Chapter Text
The sudden sensation of movement was enough to shake him out of sleep. It blended well enough with the hazy remnants of a dream about rolling along in his seat on the bus that he hardly roused at all, completely willing and able to drift back into the mundane little scene playing on the backs of his eyelids for just a while longer.
The source of movement had other plans, though, as a clubbing blow to the abdomen with what felt like a velvet-wrapped iron bar jolted him awake much more effectively than the come-too-late warning of the shifting mattress had done.
"Shinsuke!" he wheezed reflexively, a surprised expulsion of breath rather than a true chastisement. The reply was, unsurprisingly, completely unintelligible; when the stars swarming his vision cleared he could just see a bit of forehead through the sweat-stiff mess of curls poking out from the sheltering duvet...he couldn't even tell whether the inadvertent gut-punch had woken his no-doubt deeply hungover bedmate as well.
He supposed he should count himself lucky, Tana thought, rubbing his sore abs; if the drunk idiot had slid down the mattress any further during the night, the arm now draped carelessly over his stomach might have hit a bit lower - a far less pleasant form of morning contact to the area than his partner usually bestowed upon it.
There was some small consolation in knowing Shinsuke was in for a hell of a painful waking himself. If possible he'd been even more drunk last...morning? than a CHAOS boy's night out typically left him when the taxi finally deposited him home; Tana'd had an abrupt ejection from sleep then, too, from his vigilant doze on the couch. The unmistakable twin sounds of keys hitting the door everywhere but the lock and muffled laughter were his unwelcome bugle call then, sending him resentfully shuffling to assist in his slippers and robe. He hadn't been waiting up, he told himself...just resigned to an interruption of his rest no matter where he took it.
Admittedly, he would have expected an interruption more along the lines of a slightly wine-soaked kiss and a winning smile than his husband tumbling gracelessly through the door as soon as he turned the handle, laughing up at him from the floor as though it were the funniest thing that had ever happened.
"Hi," he'd said brightly, flashing that winning smile after all.
Tana remembered folding his arms like a disappointed parent, (mostly) unmoved by the lopsided grin. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
Whether the show of great concentration was put-on or genuine, he couldn't have said...but in the end, Shinsuke just replied "...do you?" with a nonchalant shrug. Hardly having an answer to that (he didn't), Tana'd just sighed and offered him a hand up.
The fiasco that was hauling him as far as the step to get his shoes off had created a vivid picture in his mind's eye of the coming struggle with stairs and clothes...one he could now verify for accuracy with the benefit of experience.
Tana lay still for a moment, studying what little he could see of his partner. The duvet rose and fell so slowly the movement was almost imperceptible, but he could hear Shinsuke's soft, deep breathing. At least he'd probably slept well, once he'd actually made it up to bed; by the time he'd hit the mattress he hadn't even had the energy left to tug the covers up, so Tana had done it for him. It was a rare evening that he didn't immediately find himself wound up in a tangle of long limbs upon retiring - though, Shinsuke seemed to be unconsciously correcting that mistake now, if with a tad more force than was strictly necessary.
Soft, dense hair shifted under his fingertips as he ran them idly along Shinsuke's forearm. The clock read 8:23 at a glance - he'd slept in, no doubt making up for spending half the night expecting at any moment to be summoned to collect the idiot from wherever he ended up passing out (or having his stomach pumped). Fortunately, he wasn't due at the dojo today for another few hours.
It was tempting to try making up for a bit more lost sleep, to stroll breezily out the door later, and call leaving Shinsuke to wallow in hungover misery a 'teachable moment.'
Every time, it was tempting.
Sighing, Tana shifted the restraining arm from his waist as carefully as he could, attempting to shimmy sideways on his shoulder blades without shaking the bed enough to wake his gently snoring darling. It was, of course, no use. Before he'd moved more than a few centimeters, the hand he'd laid aside shot back out to grip his arm.
