tp5: kippei and shinji

[shattermelt]

Kippei had been carefully investigating the situation in Brown, and he didn't like at all the things he was finding out. Rikkai was up to something, and it wasn't going to be anything good. He was worried about Fudo people, since there had been fights breaking out with the overcrowding, and a lot of them were necessarily between the two races that had most reason to resent the other's presence. He was worried about the station as a whole and what Rikkai was planning, but most of all he was worried about Shinji, who still spent a great deal of his work time down in the troubled areas.

Shinji had been right, he did need to learn how to defend himself, and Kippei was relieved to have a suggestion for what to do about it. Shinji was frustrating the hell out of him still with his reactions to their fight the other night, but Kippei knew he'd screwed that up, and it was his own fault. It didn't change the fact that he need to teach Shinji how to fight. So in spite of the fact that he'd been working more hours every day than he ever had before on the station, he came home with the intent to find Shinji for a self defense lesson.

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[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji was sitting at the table, which he had for once bothered to spread a sheet over, and he was fiddling with the insides of the electronic cat, adding a few little extra bits and putting a shell on it to protect everything. It was a long job and had taken him most of the afternoon, which he had been sent home for since there was a small riot and security had been called in to protec the reactor, cutting down the work detail to half to make it easier to check identification. Shinji had been of two minds about it; happy to go home and work on his own projects but wanting a few more shifts to start getting some money back in his account too. But he had gone home in the end, and decided to finish the cat as a present for Ina, because she needed company if Shinji wasn't going to be down there as often. Coming to that decision he had also decided to put in a few select weapons, that could be voice activated by Ina if she needed them. Nothing too odd, just a few lasers. He heard the door open but didn't look up, halfway through soldering wires into place and wanting to finish before he gave Kippei a proper welcome home.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei sighed, pulling off his jacket as he came in the door, spotting Shinji at the table. Well, that made things easy... though he looked rather absorbed. Kippei stopped at the fridge to grab a bottle of water, and came over to sprawl in a chair, kicking off his boots and taking a long drink as he looked over the parts and tools spread out on the table.

His eyes narrowed at a couple of them, and he tilted his head, giving a closer look. What the hell? "Are you putting weapons in that thing?" he asked, blinking.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

"Yes," Shinji answered, thoroughly distracted as he finished soldering the last wires into place. He then finished attaching the last of the shell and righted the little cat, eyeing it critically but not finding any fault with it. Taking a deep breath, Shinji turned it on and waited. It wagged its tail. It did a lap of the table. It didn't shoot anyone. Awesome.

Shinji leant over the table and kissed Kippei quickly on the lips, grinning.

"Welcome home, Ambassador. It's pretty late...long day?"

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei shook his head; what in the hell did a robot cat need weapons for? He watched it warily as it did it's march around the table, but nothing happened, and then he was distracted by Shinji's warm kiss, something that never failed to send a tingling thrill down his spine, no matter how often it happened.

"Yeah, long day," he answered, smiling up at Shinji as he slouched further down in the chair, reaching around to drag Shinji over to his side of the table and pull him closer.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

His chair went skidding around the table and the little cat watched him the whole way. Shinji was very proud of the little thing and almost laughed at himself for it but felt there were better things to do, like snuggle a little against Kippei, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him close, petting his hair as if Kippei were a cat and kissing his temple. Long days sucked.

"It's for Ina," he said, nodding toward the cat. "To replace me. I'm not sure what that says about my self-image, but whatever."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei straightened slightly, his eyes widening, suddenly feeling kind of bad on all kinds of fronts.

"You?" he asked slowly, and shook his head, turning his face into Shinji's shoulder and breathing in the sexy smell of Shinji when he'd been working. God, he was tired. "It couldn't replace you," he muttered. "She'd much rather have you back." He felt guilty as hell; he'd taken Shinji away from Ina and he hadn't even done a good job of keeping him, this was twice now that they'd gotten into a huge fight because Kippei had screwed up.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

"Well, maybe replace was a bad word. I still go see her but not every day like I used to and I don't like her being there all by herself so I just want to know that when I'm not there something is at least looking out for her. Besides, I told her about the ship and making the cat and she seemed pretty excited, but I think she was excited about the ship not the cat, but still the cat's not doing anything here other than getting in the way sitting by the bed when we're asleep so....I want her to have it. She might enjoy it. Maybe. Or she'll find it annoying and shoot it. Whatever." He enjoyed just getting to hold Kippei after a damn long day.

"I got sent home because there was a riot in brown and we needed to cut down on personnel near the reactor."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei tensed up again, reminded of the issue of safety down in Brown. There was a riot? That was new, sort of, and Shinji had been almost caught in it and he didn't like that at all.

"A riot?" he asked, frowning. "Damn," he muttered, wishing his sources, such as they were, could give him better information about what was going on down there and more importantly, what was being planned.

"You wanted me to teach you how to fight. I think it's about time we started." He shifted, sitting up and stretching a bit, thinking wearily that it was a good idea, but the timing sucked. They should have done this weeks ago, when they had time.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji frowned. He didn't expecially like the idea of fighting, but he was serious when he said he did not want to be Kippei's weakness, so he nodded and looked down at himself. He was already filthy so getting dirtier was not going to matter.

"Here, or somewhere else? There isnt much room in here...You not going to beat me up for not having sex the last few nights right?"

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei shot him a startled look. "The hell? What do you think I am?" Frowns as he stands up, running fingers through his hair. "If I was going to beat you up for that I'd have done it already," he said gruffly. He was shocked and a little hurt that Shinji would even suggest it, and apparently think it a legitimate concern.

"There's a place we can go, it should be fairly empty now." There was a workout room he usually used that had a nice mat area which would be good for this kind of training.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji burst out laughing and shook his head, incredulous.

