tp5 log: cooking

[shattermelt]

So much for sorting things out. Ibu Shinji had been staying at his house for one day, eight hours and thirty minutes or so, and Kippei was more confused now than he'd been when he started. He'd gotten up early and quickly and made breakfast of sorts before Shinji was awake the first day, and that had worked out pretty well, except it did strange things to his heart to see Shinji come walking out in his clothes, sleepy and hair all mussed and Kippei had wanted badly to kiss him, and there was no way that was going to work out well.

So he'd maybe been a little more short and untalkative than usual as they both ate and left to get their respective work done, and it had only been when he came home later and Shinji was there and he realized that he'd spent the entire day looking forward to seeing him there, like he belonged, like they were actually a couple or something and he had someone to come home to, that he really started to feel stressed. Freaked out, Shinji would have said undoubtedly, but soldiers did not freak out, or so Kippei told himself sternly--but he couldn't deny that he was stressed.

What do you want? he asked himself, several times during the night and day that followed, and he'd had to admit that the problem was not that he didn't know what he wanted. It shocked the hell out of him, but he definitely knew what it was. The problem was that he couldn't have it, no matter what, and that was the end of it right there. Or it should be, but Shinji was still here and Kippei could feel it chipping away at his control, his carefully set outlook and guidelines splintering and whether he wanted to admit it or not, it was playing hell on his nerves. Damn, damn, damn. He did not have enough swear words to express the fucked up reality of this situation.

Shinji sat on the couch, tense as all hell and wondering where the hell Ina had ended up because he could sure as hell do with a massage right now. It wasn't just work, though the twelve hour shifts were killing him. It was bloody Tachibana Kippei. Incredibly sexy, downright weird and unfathomable Tachibana Kippei. The guy would be like a rock and getting anything out of him was damn near fucking impossible and then, randomly, as if the sun had come out he would say something nice, or smile, or reach out and touch and Shinji cursed himself for waiting, as if on the edge of a cliff, just waiting to be pushed off, but waiting for those touches. Those words, those rare brilliant smiles. He was a doomed man, completely at the mercy of the damned Ambassador. He was almost positive there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for the man.

Maybe that was how he got to be where he was; he just invited people to stay with them, or made them do so, and then proceeded to confuse the hell out of them for as long as possible until they cracked and gave in to worshipping the ground he walked on. Sighing, Shinji put down the magazine he wasn't reading and made his way to the kitchenette, finding Tachibana-san and sitting on a stool, just watching him. He liked watching Tachibana, when he was at home supposedly relaxed.

"Can I help?" With whatever he was doing.

Kippei looked up from where he was attempting to cook something slightly more complex than just taking something out of a box and heating it up, and it wasn't working very well. Frankly, he sucked at cooking. His sister had vowed to change this once, but... it wasn't like she'd ever had the chance. He covered his wince with a frown and shrugged at Shinji.

"If you want to. Can you cook?" He pushed the book he was using across the table so Shinji could see what he was doing, or trying to do, and went back to his finely chopped vegetables. Why the fuck didn't they sell them finely chopped already? And he was absolutely not thinking about how it was rather embarrassing for Shinji to come out and offer to help with something that Kippei obviously didn't do that often, and he just hoped to god that Shinji didn't ask any awkward questions, like why he was doing it in the first place. Kippei wasn't at all sure he knew the answer to that, but he was fairly certain he wouldn't like it if he did.

Cook? Shinji stared at the book and then back at Kippei. The closest he had ever come to cooking was a microwave with a frozen lunch. Still, it couldnt be that hard right? Except that Tachibana was obviously having trouble with it. Curious, Shinji read through the recipe and wondered why the hell Tachibana was cooking anyway when you could get just about everything frozen and just zap it. Still it was nice, watching him in the kitchen, cooking, or attempting to.

"Um...I can't cook," Shinji mumbled, a little embarrassed to admit to something he couldn't do. Sure, he could fix any cooking device known to be made, in a pinch. That didn't mean he could actually use them.

Kippei shrugged, and went back to work. Finely chopped vegetables, check, and what came next? He retrieved the book and frowned at it, trailing down the list of instructions with his finger until he found his place.