"Wh'reygoin?" a groggy, eldrich voice demanded from somewhere under the duvet.
"To make your coffee," Tana said, a touch too cheerfully. "Water and Aspirin are on your nightstand already."
He'd taken the time-saving step last night, while his drunk partner was still valiantly trying to hit his mouth with the toothbrush, leaning heavily on the bathroom counter for support and giggling every time he poked himself in the chin.
There was a loaded pause. Slowly, the fingers clutching his wrist relaxed and retreated to grope blind for the tops of the covers. Shinsuke emerged from his den of blankets like bear nosing its way out of hibernation, squinting so hard in the scant light leaking through the blackout curtains that Tana wasn't even certain his eyes were open at all. He hauled himself up onto one elbow with what looked like an herculean amount of effort, and rubbed roughly at his face.
"Coffee..." he repeated, eyebrows screwed together like a man struggling to put a face to a once-beloved name.
Tana patted his shoulder. "Don't strain yourself, sweetheart," he said. "I'll bring it up when it's ready."
It was a mark of how lousy he must be feeling, Tana thought, that Shinsuke only nodded wearily and lowered himself gingerly back down to a resting position, instead of taking the opportunity he otherwise almost certainly would have to make an innuendo out of the innocent turn of phrase.
Feeling a genuine pang of sympathy, Tana again tugged the covers up over Shinsuke's exposed shoulders and bent to brush a kiss to his forehead. "I won't be long," he promised. A weak noise of acknowledgement was his only reply; it sounded not unlike Hana whimpering when she had a tummyache from too much People Food, but Tana knew better than to point out the similarity.
After searching out what he was fairly sure were a pair of his sweatpants in the fuzzy dark, he tiptoed out into the hallway and quietly closed the bedroom door behind him, in case their intrepid toy poodle got it in her fluffy head to go investigate why one of her humans wasn't yet putting in an appearance; she could be terribly nimble and evasive when she really put her mind to it, and he wasn't at all certain he'd be able to catch her in time.
Herself rose majestically from a sunlit patch of couch as he descended the stairs, tail whirring to life in a sleepy welcoming wag. It always encouraged him to see her developing some instinct for self-preservation; clearly after the third time Shinsuke'd nearly tripped over her last night, she'd deemed an elevated perch downstairs much safer territory than her cushion in the corner of their room.
"If it makes you feel any better," he said, bending to scritch her ears, "He stepped on my foot, too."
Fortunately neither transgression had quite been enough to tip Shinsuke from muddle-headed, happy drunk mode to weepy, remorseful drunk mode - a much rarer form, but always an experience when it appeared. Perhaps he'd simply been too tired to get emotional, Tana thought, or shifting gears from handsy and adoring to maudlin was too complex a task for his alcohol-soaked mind to manage.
Once the worst of the incapacitating headache had passed, the schedule today would no doubt be dominated by clingy, dramatically-suffering Shinsuke, milking his condition for everything it was worth.
Tana knew that if he had his way, his husband would spend the rest of the day lounging around the house being coddled and soaking up his affection like a big, spoiled cat. He could privately admit that if he'd happened to lack any previous engagements, he'd play the role quite happily...but his darling would have to suffer at least a portion of the day, with no one but Hana for company.
She trotted into the kitchen at his heels. A discreet check of the puppy pad on the floor revealed to him a small portion of his future - a quick escort trip outside, as soon as the coffee was brewing. Things at least didn't seem urgent; Hana sat patiently, big black eyes taking in all his measured movements at the coffee maker. Shinsuke did have one of those pretentious french press contraptions, but under the circumstances, his taste buds were probably still so burnt out from the night prior he would probably drink battery acid gratefully, so long as it was caffeinated, and the sooner the better.
"Come on, princess," he said fondly, tapping the last button with a flourish. If he was happiest in the ring, quiet little domestic moments taking care of his family were a close second. "What would you two do without me, hmm?"
