Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ The Nurseryman ( Chapter 15 )

Chapter 15

"The Nurseryman"

Heero wished he were completely drunk, if it would somehow make the enormous babysitting task looming over him seem a little less complicated. But, unfortunately, he didn't have quite enough alcohol in his house to do that. He was finishing his first by the time he could convince the Shinigami to get upstairs and clean up. The deity had become visibly distraught by the accidental death of the spider, and he reacted like he had on the airplane when he believed he had hurt the infant, but this time he was quiet and pitiful and prone to staring blankly while Heero asked to him to please clean himself up. The stench of the vengeance spirit still hung in his hair and his clothes, and metaphysically aware or not, it didn't change the fact that it just plain smelled.

He stood sternly silent by the open doorway of the bathroom, holding the near-empty bottle in one hand while the other rested balled up in his pocket. Waiting, sipping once in a while as the Shinigami mournfully cleaned up the mess he'd caused and began trudging up the stairs toward the mortal man with the towel balled up against his chest. He stopped at the top of the stairs, clutching it to his chest like comfort blanket, and gave Heero a melancholy, almost tired violet stare. In return he only received a brief nod of the head indicating toward the bathroom, and the towel was taken out of his hands while he hesitated and stood motionless.

Heero ducked into the bathroom for a second without a word to gather up the ones that sat in the hamper, and behind him the Shinigami cautiously glanced into alien room. When the mortal man turned around and tried to brush by him out the doorway, a hamper basket full of towels slung on one hip, he heard a tiny little voice piping up beside him.

"Teishu?" Shini queried tentatively.

Heero stopped, so that they were directly side-by-side, and turned to face him flatly. He simply lifted an eyebrow as response, giving the subtle prompt he was listening when he very well didn't feel like opening his mouth. The Angel of Death stuttered a little, nervously spinning one of his eartails around a finger, as he said quietly, "Well, he was only wondering-What is this room called again? He may remember, but it is not on the end of his tongue."

"A bathroom?" the mortal man offered in a flat grunt.

"Oh." He vainly tried to make it seem as if he'd really just had a lapse of mind, that he understood the word completely. The deity bit his bottom lip almost tediously, and wrapped his hair around his finger, then unwrapping it just as quickly and repeating the whole thing every other second. "Oh, hai. About that-"

The mortal man didn't move an inch as he let off a sigh, rolling his eyes blandly in the process. "Let me guess."

Automatically in return, Shini made a confused face and stopped fiddling for an instant with his long, matted hair. "We are not playing a guessing game, are we?"

"You never seen been inside a bathroom before, have you?" Heero said bluntly, a dull, impatient tone adding to his slightly nasal Japanese voice.

"Yes, he has, but the last mortal bathing room he laid eyes upon was certainly not like this. Most certainly not. This is more like a lady's powder room, he thinks. Strange."

He turned and frowned slightly in confusion at what he called a modern powder room, doused in the illumination of light bulbs-something he'd only recently become familiar with, fortunately for his arranged husband, otherwise he might have attacked them, mistaking them for something other than harmless lighting.

It was obvious from the nervous flittering and the polite, innocent voice that he had no idea what to do while standing in the room, beneath the artificial lights that hung just over the large mirror on the opposite wall. His eyes also wandered curiously around the room, but he was still cautious and still nervous, twiddling his hair as he looked past Heero into his reflection in the mirror. He tilted his head as if he didn't recognize himself at first, then pushed past Heero up to the glass and squinted, preening unhappily at his matted hair.

"Is that what he looks like? Then he is a mess, just as you say he is." The God of Death frowned unhappily and blew a bang out of his eyes. "How would anyone like him if he is this uncleanly?"

"Just take a shower and get cleaned up," Heero grudged up for an answer, turning unceremoniously and walking back out the door and down the stairs. Calling vaguely out, he informed him, "You can borrow some of my old clothes when you're done," as he went casually down the stairs, empty beer bottle swinging in time at his hip clenched in his fist. By the time the sound of a tentative deity calling out for his arranged husband could be heard, Heero had already opened the cupboard hanging beside the refrigerator and fished out a packet of one of his mother's strongest teas for helping cure headaches and glared past the open cupboard door up at where the bathroom sat upstairs. Again, he heard it, a faint, almost mewling call that was inevitably the Shinigami.