"Just sit there and look pretty then," he told Shinji absently, because it wasn't like this could be any harder if Shinji was sitting there watching him do it. More embarrassing, yeah, but not really harder. He carefully stirred the prescribed amounts of various things together, and hoped there weren't any lumps. He wasn't sure what to do if there were lumps, but he was pretty sure they were bad.

Shinji gaped a little. On the one hand, Tachibana Kippei had just said he was pretty. On the other, he had used it to insult him. Glaring at Tachibana's back, Shinji grabbed the book angrily and looked at it again, looking at what Tachibana was doing and trying to see where he was up to. Looking at what was still left on the table, Shinji poked at the pieces of meat and shrugged. That couldn't be too hard. He wandered around the bench and turned on the stove and hunted down a pan. There was oil on the bench so he sprinkled some in the pan and waited for it to heat, then went to toss in the meat, but hesitated, reading the book again. What the hell did that mean?

"Do I have to cut it up or what?"

Kippei blinked, watching him move around the kitchen like he owned it and okay, that was so not helping his emotional equilibrium at all. What would it be like, to share living space and have someone here all the time, someone who was meant to be there and share and do things randomly whenever they felt like it?

The mental effort it took to ignore this idea made him a bit slow in responding, but he finally came over to look at the book, leaning over Shinji's shoulder to read the page. Not that close, really. Perfectly normal and it shouldn't feel hard to breathe. He eyed the page in concentration.

"Hmm... I don't think so?" he said doubtfully. "It doesn't say to... it says to brown it, I think you just put it in and like... turn it over several times." So he didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Shinji didn't either, apparently, but damn if he was going to be the first to admit it.

A low chuckle spilled out of Shinji, because this was sort of fun, pretending they had any idea what they were doing, and having Tachibana that close felt damn good. Sure, it was a 'safe distance' but Shinji couldn't help leaning back into it a little as he dropped the fillets in the frying pan and then stepped back, wide eyed and shaking his hand as hot oil spat over it. He realised belatedly he had stepped back into Tachibana-san and promptly stepped to the side, ducking behind his hair and cursing himself. It had been comfortable and fun and he'd gone and ruined it because Tachibana would be uptight and in a foul mood the rest of the night.

"Sorry," he mumbled, grabbing the spatula and attacking the stupid meat.

Kippei didn't answer him, falling silent and biting savagely at the inside of his lip. God this was just never going to work. The longer Shinji was here the harder it became to remember how strange this was, how very bad of an idea, and yet the more it unsettled him because it was so very different, and he really didn't know how to respond to it, except to remember that he shouldn't need to because it fucking shouldn't be happening, dammit! Things like wanting to touch, to catch and steady him when Shinji stepped back, wanting to push his hair back and see him and put comforting arms around him and not incidentally kiss the hell out of him.

The 'what' of what he wanted bothered him a great deal less than the why. Because there wasn't a why, there wasn't a reason, it didn't make sense to him at all. He'd never met anyone he couldn't ignore, couldn't put out of his mind at will, anyone that made him feel like softening and letting go and coming closer was something he would give anything to be able to do. But he couldn't. Even if he could, he didn't know how. And he'd never hurt that much before, except once.

Obviously he was certifiably insane for looking for more of it, for not kicking Shinji out with the rest of the refugees in the garden, because no matter what he said there was no reason why he couldn't. He just... didn't want to. Even if he was pretty damn sure that he really, really couldn't stand another day of this.

Tachibana Kippei was definately the most confusing person he had ever met. Shinji stared at him from behind the veil of his hair and wondered what the hell was going through his head when he paused like that and scowled as if berating himself. Shinji was pretty damned sure he was damning himself for inviting Shinji to stay at all, but really it was his fault since he had threatened to drag Shinji here kicking and screaming if he had to. But Shinji was surprised how much he liked it. It wasn't home and regardless of how comfortable it was he was still sleeping on a couch and not in a bed, but he was extremely aware it was a thousand times better than the people he worked with were getting, and it had the added bonus of being able to watch the Ambassador.

"What are you meant to do with the vegetables?"

"Just...mix them up with this other stuff and the meat and..." Something like that. Really, how was he supposed to remember anything about cooking when he was trying not to feel and trying not to care and mostly getting angry at himself for failing. And then there was the vague suspicion he couldn't get rid of that Shinji actually really wanted him to, that Shinji wanted him and Kippei just really did not need to know for sure one way or the other about that. Because it didn't matter and if Shinji did then Kippei didn't want to know because he would feel even worse about the whole damn situation.