Hana had no answer, but obediently followed him outside into the bright morning sunshine, sniffing at the grass for an appropriate spot and squinting nearly as hard at the glare as Shinsuke had earlier. Plastic bag at the ready, Tana turned around to give the lady her privacy. He returned a hailing wave to Suzuki, over the low fence between their yards...at least, he thought it was a wave - absent his glasses, it admittedly could have been a different gesture. Even at a bit of a distance he could admire the way the water droplets glittered in the sun as the local bloodthirsty maniac watered his azaleas.
"Lurch still paying for his sins in there?" he called, jerking a thumb towards the house.
"The coffee's on," Tana nodded, before the question struck him. "Wait...how did...you weren't out with them too, were you?"
Suzuki snorted in derision. "I hardly had to be - he probably woke up half the damn neighborhood last night, moonwalking up the driveway like that. What the hell was that he was singing?"
"I think it was supposed to be 'Billie Jean,'" Tana said, sighing deeply. He'd harbored a precious hope that part had been a dream; it was hard to fault Suzuki for his disbelieving laughter.
"Tell him not to quit his day job," their neighbor advised cheerfully, shutting off the water.
He sighed again, nodding in acknowledgement as Suzuki tipped his fedora and headed back inside. Presumably having concluded her own business, Hana circled his legs, making an inquisitive little noise.
"Don't you pay him any mind, princess," he told her soothingly, "Your daddy has a lovely singing voice, when he's so...uh, when he makes a real effort."
She didn't seem to have noticed his lapse, fortunately; Shinsuke might be under the impression that she didn't understand much, but that was no reason to fill her head with notions that someone she so adored might be a bit overfond of red wine, or prone to lapses in judgement.
Tana let her back into the house and paid a stop at the outside bin with what he delicately chose to think of as 'a token of responsible pet ownership' before following, the smell of incredibly strong coffee immediately assaulting his nose. Uncharacteristically, Hana hadn't waited for him in the entryway; from what he could see of the living room, she wasn't there either. He hoped she wasn't upstairs scratching at the bedroom door, if only because there was no telling what Shinsuke might first lay hands on to heave at it.
Three steps past the kitchen he paused, mentally rewinding some visual information, and backed up to the doorway.
That, at least, solved the mystery.
A rumpled figure wearing what very much appeared to be Tana's discarded boxer shorts hunched over the counter, squinting fixedly at a mug of steaming coffee as though attempting to force it to cool enough to drink by sheer power of will. If he had to guess, Tana would have bet he hadn't intentionally selected the one with "Hello, gorgeous," emblazoned on the side; Shinsuke's sense of humor wasn't likely to kick back in until the mug was half-empty.
As was her custom, Hana smooshed her nose against his anklebone and sneezed in greeting, a long-endured ritual which for once incited little reaction.
"Don't make me come down there," Shinsuke grumbled absently, rubbing his arms. He'd apparently had the presence of mind only to accomplish the most basic legal definition of 'decent,' but not quite enough to register the early morning chill. Tana hid a smile; he still had one sock on.
"Suzuki...says good morning," he fibbed. The bastard could do his own ribbing, if it meant that much to him. "I thought I told you I'd be right back?"
"Coffee," Shinsuke said with great emphasis, as though that explained everything that needed explaining. Which, he supposed, it sort of did.
Tsking softly at the way his husband was hugging himself for warmth, Tana temporarily abandoned his post at the door to seek out the fuzzy couch blanket he hadn't bothered stowing away last night; there was something delightful about the mental image of draping it over the broad shoulders of the self proclaimed King of Strong Style like a towel on a cranky toddler at the beach.
It was always a mistake, he reflected, returning to the kitchen, to tease Shinsuke too much...even silently, to himself. He paid severely for the sin of his own, struck still in the doorway, taking in the view he'd foolishly dismissed earlier.