"Teishu," the voice beckoned cautiously from afar. Heero could just picture him leaning against the doorframe, leaning out into the hall, and fiddling with an eartail, and shut the cupboard door to start walking. He stopped at the sink, where he pulled a kettle from the cupboards beneath and filled it with tap water. He was still calling as Heero put it on the pristinely clean stove range and turned the corresponding dial to 'High.'

I'm not going in there. I'm not going in there. He ground his teeth almost rhythmically as he chanted it, repeated it over and over again in his head until it would become ingrained in his thoughts, moving about the kitchen but not really able to concentrate on the cup of tea that he was making for himself.

"Um, Teishu-sama?" Shini laughed nervously, trying to get his attention with an even more formal address tacked onto his nickname for the mortal. He was anxiously drumming his fingers on the frame, standing just as Heero had predicted, out of his sight. "May he please inquire you of something?"

I am not going in there. If he says what I know he is going to, then I'm not to go help him. I'm not going in that bathroom, I'm just going to sit down, have a cup of tea, and ask myself what the hell possessed me to agree to something like this. What was I thinking? He's more trouble than a child, and I've never taken care of anyone but myself. What was I thinking when I accepted?

Another, more rational voice answered, though it was still the same one: his own. He will be gone soon enough; you can bare through it.

"He, uh, that is-well," the voice drew out tentatively, still heaving artificial, nervous laughter drifting down from the ajar bathroom door. It was one of the strangest noises he'd heard in a long time, aside from the inhuman shriek of a vengeance spirit, the sound of another voice in his home when it felt like it had been him, the ghosts, and the silent walls for far too long, but he wasn't going to listen to it. He wasn't. He was not going in there to help him, because that was exactly what he was going to ask him.

"He is, uh, unfamiliar with the bathing room of modern mortals, so perhaps there is a large pool of water he could use instead?" Shinigami called out uncertainly, no doubt still twirling his eartail around his finger. "Why do you not have public bath houses anymore, anyway? He preferred those, very much so."

"This is ridiculous," Heero mumbled into the wooden grain of the cupboard where he'd bent his head forward and closed his eyes, grinding his teeth in the back of his mouth. "This is ridiculous," he repeated to himself, finally pushing away from the cupboard and taking the teakettle off the heat dutifully as he passed by on his way out to the hallway. He entered the bathroom just as the Shinigami had investigated enough to realize that the shower curtain pulled away to reveal a bathtub, which he recognized somewhat, and a very strange looking metallic facet that seemed more like a bulky crane neck and head emerging from the very wall itself.

The deity was sniffing around the edge of the bathtub and leaning forward to snatch up the familiar object that sat in a cove on the opposite wall. It danced wetly between his fingers and he tried to grab it with both fists, grinning happily, and it shot from his hand and clattered into the bathtub and glided down to the drain with a tiny trail of bubbles. Shini laughed. "Mortals make such entertaining things!" he commented happily to himself, even though he believed he was alone in the room. "'They will bathe themselves with the fat of swine and call it soap." He giggled again and reached down into the bottom of the tub to snatch at the slippery soap again.

"I don't think that's what they use anymore," Heero corrected blandly from the doorway. "People today would call it animal cruelty if it were."

The Shinigami twitched a little in surprise to hear his voice so suddenly behind him, and as a result, the bar of soap he'd managed to capture again escaped him and fell to the floor. He turned and looked at the mortal for a second before smiling and laughing nervously, "You startled him."

He also started scratching at the back of his head with one hand as Heero just heaved a little sigh in returned and put the soap back in the tub, frowning at the puddle of bubbles on the floor it had left behind. He barely even looked at the deity as he started talking, too involved in mopping up the suds pile with the hand towel that had been neatly folded beside the sink. Shini sidestepped politely, clasping his hands behind his back so that his shoulders arched unassumingly, and he just watched the mortal clean up the floor for a moment.

When Heero straightened up again and put the hand towel beside the sink, he thanked him happily, "He is grateful, and he is sorry that he is causing you inconvenience." All the while with that effortless, effervescent smile plastered across his face.

