(A/N) Hey, everyone, Mo here. This is your official LEMON WARNING. Got that? This story has sexual content. If you’re not allowed to read stuff like this . . . well . . . don’t read it!! K now you can’t say I didn’t warn ya. Be kind, puhleeze. This is my first Sano/Megumi fic as well as my first LEMON. RK belongs to the Esteemed Creator of it (whose name I can never remember) and I'm just borrowing for a lil' bit. Flames ‘n’ nasty stuff must be hand-carried to the lowest pits of hell. Have a nice day.
Monologues - Sano
Y’know, there’s some people who think that if you
save a person’s life, they belong to you. Sometimes I’ve
thought that with me, it’s the other way around. I saved Takani
Megumi’s life, and from that second on, I belonged to her.
These are the kind of thoughts I get about three or four in the morning, when I’m so stinkin’ drunk I get to wondering if it’s not possible to come out the other side and be stone-cold sober. I’ve tried it plenty of times. Lucky for me I don’t get too many hangovers--unless I’ve really tied one on--but that doesn’t stop Megumi from scolding.
See what I mean? When I’m this sloshed, everything comes back to her.
Anyway, this particular night, I was coming back from the dojo. Kenshin and I had been having one of our periodic drinking parties. As scrawny as that rurouni is, he can drink like a fish and not show any ill effects. When I left, stumbling and weaving, he was cleaning up the wreckage of empty bottles and overturned cups with a steady step and a clear eye.
I tell ya, it was downright depressing.
It wasn’t so much I got lost as my feet took a different direction than my brain said I was. Whatever the case, I found myself in front of the onna-sensai’s clinic before I knew it.
I knew perfectly well she’d be there. She sleeps there most nights--she says in case there’s an emergency. Personally, I think it’s cuz she wants some space to herself. Don’t blame her.
Was she awake? I wondered, hanging on to the side of the clinic so I wouldn’t fall on my face. I sure as hell hoped not. What if she looked out and saw me standing here like the sloppy lovesick drunk I am?
I took several deep breaths in a totally futile attempt to clear my head. The longer you stand out here, baka, the better chance Megumi’s gonna wake up to see you staring in her window like the biggest hentai of all time.
After several minutes, my feet signaled their willingness to move, and I gave it a shot. Unfortunately, my legs turned traitor, and I tripped over her steps, bringing down the clinic sign with me.
Almost before the din had died down, a light came on inside. I considered making a run for it, but rejected that idea when I realized it might scare her if she thought some weirdo had been hanging around. Better she get mad at this weirdo then scared by the idea of some other one.
The front door slid open. “Who’s out there?” she called out, holding up a lamp. She was barefoot, wearing only a white cotton yukata.
Now you gotta realize that I’ve never seen her in less than full attire, kimono and all, plus that smock over top of it. While what she was wearing now was decent enough, as those things go--there was only a tiny bit of her collarbone revealed at the top, and it came down past her knees at the bottom--it hit my eye like some other woman walking around half-naked. All of a sudden, two bare feet were sexiest thing in the world.
Baka! said the big head. You’ve already woken her up, scared her, and broken her clinic sign. You don’t need to disgust her on top of it all with a hard-on.
The hell with that, said the little head. I want.
When she spotted me, her shoulders sagged with the release of tension. “I might have known,” she grumbled, lowering the lamp. “What are you doing here, rooster?”
I gave her my most charming grin. “Oi, kitsune,” I said, drawing up my legs to hide my condition.
Her eyes went wide. “My sign!” she cried out, rushing down the steps.
I picked up the two pieces, feeling guilty. “Gomen. I’ll buy another one.”
She snorted. “Right. On the same day you pay off your tab at the Akebako.” She knelt and took the pieces from me, sighing.
I was struck speechless. Heaven bless yukata, I thought hazily. When she knelt, the shifting of cloth gave me a clear view halfway up her slim white thigh.
She stood up, and the cloth shifted again, returning her to decency. Aw, damn. “Sano, what are you doing here?”
“Got lost,” I said, struggling to get to my feet. In addition to that persistent hard-on, the sake was still muddling my head.
“What’s wrong? You’re even clumsier than usual.”
The sake and my raging libido prevented me from coming up with a snappy answer to that one, so I told her, “Kenshin and I were trying to drink each other under the table again.”
She wrinkled her nose. “From the smell of it, he won.”
“We called it a draw,” I said loftily.
“You ran out of sake,” she guessed.
“Don’t you ever get tired of being so smart?”
Her lips quirked, just the tiniest bit, and I rejoiced. I’d gotten her to smile! But then she slapped her free hand on her hip and said briskly, “Speaking of smart, are you taking care of your hand?”
I held out my right hand, just barely healed after having been broken in Kyoto. It was my best excuse for hanging around at her clinic. I don’t like to brag, but I made a real reputation for myself with my fists, both before and since I met Kenshin. Someone always wants to test that reputation, even now--and then I always wind up at Megumi’s, listening to her grumbling at me for my hotheaded idiocy while she takes care of it.
I figure it’s a fair trade.
She handed me the lamp and took my hand in both of hers, poking and prodding with gentle fingers. “Well,” she said reluctantly, “the bones look all right, for once. But what have you been doing? Look at those bandages!”
I didn’t have to look. I knew how sad they looked. Hell, they were on my hand. “So they’re a little dirty,” I said, shrugging. “So what?”
“Baka,” she muttered. “Come inside; we need to get those changed.” She turned on her bare heel and started up the steps, still holding my hand.