"I was kidding! Geez, you['re the one who should be worried; I think we've established I'm the one with the temper in this relationship. Honestly, like you'd ever bash me up." He got up and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, then linked his arm through Kippei's, grinning.

"You worry too much."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

"I... I worry too much?" Kippei stared at him, and shook his head, extricating his arm as he leaned down to tug his boots back on.

"What the hell are you worried about, is what I'd like to know," he grumbled, not really expecting an answer since Shinji had shown no signs of wanting to talk about what had happened the other night; he'd simply been quietly stubborn about not having sex, and Kippei was insanely frustrated and thoroughly confused and wished heartily that the whole thing had never happened, or at least that he hadn't been so stupid about it.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

"Yes, you worry too much! About silly unimportant things! Like maybe Shinji wasn't joking and really thinks I'm going to beat him up. Me? I think about important things, like to how to make love to my boyfriend so he actually enjoys it for once!" He stomped into his shoes, stomping a few extra times under the pretence of getting them on comfortably, then ordered the door open.

"Come on, lets go let you get your 'revenge'." He rolled his eyes and started walking.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei stared after him, absolutely stunned. He couldn't possibly mean... "Hey!" he called, catching up and taking Shinji's arm, turning him around to face him, uncaring that they were now standing in the middle of the hall. "For once?" he asked in a quiet, tense voice. "You think I've never enjoyed it with you before?"

That was just... so unbelievably wrong. Shinji couldn't have meant that.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji blinked. Huh? Then he rolled his eyes again and smacked Kippei on the back of the head lightly.

"That's what I mean! You've never had me make love to you! We always do it together, and you always make love to me, and I hate saying that...'make love'...musta been a girl who thought of that...but we've only ever done it one way, not the other, and no, I don't think youve ever enjoyed it that way because you fucking freaked about it! Or you should have freaked and so I freaked for you, same diff!"

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei groaned and shook his head. Jesus. "Fuck, no," he growled, "it's nothing to freak out about." Frustrated, he pushed past Shinji to lead the way because he was so not having this conversation in the halls. Or ever, maybe, because he was not getting through to Shinji trying to explain and he still had no idea why it was bothering Shinji so much anyway.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Big growly idiot! Shinji stomped his way along behind Kippei, but his feet got sore pretty quickly, so he slowed to normal and reached out, snatching Kippei's hand and squeezing it gently in quiet apology for fighting again. Apparently it was his default setting when frustrated.

"Is it hard to fight? It looks hard." He frowned. He wasn't uncoordinated, and he didn't exactly shy away from violence. It just seemed...like too much effort! Heh.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

"It's not hard," Kippei sighed absently, linking their fingers together as they walked. He was frustrated and angry with himself and he wanted to shake Shinji for being so ridiculously stubborn about it all, but at the same time he hated fighting and he wished it would just go away. Why did Shinji have to insist the two things had anything to do with one another? It didn't make sense to Kippei at all.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Kippei was all tight and frustrated and Shinji felt incredibly guilty, and not a little worried that maybe Kippei might just overestimate Shinji's non-existant fighting abilities and that would just make it worse! He had to make Kippei relax, so he skipped a step until they were side by side and wrapped and leant his head on Kippei's shoulder while they walked for a minute, before leaning up and kissing his ear and whispering.

"I love you more than anything on any world. I just want to make you happy all the time, and never hurt you." Same as you're doing, taking me to learn to fight.

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Kippei exhaled, a long unhappy breath, and shook his head. "You would never hurt me," he muttered, and wasn't that the whole point? He knew that and Shinji knew that so what was the problem here? His arm slipped around Shinji's waist and held on anyway, feeling slightly relieved just to have him there, although he was still frustrated as hell.

"I love you too." But you're driving me crazy.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji smirked, sure there was more to that last statement than he was getting to hear but not wanting to push his luck. He settled for walking quietly, enjoying being close to Kippei and cuddling him as they walked and he had no idea, but since the fight he had become more protective of Kippei, as if he went from being the unbreakable soldier to suddenly being almost childlike and needing protection. He wasn't about to mention this to Kippei, but it was still odd. He wondered why that happened.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei sighed. "I'm fine, Shinji." I've always been fine, he wanted to add, which certainly wasn't true, but Shinji had been treating him like he was about to break recently and it was as frustrating as the rest of it. He'd certainly never needed someone to protect him before, and it was kind of nice that Shinji seemed to want to, in theory, but in practice it was another thing that was driving him crazy.

He was relieved to see the workout room up ahead, and pointed it out to Shinji. "That's where we're going."

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji felt suddenly nervous. He was about to let Tachibana know for real how completely useless he could be. That was not a comforting thought. All guys knew how to fight, but Shinji never get past needing to throw a punch. This was going to be embarassing as all hell!

"You know I suck at this right? I mean, I wouldn't have asked for help if I thought I could do it at all."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

"You'll be fine," Kippei assured him, leading the way in and looking around. Mostly deserted, good. He knew Shinji was nervous, but he didn't think it was going to be a problem. He knew Shinji had good reflexes and balance and he probably didn't have any experience--other than randomly punching people when he got in a temper--but that was okay. He could learn.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Fine he said. Shinji was suddenly very aware of how damn big Kippei was, by comparison, and he felt rather stupid suddenly for even thinking he could hurt Kippei. More likely Kippei would kill him...not that Kippei would ever hurt him but damn, there was a lot of muscle hiding in Kippei's lean frame. Deceptive bastard.

Shinji walked around a little, just getting a feel for the room and watching Kippei. He put down the bottle of water near the wall, not wanting to trip over it or worse land on the damn thing.

"So...what do I do?"