"Don't mention it," Heero mimed back from the automatic, polite response mechanism in his head, as he let out another sigh and dutifully looked over to the deity standing in his bathroom. "You'll want me to tell you how all this works, huh?" he asked dully. He hadn't expected to become so much of an elementary teacher in the last few days-of course, he'd never expected he'd ever see a Shinigami except maybe over his bed in the one night late into his life, either. He thought maybe Shini would ask to learn the alphabet next.

Shini's smile grew smaller, though it was twisting into more of a pixyish little smirk. It seemed as if it might be too smug to even open to speak when he replied, "He supposes so, yes. He wants to learn all about you mortals while he is still here, and this is a good beginning as any."

"Whatever," Heero mumbled back automatically as he was about to turn to peel back the shower curtain and tell him which faucet was the hot water and get the hell out of that bathroom, but he paused before doing so and maintained a flat look at the Shinigami. "You really want to learn something?" he asked.

The deity standing beside him looked intrigued, almost as if he'd won a little lottery. With an eager nod, his smile grew a little wider, a little more impish. And there was a slight decrease of the distance separating them, though Heero didn't bother to notice it. He was too busy trying to push every thought out of his head, since they only caused him more trouble than they were worth in the end.

"Alright," he began flatly, though the deity was absorbed completely in his words to come. Again, that distance was fractionally shortened. "When you're speaking, you don't have to refer to yourself in the third person every time. I wouldn't be offended or anything if you didn't."

"Shinigami likes to be polite, he does," Shini urged, nodding his head in all seriousness. "He sees nothing wrong with it, Teishu, and besides, he really has not learned his full English. Are you offended he does not use the right words? He apologizes if so."

Heero let out a little scowl at the formal addressing as he shook his head unhappily and clarified, "Just when you call me-that." He had the sudden urge to step back, noticing now how he was slowly getting closer, whether it was a conscious move or not on the Angel of Death's part.

"What, Teishu?" He furrowed his eyebrow slighlty and took another step forward with his bare feet on the cold tile, almost shoving his nose into the mortal's face. He was puckering his face up in confusion-the exact way he had shortly before bursting out in tears. "But that is who you are, Teishu. Anata wa otto desu," he emphasized, stopping his subconscious approach short with only a foot to spare between them. That damned twisted expression still held his face.

"I know that," Heero protested calmly, taking that step backwards he wanted. "It's just unnecessary. You don't have to keep calling me that. I have a name, you know, and you can use it. It doesn't bother me." The Japanese man had to tilt his head ever so slightly to meet eye to eye now that he had lost the height advantage to the God of Death by toeing off his shoes at the door. It wasn't as if he were towering over him, wielding a bloody ogama, and shrouded in shadow, but nevertheless that image had come to mind when he had realized that the Shinigami was slighlty taller than him.

In response, said deity lifted an eyebrow curiously, genuinely surprised he'd admitted that. "Honto ni?" He had stepped back as well, though it was only to half-nervously shift his weight from foot to foot, his slight movement making the light flicker over his black silk robes. Somehow, it had never failed today that Shini would find his finger curling around the tips of his eartails as he spoke nervously to his arranged husband, most likely trying to win an argument. "He thought that you would become upset with him again."

"I told you before I didn't want you calling me that. I said it'd be fine to call me by name. And besides, in a few days, you'll be leaving and I won't be your husband any longer," Heero pointed out, folding his arms to emphasize his point and his impatience. He had laundry to catch up on, in any matter, and he would rather not spend his time debating with the disheveled Shinigami.

"Hai, but-" Shini's mouth gaped in uncertainty, making continuous curls with his fingers and a lock of his matted brown hair as it did. Heero could swear he almost heard his bare feet making awkward shuffling noises from underneath his supernatural, black swathed robes.

Shinigami swallowed nervously once before continuing, looking down his nose at the floor. "He was very sure that you would hate him beside it all, even if he did call you Heero. So, he used polite names. He thought it would make him more agreeable. He only wanted your acceptance, Teishu."

Heero kept his lips lightly pressed together, simply looking at the Shinigami's dirt-smudged face with an unreadable expression. Soon, his quiet attention had turned away from how knotted his long tresses of hair were and how unwashed his face appeared, to how human his peach skin was and how distinct the lines of his collarbone and shoulders were. He turned toward the shower curtain and again dismissed himself from the topic with an uncomfortable, "Whatever," beneath his breath, and simply preoccupied himself with peeling the curtain back.