Shinsuke's curls hung in a tangled mess, framing his face evenly rather than being swept to one side or the other. Strands stuck out at odd angles, halo'd by the light from the glass back door; under normal circumstances he'd be fidgeting with it, twisting it around his fingers and brushing it out of his eyes...but his long fingers were occupied lifting the precious mug to his chapped lips. The night's stubble made a patchy ruin of his usually neatly-kept facial hair, and his eyes still weren't, as far as Tana could tell, even open. Pale as he looked with the pain of the headache, the scar over his eye stood out in sharp relief.
Goosebumps raised up the dense hair on his forearms and legs, lending his silhouette an almost fuzzy effect; and not for the first time, Tana couldn't help but feel a rush of affection for his husband's long toes...at least, the set not currently hidden by a single striped neon pink and green sock.
In his transfixed state, Tana idly noticed that the boxers, being his own, were not only badly wrinkled from a day of wear but on slightly crooked. They were making a valiant attempt to cling to Shinsuke's slimmer waist but slowly losing the war, sliding centimeter by centimeter down his hips every time he moved. He was so distracted watching the progressive reveal of the soft dusting of hair below his husband's navel that he didn't notice he was being observed himself, until Shinsuke's voice jolted him out of the trance.
"What's that look for?"
"Hmm? Oh...ah...well," Tana faltered, feeling an immediate blush coming on. He had no idea what expression Shinsuke'd caught sight of, but he could probably make a fair guess. His partner's eyes were certainly open now, one unkempt brow raised inquisitively. "You just look very uh..."
"Very...?"
"...sexy," he finished helplessly, shoulders slumping in defeat. He'd never hear the end of this one.
Shinsuke half-choked on the next mouthful of coffee. "Sexy?" he repeated incredulously, caught between a cough and a laugh. "What were you drinking while I was out?"
"Well, you do!" Tana insisted. The bastard was openly laughing at him now; he wondered how often other people had to defend their spouse's honor against their spouses themselves.
"Tana, I look like I slept in a ditch and I probably smell it, too."
"Well...yes," he admitted, gesturing vaguely up and down at the glorious mess standing before him, "but it's...the overall...it's very...very...manly."
Both brows raised now, Shinsuke sipped his coffee, resting his free hand elegantly on one half-exposed hip. He paused long enough to look himself over skeptically - Tana could tell when he noticed his one bare foot by the renewed burst of laughter. "This is manly, huh?" he said, eyes glittering with amusement. "I didn't know you had such a poor opinion of men, beautiful."
"Hey now..." he chided softly, finally crossing into the kitchen proper. He lassoed Shinsuke's shoulders with the blanket, tugging him closer with the corners; that his partner made the ultimate sacrifice of putting down the coffee mug to slip his arms around Tana instead was more immensely flattering than any clumsy praise he could ever string together. "I've never seen anybody else look half as good at their best as you do right now. Anyway, can't a guy compliment his big rugged handsome lug of a husband without getting teased for it?"
Face pressed against his neck, Shinsuke laughed again; it was a pleased laugh, though, warm breath ticking his chest. "I guess I can allow it," he conceded graciously.
"Good, I'm glad that's settled," Tana said sternly, trying not to smile and failing badly.
They stood a while in the loose embrace, companionable silence broken only by the tiny wet sounds of Hana making a stop at her water dish, and the receding click of her nails across the floor as she presumably abandoned their sappy scene in search of something more interesting. He rubbed Shinsuke's back through the fuzzy blanket, savoring having him close for a moment (even if the smell had been...accurately described, previously).
"Hey Tana," Shinsuke mumbled finally, sounding as though he were getting sleepy again in spite of the caffeine.
"Mmm?"
"...My foot's cold."
Tana snorted fondly. "Yeah - you know you're wearing my underpants?"
He felt a bit of a draft as one muscular arm released him, sent down on a fact-finding mission. "That...huh. That actually explains some things," Shinsuke mused, tugging the waistband back up.