Even though deep down where he was absolutely not even coming close to admitting it, he already knew.

"Sauce," he said finally, finding the book and forcing himself to focus on some activity that actually had a point. "We're making sauce, for spaghetti, so the vegetables get stirred into tomato sauce and then... stir it into the meat you're browning, I think." It wasn't sauce with meatballs, because Kippei definitely knew that was out of his league, but it was ground beef or ground something and it was supposed to get stirred into the sauce, or maybe the other way around--Kippei wasn't very clear on that.

Blinking, Shinji looked from the different contents over to the book again and slipped past Tachibana to get a better look at the page, reading it thoroughly then shrugging. Tachibana's version sounded better. He grabbed the jar of tomato sauce and poured it over the...ground beef? What the hell was ground beef and where the hell had Tachibana got it? Really was a weird guy, but he was cooking, or attempting to, for some reason Shinji could not fathom and it was damn cute, so whatever. He snatched the vegetables and threw them in as well with a grin. This was kind of fun. Stirring, he glanced over Tachibana's shoulder and frowned.

"Um...is there meant to be pasta? Like...noodles? Or something? I mean if this is sauce it goes on something right? We're not just eating sauce?" Because even for Tachibana that would be weird.

Kippei gave him a faintly insulted look. "I didn't get to that part yet," he answered stiffly, which was kind of true--actually, he'd been concentrating on the hard part, which was the sauce, and kind of forgotten about it. And since the sauce was pretty much done now--it just had to be stirred occasionally and simmered for a bit--it was a perfect time to make the pasta. He wished he could say he planned it that way, but maybe Shinji would think he did.

He pulled the spaghetti noodles out of the cabinet, rummaged until he found yet another pan--how the fuck did cooking one meal manage to use up so many dishes anyway?--and filled it with hot water, setting it to boil and hoping it didn't take too long. He was getting hungry, and the sauce smelled good.

Comments

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Annoying, distracting, infuriating...Ambassador. Like he was a fucking Ambassador anyway. Sure he had the title but Tachibana was a soldier through and through. Shinji wasn't convinced his people hadn't somehow made a living man out of stone, with no brain that just did what it was told. Okay, so that was mean, but he was trying to stay out of the guy's way, trying not to be a nuisance because he hadn't let Tachibana drag him here just to be snapped at in his time off, but every time he tried Tachibana followed him! His fingers strayed to the glass of water, picking it up and taking a sip, putting it down and pulling loose the lodged nail with a little triumphant noise. He glanced out from under the fall of his hair to see Tachibana staring at his hands like something off Frankenstein and suddenly felt incredibly hideous. Were even his hands so ugly Tachibana hated them? They were just hands! Putting down the broken pieces, he wrapped his hands in the bottom of his shirt, as if he were brushing them off on the material, but then he left them there and glanced over at the meal. Tachibana had gone to the trouble of putting it on a plate for him, and cooking it in the first place. He would probably be annoyed or angry if Shinji didn't eat it when he was supposed to. Tentatively, Shinji reached out with a slightly shaky hand and grabbed the plate, putting it in his lap, then picking up the fork and poking it. He looked again at Tachibana, then quickly took a bite. Somehow this was even worse. Eating in front of Tachibana Kippei had just become the most embarassing thing ever.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Shinji looked nervous suddenly, and Kippei frowned and bent his head, concentrating on his own food. He hadn't meant to make the man nervous, or uncomfortable or anything like that, although he supposed it was a fair trade off for the way Shinji had shaken him up lately, throwing his entire life off balance, or so it seemed. What were the odds of him coming out here to find the one person he couldn't ignore? He found himself wanting to say something reassuring or equally ridiculous, and god, that was a suicidally stupid idea.

In his effort to concentrate on something other than the distracting pull of Shinji's presence, he ate faster than he meant to, leaving him with nothing to concentrate on but Shinji, and he decided grimly that he didn't care. He set the plate aside, laying it on the floor and picking up the glass of water he'd forgotten about. Leaning back and draping his arm over one knee, he watched Shinji with a silent, meditative look, thinking for once about things he rarely did.