"If you want to wash up," he explained, jabbing vaguely at the twin faucets, one marked with a faded, half-chipped 'H' and the other a similar-looking 'C,' and picking the metal plug out of the drain, "all you have to do is turn this knob until the water is hot. There's some soap and conditioner if you want to use them-they're those bottles sitting on the edge over there." From behind him, there were a few quiet shuffling noises as the Angel of Death obediently came over to the side of the bathtub and started absorbing each of his arranged husband's words. His eyes flickered from the hair conditioner to the mortal's face, and back again.

"Just turn the dial item?" He asked, and prodded an unassuming finger at the strange-looking faucet.

"Yeah," Heero grunted vaguely, giving him a slight look through the corner of his eye. Once he thought he wasn't needed to explain, the mortal man turned about and started out the door, already rubbing at his forehead with the heel of his hand before he'd even walked through the doorframe. "There's some clean towels beneath the sink, and you can borrow my old clothes, if you need too," he reminded, calling over his shoulder without turning his head.

The Shinigami managed to stutter out, "Thank you, Tei-Heero."

Still hovering at the rim of the bathtub, the longhaired deity grimaced uncertainly, biting back a section of his lip as his eyes scanned over the unfamiliar scene. He was more accustomed to fetching the hot water needed for bathing himself, or rather, paying a dime for the one in the saloon while in town with his last caretaker, and he stared strangely at the metal, stork-like head that extended from near the ceiling.

Shini glanced again over his at the retreating back of the mortal, but he hated to bother the blue-eyed man any further than he had. Whatever mischievous plan had shown through in his grin beforehand had succumbed to his uneasiness, trying to appease Heero whenever he could, and he was frowning uncertainly as he reached out for the faucet dial and twisted it a little ways. He didn't wait longer than a second to hear the distinct sound of water rushing through copper pipes and making it's way up into the second-level bathroom. Turning his wide eyes toward the stork-head and leaning curiously over into the shower, Shini heard the foreboding sound making its way closer and closer. A second later, he yelped and balked backwards, furiously shaking his head free of the ice cold, unsoftened water that had "pounced" on him.

A short time later, Heero had reluctantly shuffled back into the bathroom and calmed the spooked Shinigami by tossing a towel over his dripping head and plugging up the drain and filling the tub instead. It shouldn't have surprised him that a being such as this particular Angel of Death, one with the mind of a child, might have a certain fear of showers, but he hadn't planned on it. It was just another thing, he supposed, and went about dutifully turning the dial to the hot water and letting it fill with clear water.

"There," he said, standing up and looking over to his supernatural guest. "You'll be fine now."

Shinigami grinned sheepishly from underneath the edge of the towel. "Thank you, Heero." An instant later, by some unearthly force, the image of the disheveled black-winged deity had disappeared from where he'd stood only a moment before, and reappeared noiselessly sitting on the rim of the bath, stark naked. The discarded robes had somehow materialized into an unexpected pile of billowing black on the tiles beside Heero's feet, and the Shinigami obviously had no shame about it, as he was testing the waters with his toe and slipping into the water happily. His tail-and yes, much to Heero's uneasiness, it was an authentic tail-was coiling lazily in the air.

Despite having seen him before without a good deal of his clothing, Heero still had the modesty to glance away. Of course, the previous time had been while he had been trying to seduce him, but somehow now it was different. He got the sinking feeling that the heat in his face was not from the single bottle of alcohol he'd had at all. Trying to be discreet, or something awkward like it, the mortal man turned and started again to walk out the door, hopefully for the last time. Meanwhile, while he'd been busy filling with color, the Shinigami had slipped comfortably into the waist-deep water and started tossing water onto his face and methodically dipping his head into the water to cleanse himself like a black-winged bird dipping in a birdbath. He was aware of the fact that most mortals now avoided public bathing, or even seeing one another without clothing, but he had been raised otherwise and didn't understand why any one made such fuss about human figures. Certainly it was nothing an adult like Heero had not seen before, no?

Of course, the impish grin had returned to his face as he lifted his head and let the warm water drip across his dry face and clog up his eyelashes. He turned that smile onto the retreating back of the mortal man and shook his head briefly, letting the tiny droplets splatter the walls around him. Just as Heero's hand had closed around the doorknob and prepared to shut it behind him, he called out pleasantly, "Would you help him to preen his feathers, Heero?"

