Ship: Nijimura/Himuro Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke Major Tags: TAGS OMITTED Other Tags: TAGS OMITTED Word Count: 495
***
Some of these nights Tatsuya pretends to be drunk enough to kiss Shuuzou like it’s a game, like he’s sloppy and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s too careful for that; Shuuzou’s seen him really drunk, once (and Tatsuya can’t have forgotten that, but this is just a thinly-veiled excuse that Shuuzou won’t call him on), when he was close to blacking out and he’d clung to Shuuzou and buried his face in Shuuzou’s chest and looked like he was going to puke but hadn’t until he’d woken up with a hangover. This isn’t that; he still keeps his distance; he’s ready to get physical with Shuuzou but nothing else; his emotions are still locked away.
Shuuzou doesn’t want one without the other. Shuuzou would rather Tatsuya think of him in a strictly platonic way (though maybe he’s just making that exchange in his head because he knows it’s never going to happen) if it meant Tatsuya would let him in, let off some of the emotional burden that keeps him so constrained, taut on a live wire, shut away. He’d rather have all of it, the key to making Tatsuya happy, sober kisses and touches that Tatsuya feels comfortable giving and receiving, both of them out of trouble. It’s something Shuuzou knows his father might forgive him for but something he can’t tell him right now all the same, something he’s got to do to stop Tatsuya from getting in deeper.
Tatsuya makes the motions of advancing to fight sometimes, pretending to stagger on his feet but all of a sudden his eye going cold, his fist going hard at his side at some comment; Shuuzou tightens his arm around Tatsuya’s shoulders and Tatsuya looks up at him, defensive like Shuuzou’s just tried to drive past him on the court. It makes the aggression pass, a little, most of the time; it makes the aggressor move on and Tatsuya’s fists uncurl into his pockets.
“Why are you still here?” Tatsuya asks him one night, when he’s maybe a little bit actually tipsy, maybe a little bit desperate.
“I’m here because I want to be with you,” Shuuzou says.
He reaches for Tatsuya’s hand; Tatsuya doesn’t pull it away fast enough, as if enough of him wants to let Shuuzou reel him in. He frowns; he waits for Shuuzou to drop his hand. Shuuzou squeezes it instead.
“I’m not as good as you think I am,” Tatsuya says. “I don’t want to keep waiting for you to see it and.”
His voice breaks; he swallows; Shuuzou takes his other hand. They’re in the darkness of a side street; there’s no traffic. It’s calm and quiet; the nearest streetlight is just close enough to play shadow patterns on Tatsuya’s face. He could be the devil himself and Shuuzou would still want him to be happy, want to free him of his weights.
“I’m not going anywhere,” says Shuuzou. “I want you to see that.”
FILL: TEAM HIMURO TATSUYA/NIJIMURA SHUUZOU, T
Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke
Major Tags: TAGS OMITTED
Other Tags: TAGS OMITTED
Word Count: 495
***
Some of these nights Tatsuya pretends to be drunk enough to kiss Shuuzou like it’s a game, like he’s sloppy and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s too careful for that; Shuuzou’s seen him really drunk, once (and Tatsuya can’t have forgotten that, but this is just a thinly-veiled excuse that Shuuzou won’t call him on), when he was close to blacking out and he’d clung to Shuuzou and buried his face in Shuuzou’s chest and looked like he was going to puke but hadn’t until he’d woken up with a hangover. This isn’t that; he still keeps his distance; he’s ready to get physical with Shuuzou but nothing else; his emotions are still locked away.
Shuuzou doesn’t want one without the other. Shuuzou would rather Tatsuya think of him in a strictly platonic way (though maybe he’s just making that exchange in his head because he knows it’s never going to happen) if it meant Tatsuya would let him in, let off some of the emotional burden that keeps him so constrained, taut on a live wire, shut away. He’d rather have all of it, the key to making Tatsuya happy, sober kisses and touches that Tatsuya feels comfortable giving and receiving, both of them out of trouble. It’s something Shuuzou knows his father might forgive him for but something he can’t tell him right now all the same, something he’s got to do to stop Tatsuya from getting in deeper.
Tatsuya makes the motions of advancing to fight sometimes, pretending to stagger on his feet but all of a sudden his eye going cold, his fist going hard at his side at some comment; Shuuzou tightens his arm around Tatsuya’s shoulders and Tatsuya looks up at him, defensive like Shuuzou’s just tried to drive past him on the court. It makes the aggression pass, a little, most of the time; it makes the aggressor move on and Tatsuya’s fists uncurl into his pockets.
“Why are you still here?” Tatsuya asks him one night, when he’s maybe a little bit actually tipsy, maybe a little bit desperate.
“I’m here because I want to be with you,” Shuuzou says.
He reaches for Tatsuya’s hand; Tatsuya doesn’t pull it away fast enough, as if enough of him wants to let Shuuzou reel him in. He frowns; he waits for Shuuzou to drop his hand. Shuuzou squeezes it instead.
“I’m not as good as you think I am,” Tatsuya says. “I don’t want to keep waiting for you to see it and.”
His voice breaks; he swallows; Shuuzou takes his other hand. They’re in the darkness of a side street; there’s no traffic. It’s calm and quiet; the nearest streetlight is just close enough to play shadow patterns on Tatsuya’s face. He could be the devil himself and Shuuzou would still want him to be happy, want to free him of his weights.
“I’m not going anywhere,” says Shuuzou. “I want you to see that.”