Wrestling

“I can’t figure out why you’re here,” Sano said as he leaned up against the wall next to Saitou and took a long drink from the jug in his hand. “You don’t like parties, you don’t like any of my friends, you don’t drink…”

Saitou nodded.

“You sure as hell aren’t enjoying standing here against the wall.”

“If you’re asking me to come socialize with you, the answer is no.”

“See, what’s the point coming to a party if you’re not even gonna have fun?” Sano laughed as he pushed off and walked away.

The gold eyes that followed were much steadier than Sano’s tipsy gait.

“I don’t understand you two,” Megumi said, glancing over at the police officer when Sano appeared at her side.

“Nobody much does,” Sano replied with a grin. “Not even me, really. I’m just glad jou-chan finally said it was all right for him to come.”

“Well, most of us do hate him,” the doctor reminded him with a skeptical shake of her head, “and as a consequence think you must be crazy.”

Sano shrugged. “Yeah, well, I am.”

Megumi chuckled. “Why did he come, anyway?”

With another grin, this one somewhat craftier, Sano replied, “Now that I actually do know.”

She waited a moment before demanding impatiently, “Well?”

“Just wait ’till I get drunker… you’ll see.”

She looked briefly over at Saitou again, very curious.

Saitou had watched the exchange meticulously, too far away to hear what was being said that made the doctor keep looking at him like that. It didn’t matter, though, as long as she kept her hands off.

Next Sano wandered over to talk to Kenshin, but the rurouni was not to be tempted into a drinking match any more than Saitou was — he’d learned his lesson already about challenging Sano there. Kenshin did seem to be curious about one thing, however: “Why is Megumi-dono watching you like that?”

Sano laughed. “Ain’t important,” he replied. “What you’sh’d really be worried about,” leaning down and saying softly into Kenshin’s ear, “is why Shinomori’s watchin’ you ‘like that.'”

Kenshin barely managed not to appear too startled or to snap his head around to find out if this was true — which was good, as if he’d done so he probably would have knocked Sano over or at least given him a good solid hair-whip in the face.

Over by the wall, Saitou twitched almost visibly as he saw Sano bend and put his mouth so close to Himura’s ear. But it was over too quickly to think about. Much.

Sano was by now a little too muddle-headed to be quite sure how the arm-wrestling got started. He didn’t usually bother arm-wrestling people, mostly, because his general acquaintance couldn’t beat him, and it was a pointless victory for those that could, as they had already beaten him in more meaningful ways in the past. He thought, in this instance, Kaoru might have had something to do with it, as she was his first opponent. She was also half drunk; sober, even Kaoru must recognize the futility of this venture. But now, red-faced from sake and a consequent, disturbing mixture of determination and pointless anger, she plopped herself down across the table she’d had somebody less inebriated drag in (she wouldn’t be pleased tomorrow that it had been used for such a purpose), pulled her sleeve back, and wiggled her fingers in a manner he thought perhaps was supposed to be challenging.

“C’mon, tori-atama,” she growled.

“You’re on, tanuki,” he growled back. He thought they might have been trading more complicated insults just a bit ago, but couldn’t quite remember.

As the Kamiya girl’s hand curled around Sano’s, Saitou scowled and stood straight, his own hands kept very carefully at his sides by sheer force of will.

Somehow, after soundly besting Kaoru a full five times in a row and sending her ranting over to Kenshin, Sano had succumbed to the glory of the moment (victory was sweeter when drunk) and allowed several other challengers to approach him. They were mostly his friends from around town, graciously invited here tonight by the kenjutsu instructor he’d just triumphed over, and they should have known better, but they were all as intoxicated as he was… which by now was quite a bit. The very first one proved what the trend would be, and at the third they all decided to gang up on him — obviously not realizing that even when they all pushed on the opposing hand, the pressure against his grip didn’t really intensify, and he threw the lot of them just as easily. The table cracked, and somehow it was suddenly an actual wrestling match, five to one.

Saitou watched Sano’s stupid game turn into a good-natured tussle, and that was the last straw. They were on top of him, which was something Saitou couldn’t laugh about the way Sano (and just about anyone else watching) was.

Sano found himself suddenly, unexpectedly (well, not really), expertly extricated from the mini-brawl and pulled to the door before being set upright again. “We’re leaving,” a narrow-eyed and very tense Saitou intoned in his ear.

“But–” Sano began, and was cut off as Saitou opened the door without waiting for his protest and dragged him from the dojo. The last thing he saw before the room and the party were out of his line of vision was Megumi’s grin of understanding.

Saitou basically had to support the roosterhead as they walked; the line of the cop’s jaw suggested he was more than ready for any complaint Sano might have about their hasty exit, but Sano wasn’t actually planning on making one. The night had gone exactly as anticipated: plenty of fun at the party, good sake he hadn’t had to pay for, and adorable jealousy from his boyfriend.

“Y’know, ‘fit bugs you so much, I’n wrestle you too,” he said, and spent the next moment trying to figure out exactly what had happened to the logic of the remark between brain and open air.

Saitou only said, “Hn.” Taking this as a ‘go right ahead,’ Sano jumped on him, and they tumbled down.

The wolf couldn’t really be annoyed at this; it didn’t take much ‘wrestling’ to get the drunken idiot pinned, panting, and disheveled on the ground between his legs, looking up at him with bright eyes from a flushed, grinning, expectant face. Sano knew who he belonged to, after all, and only needed occasional reminding. Saitou smirked; bending and pushing the black and white gi aside, pressing his mouth to his lover’s neck, then shoulder, then collarbone, then chest, he began the customary process of marking his territory.

LadyAmes, when she won the Quote Guessy Game, wanted a possessive Saitou, so for her I wrote this item. I’ve rated it .