It made his back tense up as he stopped and looked pointedly over his shoulder at the wide grin plastered over the Shinigami's face. Said smirk only split wider, more mischievous as the seconds passed silently between them. When the simple request didn't work, Shini imploringly pouted his lip and drew his eyebrows upward and together in a strange but highly effective puppy-faced expression. It might have caused any normal man to give in, seeing how he exuded this natural bewitching effect, coming from his mother's side, but it took a few moments to break down Heero Yuy.

"He cannot reach all his feathers himself," the Angel of Death explained innocently, sitting in the steaming-hot water and leaning forward with another smirk festering on his face. He weakly tried to reach onto his back and demonstrated that he could indeed not reach all of them, and his entire wingspan had traces of encrusted Darkness oil marring its supernatural luster.

"You would be the gentlemen to help him, no? He is asking politely, Teishu-sama, and it is considered rude in all realms to refuse a guest," he reminded complacently, tilting his head to the side so that a trail of water ran down the side of his face.

"Hn," Heero grunted vaguely, still frowning indecisively back at him from his position in the doorway.

To convince his stubborn arranged husband, Shini fluttered his wings slightly, so that the long, raven-black flight feathers brushed softly against the walls and one wing extended lazily over the edge of the bathtub. Heero frowned, dreading secretly just how fascinating the sight of those wings extending from his back were, watching the auxiliary muscles that held them in place shift and twist beneath the skin of his back. Dreading how much he enjoyed the sight, despite himself. Granted, the gods could be considered most beautiful beings, but this was getting ridiculous-

"Please?" Shini clapped his hands together, palms pressed against one another almost as if he were begging to his own deity, and pouted his bottom lip. "He swears he doesn't bite."

"Will you be quiet then?" Heero asked skeptically, still with his arms folded impatiently. "You promise you'll stop stirring up trouble? I've only got one more bottle of beer and I'm almost out of aspirin, so I'm not gonna stand for any more bullshit to deal with. Understand?"

"Of course, Teishu!" he gushed automatically, grinning and excitedly ringing his arms around his knees as he pulled them to his chest. The filling water in the bathtub splashed with the movement and a little puddle formed on the rim of the tub, which only grew when the Shinigami happily kicked out a leg so that his toes were under the faucet, twisting happily beneath the warm flow of water.

There was still the undeniable traces of a troubled scowl on the mortal man's face, even as he grudgingly walked up to the bathtub, occupied by one smudged Angel of Death. "And don't call me that, either," he reminded Shini with one of his usual curt growls.

"Whatever," Shini smiled, lazily stretching his wings and his arms. "Whatever you say, Heero." Then he promptly ducked his head into the steaming hot water, sat back up, and shook off the excess like a wet dog. Heero only acknowledged it with a roll of his eyes and a tense little snort.

Some time later, the scene played out as such: One twenty-five year old Japanese man who had lived alone since the time of his parents untimely deaths in his teens was sitting on the edge of his own bathtub, perched carefully on the rim and keeping an equally precise stare pinned on the guest that sat in the filled bath. That guest only happened to be a young God of Death exiled from his home in Hades' realm, and currently squeezing a palmful of shampoo into his hands and furiously rubbing them together until it frothed and the bubbles dripped through his fingers. He laughed, even though he could feel the glare of his arranged husband at the back of his head, and started kneading his soapy hands into his hair. He was humming happily to himself an old medieval troubadour song as he started to clean his long tresses of the Darkness oil.

Heero sat stiffly at the side of the bathtub, forcing himself to stare at the traces of bubbles drifting along the surface of the water. The faucet still ran at full, the dial cranked as high as Heero would allow it. The Shinigami had explained that he was used to the heat, since he had been born in Hell, after all, but Heero simply refused the request to turn it as high as it would go.

Shini's head was doused in Heero's shampoo down to his shoulders and he had taken the rest of his hair over his shoulder and started working the soap into it. He grinned over his shoulder at the mortal, and automatically he tensed in return. "Listen, you may start preening his feathers now, please," he asked politely, though the impish grin offset that sentiment in not the most comforting of ways. That's why Heero only stared back in return, still wary of that mischievous smile. He wasn't blind or dumb-he could guess what it meant, in a situation like this.