"Dumbass," Tana said happily, and kissed him. He swallowed a brief sound of protest - and understood immediately why, as the potent combination of tastes hit him all at once. If pressed to describe it in detail, Tana would have spun a yarn about the tragic tale of mint, which clearly drank itself to death, and the bitter black coffee served at the funeral. More succinctly though, he could have justly substituted 'awful,' with or without a profane lead-in. Shinsuke pushed halfheartedly at his chest, but the Ace was not to be deterred; the kisses of his beloved husband were not to be taken for granted, even when they tasted like the ground outside a bar at 3am.
He let his fingers trail down Shinsuke's arm to the hand with a fistful of bunched elastic and nudged it lightly aside, palming the warm skin of his hip. A familiar shiver went through his partner, who abandoned his hold on the perilously-clinging boxers entirely to run his hand up Tana's chest instead.
It was worth enduring the taste and what would no doubt be a considerable amount of invested time with the mouthwash later, he thought, to feel how easily and earnestly Shinsuke always responded to his affections. Even on that first uncertain morning at the dawn of their relationship so long ago, after the disastrous binge at the karaoke bar, Shinsuke had wanted him close, had needed reassurance of what was then only an important friendship.
"Remember-" Tana said suddenly, breaking away for a moment, "remember the first time you asked me to kiss you?"
Shinsuke shot him a confused look, cognitive processes not yet warmed up enough to handle such an abrupt shift in topics. "Uh...no?" he admitted, after a pause. "Was I drunk?"
"Extremely. You were trying to get me to bribe you with kisses in exchange for...for leaving with your dignity, really."
"Huh. Did it work?"
"Shinsuke! I'd hardly take advantage of someone like that," he scolded. "Anyway...anyway, I wanted to make sure you would remember it the next day, if I kissed you..."
"Wait - when was this?" Shinsuke asked curiously, no doubt remembering hundreds of times Tana'd kissed him without having any guarantee that condition could be met. Bringing up the subject had been such a sudden impulse, it occurred to Tana that they may never have actually discussed that night in detail, rapidly as everything had changed after and as spotty as Shinsuke's recollection probably was.
"Ah...you know, before," he said, gesturing meaningfully between them. "Taguchi's karaoke bar extravaganza?"
Realization dawned; Shinsuke's pretty brown eyes widened a little. "That night. I remember...I remember that girl you were talking to. And...we were...there were pillows? I definitely remember throwing up," he said sheepishly. "But I don't...think...it was on you."
"Hah - no, believe me, if you had I'd have made sure you did remember it."
His husband laughed softly, nodding as if to say he knew it, too. "I guess you were right, though," he said. "It probably wouldn't have been much of a first kiss."
"No..." Tana agreed, wistfully tucking an unruly stray curl behind his ear. "But...I wanted to do it anyway."
"You...?"
"I did. I can admit it now, even if I couldn't then - I don't even think that was the first time I wanted to kiss you."
Shinsuke leaned further into his space, pressing their foreheads together. "No, huh?" he purred.
"Mmm. Feels like...missed chances, now. Lost time...if I hadn't been so--"
Another kiss cut him off - whatever misgivings Shinsuke'd had about the state of his breath, he'd clearly worked through them in the time it took for him to start getting maudlin about the past. "If it was, I'd say we've been pretty thorough making up for it," he murmured against the dimple startled out of hiding at the corner of Tana's mouth.
"Well...maybe. But you can never be too careful," he cautioned, backing Shinsuke against the counter. "Who knows how many I missed back then?"
One gloriously long, manly leg hooked over his hip as he pressed himself between them; he distantly registered the blanket slipping to messily pool half-on the countertop, pinned between it and his partner's beautiful back. Both sets of hands were too occupied to hold it in place - he had enough presence of mind to hope it hadn't upset or landed in the coffee mug, but not enough to check or attempt to save it, if it had. Blankets, he thought, darting his tongue back into Shinsuke's waiting mouth, could always be replaced.