Things like Shinji's sister and what she meant to him, how she made him feel, and the fact that how he felt about Shinji had little or nothing to do with his sister. It was maybe, a little bit wistful, thinking that what he wanted and how much he wanted it had nothing to do with anything, either, and sometimes the universe was just a bitch like that.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

God, Tachibana had finished already and he was barely haflway through. Shinji stared at the food on his plate and contemplated trying to down it quickly, but he was getting full anyway, so he took a few more steady mouthfuls and then put it down, hoping Tachibana wasn't going to get antsy about him not eating all of his precious home cooked....really yummy food.

"Why do you do that?" He hadn't meant to ask, but it was unnerving, having Tachibana just sit there watching him, with so many pissed off emotions on his face it was almost frightening. Why do you watch me like that?

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei blinked, thoroughly startled. What? He frowned. "Do what?" He'd been a little more relaxed than he meant to be, hadn't been thinking about what he was doing, what he must look like sprawled out on the floor here and watching Shinji eat... that was probably rude. Not to mention really undisciplined, but that went without saying where Shinji was concerned. Kippei's mouth twisted in a grimace and he looked down, clenching his fingers around the glass of water.

"Sorry," he said quietly. "Didn't mean to." What the hell was wrong with him? Get over it. Stop looking, stop wanting, break your damn stupid heart already and forget about it because it isn't going to happen.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Tilting his head to the side, Shinji stared at Tachibana, confused. He obviously knew what he was asking but he wasn't telling, which was really sort of annoying.

"Why do you do that then? Apologise for being you?" Shinji liked him, or the him that was underneath the soldier. The soldier was more than a little terrifying.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

What? Kippei just stared at him, having totally lost the grid for this conversation.

"I apologise for... making you uncomfortable, that is all," he said gruffly, but he had no idea what Shinji was talking about in the first place. Apologise for being him? What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Frowning, Shinji wondered if Tachibana even knew what he did sometimes. Maybe there were two Tachibana's, like a split personality, Tachibana and Kippei and he could kill off Tachibana and have Kippei...but that so was not going to happen. He smirked suddenly, abandoning his plate and crawling over to kneel in front of Kippei, watching him in the same way he had been watched, only doing it so much more deliberately and so much closer.

"If you like watching, why apologise for it? You liked cooking dinner, you didn't apologise for that."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei scowled, fighting the urge to move backwards, away from that intense look. He was not running away from somebody that was shorter and probably half his weight, dammit!

"Maybe I should," he growled. It had been an equally stupid impulse to give in to, cooking for Shinji when he didn't even know how to cook, and just because it had miraculously turned out decently didn't make it any more sane to have done it in the first place. It was stupid and.... romantic, or as close to it as Kippei ever got and he knew it, and he should definitely apologize for that because he didn't, couldn't mean anything by it. Even if he did. Or he wanted to.

What he wanted, he reminded himself again, had no bearing whatsoever on what actually happened in his life.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

"Mmm....I don't think so. I think you should feel proud of yourself. You decided to cook something and it tasted really good, so you succeeded." Even if Shinji still didn't get why he had wanted to in the first place. Cooking, in his opinion, was a damn weird thing to do when you could get anything just about instantly from all over the station. Then again, Tachibana wasn't exactly normal.

He had the sudden urge to kiss him, to make him feel better, to show him he was wonderful...weird, but wonderful, but he kept remembering that night he had tried to take him out and how badly it had gone then. Tachibana Kippei didn't like his kisses at all; didn't like touching him at all. Still, there had to be some place he liked being touched. He reached out quickly, so Tachibana couldn't stop him and very gently ran his fingers through his hair, shivering at the texture and slowing the action because he suddenly wanted to do it again, but he wouldn't be able to. Just as his fingers were breaking free from the soft strands, Shinji leant in and kissed Tachibana, on the skin just beside his ear.

"You don't need to apologise to me." Then he went back to his food, suddenly finding it immensely interesting.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei felt his heart stop and then start again with a funny little jerk and jesus god, he knew that look on Shinji's face, Shinji did want him and--he didn't need to know that. He didn't need to know that at all. That soft, affectionate touch on his hair and the brief, gentle kiss were almost worse than that last time Shinji had kissed him, in terms of the shock to his system. Oh god, I want that, I want you, why do you keep making it so hard not to want you?