"The sooner you help him, the sooner you may have another of your alcoholic beverages," Shini reminded him brightly, tapping a soapy finger in the air. "And since you have none remaining, you better hurry if you want to go purchase some more, Heero." He laughed and doused his head with water again, ready to start on the second cleansing. The mud and supernatural gunk was caked in his hair and feathers too much to be rid of in one cycle of rinsing. Shini went happily to work washing out the snarls in hair, and fluffed his wings expectantly.

He had a point. Making an impatient face, Heero asked flatly, "What am I supposed to do, then?"

Shini was scrubbing at either side of his head with both of his hands, massaging his scalp as he went along, eyes closed happily. "Just clean, please, Teishu-sama. He doesn't care how."

"I said don't call me that."

"What?" Shini asked, when he had lifted his head out of the water again.

He was innocently sticking a finger in his ear and trying to get the water out. It made Heero scowl, but he sighed and dutifully began his cleaning task. "Never mind," he muttered under his breath, lifting his hand tentatively up to the nearest black wing. The automatic though of, 'This is ridiculous,' floated into his mind, but a more frightening, more motivating one came to mind. If he didn't just suck it up and get it over with, he'd have to spend more time in a bathroom, with a particularly devilish Angel of Death, bathing him. That was enough to spur him to start running his fingers through the silky black feathers, brushing away the residues and dirt lodged there.

He ignored the fact that the Shinigami started purring faintly and grinning to himself as he continued to wash out his hair, with a lump of shampoo in his bangs. He ignored it, and instead forced himself to focus on the wings that he was preening. No, not his wings-he still couldn't watch the muscles of his back twisting with the slightest flutter without losing himself. He focused instead on the trails of Darkness oil lacing the feathers. As soon as he ran his fingers over some, it would dissipate in a small wisp of black vapor, triggered by his skin. That vapor disappeared into the air silently and it was a little unnerving for a mortal to watch. Shinigami, however, didn't seem to be bothered and went on obliviously with kneading out his hair for a second time.

While Shini washed his hair a third, a fourth, even a fifth time to make sure it was completely clean, Heero was engrossed in his task, slowly losing the awareness that he was sitting on the edge of the tub, with a God of Death. He often got wrapped up in his tasks and thought of nothing but just working. He ran his fingers through the shorter, lighter feathers close to the bone, continuing until long, black flight feathers slid between his fingers and little wisps of black dissolved in the air. The dirt fell away with a little effort, and the Darkness oil was gone after a single preening. He was so involved in the process that he even started picking out fallen feathers and smoothing ruffled ones back into place.

He didn't notice that Shini had finished with rinsing out his hair and simply hunched over happily in the water, relishing the feeling of having his wings preened by hand-usually he just dipped them in a little water and shook them out, but it felt much better this way. His head was half-dipped in the water, and his lips bubbled happily while his Teishu's hands stroked through his feathers again and again. He even started fiddling with the bar of soap in his bliss while Heero kept cleaning meticulously.

He barely even noticed that he'd become so obsessed with the Shinigami's wings, and leaned over the water to reach at a dislodged down feather on his far wing. However, it wasn't completely detached and when Heero pulled on it, Shini yelped loudly and sat bolt upright with a splash. The soap burst out of his hand like a greased pig and fell to the tiled floor beside the mortal's foot.

"Sorry," Heero mumbled, as he realized what he was doing and came out of his focused haze.

"Ow, ow." Shini was rubbing at the bone in his wing, where the feather had been ripped from the skin, biting on the tip of his tongue. "You should be more careful, Teishu. That hurt."

The mortal man leaned down and picked up the bar of soap out of the puddle of warm, sudsy water forming on the tiles, dripping over the rim of the tub, and turned, saying dully, "I thought I said I don't want to be called that anymore." He had no expectations to find that he had been ambushed in a way, and he froze up once he realized that he'd been caught.

A hand, pale in comparison to his Oriental skin tone, wrapped around his hand, closing it around the bar of soap and at the same time holding him in place. The Shinigami had moved silently and now leaned against the side of the tub, dripping slightly onto Heero's jeans. His hair shimmered a rich chestnut color, freshly washed and lustrous in the artificial lighting, and he was sitting in Heero's shadow as he leaned slightly over the tub. He was leaning upward to keep his face close to the mortal's and smiled silently at him.

