of himself. It gives Shigure something to sink his teeth into, to pull apart. He sucks Hatori’s skin between his teeth, right where his neck meets his shoulder and Hatori’s hips shift against him unbidden.
See, there are still buttons I can push.
He unbuckles Hatori’s belt, undoes his fly and slides his hand down his pants. He finds him half hard. Shigure knows that it would feel better with less friction. He considers for a moment if he could get Hatori to lick his hand, but the possibility of Hatori just shoving him away instead is too strong.
He tucks his face into Hatori’s neck. Breathes in the ocean. Works with what he’s got.
When it’s done and Hatori has finished shuddering against him, Shigure withdraws his hand. He examines it for a moment with a slight frown, and then he gets up and washes his hands in the kitchen sink.
He turns back to Hatori, who sits where he left him — sprawled and rumpled on the floor. Shigure doesn’t really feel any better, and the memory of Akito slamming a door in his face once again has been tallied and neatly filed away with every other time it has happened. There is still satisfaction, though, in Hatori’s red-faced glower through his ruined hair.
Shigure crosses the room to him and bends to kiss him softly. He smiles. He twists the knife. “See, Haa-san, everything’s still in working order.”
Hatori jerks his head to the side. “Go home, Shigure.”
Shigure straightens back up and tucks his hand into the sleeves of his kimono. “Alright, I’ll see you later then.”
Shigure takes his leave.