“It’s nothing,” I said, yanking my hand out of her grasp. If I went inside with her now, in my state--both trashed and horny--I would probably do something we’d both be sorry about in the morning. I may be a brawling ex-gangster who mooches off his pals and drinks way too much, but I had to have some standards.
Especially with this woman.
She turned around. She was tall enough that with her on the first step and me on the ground, we were eye-to-eye. “You need to get those bandages changed.”
“I can do it in the morning,” I said, backing away.
“You’ll probably forget. I’m awake--we might as well do it now.”
“That’s all right--really.” I took another step back.
I was about to turn and run when she said softly, “Do you hate me that much?”
Hate her?
I looked around at her. Her shoulders were sagging, and she looked tired. Almost sad.
“Can you honestly not stand to be around me, Sano?”
Aw, hell.
“I--I--” I look at you sometimes and I want to touch you so bad I can’t even breathe. When I sleep at night, I dream of you. When I wake up in the morning, I wish you were there. When I walk into the clinic, I wish I didn’t have to pretend it’s because of my hand. I see you, smell you, hear you, and I hurt because I have no right to touch you or taste you. Hate you? How could I? “No.”
There was something in her eyes, when she lifted her head, that I couldn’t define. Maybe it was only the shadows of the lamp--which I was still holding. Damn. I was so scared of what I might do that I’d nearly run off with it in my hand. “You don’t?” she asked.
“You drive me nuts, but I don’t hate you.”
Her eyelids came down, hiding the expression that so eluded me. “Will you come inside?”
Danger! Danger! my brain screamed. Sano, for once in your stupid life show some good sense!
Screw good sense, my heart snarled back. Like the worst kinda opium addict, I needed every little scrap of her that I could get. “Hai.”
Nevertheless, even my heart turned coward as the door slid shut behind me. We were so alone.
Usually, the clinic was filled with other people--Dr. Gensai, his granddaughters Ayume-chan and Suzume-chan, other clinic patients, and whoever else had just decided to drop by. As much as I had resented the hell outta them all sometimes, they had provided a buffering layer between Megumi and I, insurance that I would never reach out beyond the borders of propriety and safety.
The single lamp in the darkness of the room only reinforced the feeling of isolation. I shored up my self-control as I settled to a cross-legged sitting position and rested my bad hand palm-up on my knee. My erection had--phew!--gone down to the point where the folds of my pants and the drape of my jacket would hide it. I was still turned on, but not to the point where it was instantly noticeable. As she gathered her supplies, I was torn between praying that this would be quick and wishing it could last forever.
She didn’t speak at all as she cut the old bandages away and dropped them to the floor. She did a little more gentle prodding, but I flinched when she touched a particularly tender spot. “Mou,” she sighed. “Honestly, Sano, I think I’m going to have to put your entire arm in a sling to finally get this healed.”
“Che,” I said. “I’d just take it off anyway.”
“You probably would. Nothing and no one’s going to tie you down, is that right?”
I stared at the top of her bent head, at the way the light gleamed off that incredible length of blue-black hair, so long it almost brushed the tatami mats on the floor. You could. If you wanted. “Nope.”
She flipped one side of her hair over her shoulder, and I was mesmerized by the way some of the silky strands slid back down. Damn, Sano, you are a sad case. “--just be repeating myself.”
“Huh?”
“I said, I would tell you everything you’re not supposed to do, but I’d just be repeating myself.”
Just to tease her, I said, “Huh?” again, and she rolled her eyes.
“Baka chicken-head,” she said.
“Know-it-all kitsune,” I returned.
The exchange of insults was vaguely comforting in its normalcy, and I lapsed into silence. To get my mind off her hair, I looked down at my hand. She’d washed it and was now re-bandaging it, the movements of her hands neat and precise as she tied off the last bandage. You have the most incredible hands.
Her head lifted. “What?”
My own head snapped up, and I’m pretty sure I was gaping like a landed fish. Che, had I said that out loud?
Her own eyes were wide and startled. She looked so vulnerable that it gave me courage. “Your hands,” I repeated. “They’re incredible.”
She ducked her head, retreating behind that curtain of hair. “They’re just hands, Sano. Just like yours.”
“Just like mine?” With my good hand, I reached out and took one of hers, nudging it into flattening palm-to-palm with mine. “Look at that.”
Her fingers were slim and white, the nails cut short and rounded so she wouldn’t scratch patients. The palm was narrow and smooth, and the blue veins on the back of it almost glowed through the pale skin. In direct contrast, my fingers were square and callused, the nails ragged and a little dirty. The knuckles were scarred and battered from years and years of brawling in the streets, and the whole thing was as brown as a nut. Against the paleness of hers, mine looked even darker.
“See that?” I said in a softer voice. “Incredible.”
Her fingers flexed uncertainly against mine. “Sano--”
“They look so ladylike,” I continued. “All white and smooth like that. Like they never did anything more strenuous than embroidery or something. But--” I curled my fingers around the tops of hers, wrapping my thumb around the back of her hand. “They work. You work. Grinding medicines and sewing people up and--and bandaging up scruffy punks with no more sense than to keep hurtin’ themselves.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Incredible.”
She snatched her hand back and used it to tuck her hair behind her ear. “You’re drunk, Sano,” she said, moving to get up.
The movement brought her body closer to mine, and impulsively, I caught her by the waist, pulling her against me. Her hair fell around us like a curtain, creating a tiny little world of eyes and mouths and heated breath.
“Sano!” Her voice was a breathy, shocked whisper that catapulted my body into full arousal.
“Megumi,” I whispered back, and slipping one hand up behind her head, urged it down until our lips met.
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