They were so close that only their breath separated them from each other, and the hazy, glowing look in the Shinigami's eyes made it clear that he would only get closer as he gazed at the mortal's face. His eyes were crossing slightly together as he watched Heero's lips shamelessly from such a close range and watched him freezing up nervously and not moving from his spot. Even as he inched closer, he didn't snap out or jerk away, and that was enough non-protest for an invitation in the Shinigami's opinion.

"But you must see, he cannot help himself," Shini confessed to him, beneath his breath. He leaned up in the shadow of his mortal husband, his inhuman violet eyes simmering with lust, and consummated his lips with Heero's in a hungry kiss, one that had been started and not finished in the tool shed in the deep woods of America.

At first, it was his first instinct to jerk away from the Shinigami, and the Shinigami expected it any second but kept on, craving any contact he could steal. When the first few instants passed and there was no immediate recoil, Shini balled his fist around the mortal's shirt and pulled him down closer until he could press his half- damp chest up against Heero's collarbone, sucking on his lip as they parted for breath. Their chests remained pressed together, adhered by the mortal's now dampened clothing, with Heero pulled nearly on top of the Shinigami by his collar. He was breathing unevenly as he stared down into a flushed humanoid face, and it gazed voraciously back.

It made him think of the few other times before he'd been in a situation such as this, years ago. There had been a few mutual, enjoyed kisses with a girl just leaving high school, but that relationship had blossomed into nothing special and fizzled away with much ado. And there had been one man, one experimental night at a bar with an acquaintance with much too much eyeliner and much too many rounds, that had ended after a single fling in Tokyo.

And now, what had he moved onto-realizing he didn't overtly enjoy the company of either men or women? Gods? Was he really that perverted by his own lonesome life, that he had lost all sense of affection, even toward the memories of his deceased parents? And why had the Shinigami needed to come, and stir up questions like that, which he had no answers for?

Shini seemed to be taking his own sweet time and liberty while the Heero was being overwhelmed by his doubts, and so much so he didn't much realize that he was being kissed. The deity taking whatever opportunity he could get to indulge himself with his mandated husband before his temper came back and he shoved him away. He hadn't moved since first being captured by the lips, and the lack of a refusal was all it took for Shini's lascivious heritage to have its holiday and start running the tip of his tongue coaxing over Heero's lips. It was his moment inside the candy store he'd been staking for weeks, fueled by centuries of immortal heartaches and the woes of an exile without love in an unwelcoming realm.

The Shinigami slid backwards until his back brushed against the wall, until his freshly preened feathers shivered against the tiles, and drew back for a moment's breath. He stared at his arranged husband through half-lidded eyes, and let his lips brush against Heero's, whimpering hungrily as he waited, begged for a response. When Heero didn't react besides to gasp unevenly into the Shinigami's warm breath, he keened out pathetically and crushed his lips back onto the mortal's mouth.

And that's when Heero realized he could taste it again-that hint of cinnamon in the Shinigami's lips. It infuriated him, wondering where the hell it had come from and why, how he would be able to taste it from the Angel of Death. There was no logic-unless every Shinigami tasted of mortal spices, he didn't know how it had come to be. But at the same time, there was something about it, so strange and indescribable, that made him want to lean deeper into the kiss and just enjoy the sensual pleasure of it, loose himself and his worldly burdens of work and death and loneliness.

Apparently, whatever small response he may have given, it didn't come soon enough for one very hungry Shinigami. The hand on his collar, keeping him close, flew away and clamped down on his back, pulling him desperately over the rim of the tub and twisting him to the side.

The Shinigami moaned into his mouth like a child demanding its favorite toy and trapped him beneath him, making sure that that toy would not leave him. His wet hair was sliding over his shoulder and his wings were flapping intermediately. The rod holding the shower curtain clattered and budged slightly each time the Shinigami accidentally knocked it with one of his wings. His tail was twisting madly as he pushed the body of the mortal beneath him, still crushing his lips against his even as Heero started slipping underneath the water, his legs on either side of the Shinigami.

Right about then, the dreamy state wore off and he very quickly realized he was half-submerged, fully clothed, beneath the naked Shinigami and unable to breathe. The last time he checked, he hadn't been able to breathe water or live long with oxygen without suffocating first, and he felt a little panic surge up in him.