The taste of black coffee, sour wine and morning breath was honestly growing on him...proof indisputable, again and as always, that as long as his husband was doing the selling, he would buy anything.
Trailing his hands over Shinsuke's warm skin, he idly wondered whether it'd been the coffee, the aspirin or the kisses to seemingly banish both the headache and the chill formerly afflicting him; perhaps a combination of all three. Oh, he was certainly always clingy when poorly, but it generally skewed more towards whining until he was granted a cuddle and playfully demanding to be hand-fed grapes than fervent make-out sessions in the kitchen. He was making needy little noises, now, into Tana's mouth; one set of artfully clipped fingernails dug into his back to the threshold of pain, their twins occupied themselves playing with strands of his golden hair, the gentleness of it at complete odds by contrast.
Tana was about to suggest an urgent relocation back up the stairs when the soft click of nails and a mysterious thump heralded the return of their wayward pet. Shinsuke's lips pursued his when he turned to glance down, landing sloppily against his cheek. "What?" he said impatiently, as Tana started to laugh.
"Oh, who's a clever little girl?!"
"...Tana, I've been called a lot of things, but--"
"Look, sweetheart!" he insisted, pointing proudly at Hana and the gift she'd brought. One of Shinsuke's slippers, slightly drooled on and upside down, lay on the floor at their feet.
"She...oh my god," he said, unable to contain a laugh of his own.
Tana nudged the slipper right side up with one toe as Hana watched Shinsuke expectantly, until he sighed dramatically as best he could while grinning ear to ear and slid his bare foot into it, like the world's oddest-looking Cindarella.
"Ah...moist," he noted calmly. "Thank you, Hana."
"I think somebody's earned a treat before breakfast!" Tana declared, extricating himself from Shinsuke's tangle of limbs to retrieve the bag.
"Well...it was nearly me, anyway," his husband sighed. "But I guess at least there's something to hold the boxers up now..."
"Shinsuke!" Tana scolded automatically. He didn't even need to turn around to know eyebrows were being recklessly waggled. There was inevitably a mimicking echo to his protest. "Not in front of the puppy!"
"Nothing she hasn't walked in on before," Shinsuke pointed out, but he dutifully re-wrapped himself in the blanket for modesty's sake anyway. For once, he didn't bother pointing out that Hana hadn't technically qualified as a puppy for several years, which was enough to earn him a peck on the cheek after her dish was appropriately filled.
"I'll get started on breakfast," Tana told him. "You go on and have your shower."
"You know...if you're still really worried about making up for missed chances, you could join me," Shinsuke grinned, a wolfish thing somehow made no less appealing by his absurd makeshift toga and terrible bedhead.
"Hah. You know as well as I do I'd never make it out of here today if I did."
Shinsuke rubbed speculatively at his scruffy beard. "That's...not really an argument against, Tana."
"Even so," he said sternly, folding his arms.
Shrugging elegantly as if to say, can't blame a guy for trying, his husband turned in his mismatched footwear and made for the living room. He paused in the doorway, throwing a last devastating wink over his shoulder. "You know where to find me if you change your mind," he said.
Sighing, Tana shook his head and cast about for the frilly apron Shinsuke'd found amusing enough to insist he take home from one of NJPW's more questionable fanservice-y photoshoots. Half his thoughts busied themselves with speculation as to whether Shinsuke's stomach had recovered enough to handle anything richer than dry toast, and the other half, admittedly, strayed out the door and up the stairs without so much as a by-your-leave.
He spent a moment listening to Hana's enthusiastic crunching at the treat dish, drumming his fingers absently on the countertop in time with the sound. The stove, the wall clock and the doorway fought a vicious three-way match for his attention; Tana bit his lip.
"Oh, what the hell," he said finally, tossing the apron back on its peg and heading for the stairs.
Toast didn't take long to make, anyway.