Shini didn't seem to be relenting anytime soon, and the desperation, the frenzy with which he was pursuing the kiss wasn't wholly comforting when it was used to pin him beneath the eager Angel of Death.

At the same time Heero started to grunt and twist in protest, the water level reached its limit and started spilling over the edge of the tub. Steaming water poured out onto the tiles, soaking the bathmat and Shinigami's black silk robes sprawled out on the floor. The faucet continued pumping water out at full capacity, and it was only because of that minor distraction that the Angel of Death hesitated in his overly eager advances long enough for Heero to find himself and surge up into a sitting position with his back against the wall. He took a deep gasp of air as he brushed up against Shini's face and lunged at the dial, twisting it off as fast as he could.

With reddened, puffy lips, the Shinigami's moaned breathy against the side of his face, "Teishu-"

"Get the hell off me," Heero ground out flatly as he pressed his back against the wall as leverage to stagger up and away from the enclosing circle of the deity's arms. The hand that had clawed at his back, at his sopping wet shirt to get at the skin beneath it, clenched once before falling free. When Heero stood up, drenched in his clothes-save for his sock feet, which had been spared-he stared down harshly at the Shinigami. "What the hell were you thinking? You could have drowned me!"

Blushing a mortified red but not bothering to cover himself, Shini's lustful gaze shifted to a defensive frown. He curled up in the bathtub and stared up back at him. "He is sorry! He swears would never do such a thing, Teishu!"

"Well, you weren't showing any signs of stopping anytime soon," he snapped back, stepping indignantly out of the tub and trekking across the bathroom floor. Heaping puddles of water fell away from his clothes as he stepped out, scattering more water across the tiles.

Shini scowled over his shoulder, still curled up ashamedly against the rim of the tub. The hurt was shimmering through his upset expression. "Well, if Teishu was so upset about it, he did not give him any signal to stop! He did not refuse him!" He bit at his lip as the mortal man trudged angrily out of the door, ignoring him. "You should start talking to him, perhaps, and this whole situation could have been avoided, no? You should have just pushed him away, then!"

"Forget it." he growled back. "Just forget it, and hurry up and finish."

Heero slammed the door as he left for his bedroom and a change of clothes, dripping water in buckets as he crossed the hall. Opening the door, he could still hear the frustrated whine of a black-winged deity, and quickly shut it behind him to block it out. His stomach was stewing with frustration as he undressed, balled up the soaking clothing, and forcefully threw it into the hamper. "I can't believe I ever agreed to this," he muttered as he stood over the basket, staring off into nothing.

"He's such a child," Heero hissed, though there were still little, warm sparks in his chest when he thought of the moments before. "I'm not his possession, that nervy little brat. He can't just do whatever the hell he wants to me." He balled his fists at his sides. "I'm such an idiot to agree to something like this." The mortal shuddered unhappily and turned to open his closet and find new, clean, and very dry clothes.

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Anata wa otto desu = You are my husband

Ogama = Scythe

Honto ni? = Really?

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[[[A/N]]] Man, do I always get carried away? 7,000 words? This was supposed to be the fun, relax-and-have-a-good-time story! Anyway, I know I'm a tad late for this chapter. Usually it's only ten days or so for each new installment, but I've been a little off this week, writing wise. I must not be lavishing my tiny Buddha statue with enough affection or something. I know that I wasn't too erotic with Shini's advances, but there's plenty of time for that people, don't you worry. Oh boy, if you could only imagine how far this plot line stretches. It's like a railroad on a flat plane, extending off into the mountains for what looks like forever. There's some really sweet {and clever, if I do say so myself} twists in that railroad up ahead, and they're gonna create a whole lot of turmoil for the poor Arrogant Mortal. So don't worry, there will plenty 'o' citrus in the road ahead. Right now, we're about seventy, seventy-five percent through Arc I, but don't be surprised if that might change to sixty or fifty, if I get new ideas.

Oh, and thanks for all the very thoughtful tips on tackling my current nemesis: Geometry. I got a 'B' on my last quiz! Yeah, it's not a 'C'! {My mom would kill me if she knew I got a 'C' on any quiz. No fucking kidding. I get grounded for shit like that.} Ignore that and Have a Grade A Day!