He definitely needed to apologize, but he couldn't find his voice. Which was probably a good thing because if he did he would probably say all kinds of things that would be a really, really bad idea.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Tachibana wasn't saying anything, which Shinji thought was probably equal parts good and bad. He sneaked a peak at him, but he was just staring, as usual, at nothing really, so Shinji reached out and grabbed his plate, collecting the dishes and taking them over to the dishwasher. He wondered if Tachibana wanted him to keep the leftovers...they were really nice, but it really would have been easier to have just eaten it all. But, apparently Tachibana ate soldier portions of everything, of course. Shinji considered a meal to be something half the size but whatever. He went about packing up the dishwasher and getting a load going, giving Tachibana some space so he would maybe feel better again.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei shook himself, attempting to shake off his shock, but it wasn't working that well. He watched blankly as Shinji took their dishes and started cleaning up, once again acting as if he just belonged here and Kippei nearly bit through his lip trying not to cry out, to stop him, to say don't DO that leave me alone go away I can't do this.

Instead he just watched, wishing like hell that this could be normal, that he could ask Shinji to stay and not go back to his own place when the reactor leak was fixed. What the fuck was he thinking, wanting Shinji to stay? But he wanted a hell of a lot more than that, and it was impossible. So he stayed silent in a kind of agony that had nothing to do with the physical hurts his many injuries had given him over the years... it was an entirely new kind of pain to be face to face with something he wanted more than he'd ever wanted anything before, unless it was wanting his sister back, and it was equally unattainable.

Except it wasn't, because he knew too well now that Shinji wanted this too, that as far as Shinji was concerned he could have what he wanted and Shinji probably wouldn't even understand why he just...couldn't. He groaned softly to himself and fell back onto the floor, laying flat and throwing an arm across his eyes so he didn't have to look anymore. You're going to break me, Ibu Shinji. Maybe he already had.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Finishing putting everything in, Shinji started the dishwasher and went back to clean up the mess he had started making. He would have continued working but the truth was he had forgotten to bring a tiny little piece of it home, without which he couldn't really proceed. But he was pretending he just got bored of it. Tachibana looked...hellishly good sprawled out on the floor like that. Shinji could all too easily imagine a bed under him and a sheet tangled around those legs instead of his pants and...damn it. Why was the man so damn attractive? He shrugged and leant over, cringing when his hair brushed against Tachibana's cheek, shaking his shoulder a little.

"You'll fall asleep doing that, which is fine. You can fall asleep wherever you want, but the bed's probably more comfortable...definately is if its anything like the couch, so...bed? Or a shower? Or something?" What the hell was he doing mothering Tachibana Kippei? The guy was going to deck him!

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei opened his eyes when that soft hair brushed his cheek, even though something told him that was really a spectacularly bad idea. Shinji was way too damn close and what the hell, he looked concerned or something and he was tugging at his shoulder and saying something but for a moment Kippei couldn't hear or see or think anything except oh my god, his eyes....

That was a sterling example of intelligent thought to be sure, but Shinji was close and his eyes were big and soft with concern and holy fuck, Kippei was going to kiss him in another second and he was sure Shinji could tell. He closed his eyes and turned his head and took a deep breath, and then the words sank in. Sleep. Not bloodly likely, although he was tired as hell. Shinji had just invited him to come to bed--or even worse, a shower! and Kippei knew that wasn't what he had meant at all, but the way it had sounded just about killed any chance he had of rational thought at the moment.

He rolled over, away from Shinji, and pushed himself up, forcing himself to get up and move away even though his entire body and half of his mind, too, were screaming at him that wherever the hell he went he better drag Shinji with him.

"Right," was all he said out loud. He scrubbed his face with his hands and tried not to pull his hair (or remember how Shinji's fingers had felt stroking through it) and set his jaw with iron determination. Going into the bedroom, by himself, and at least pretending to sleep, dammit. "Goodnight," he said quietly, and got out of Shinji's way before he did something insanely stupid like tackling him there and kissing everywhere he could reach and tearing clothes off until he could get to more of him. All of him. Fuck.

He closed the door behind him very, very carefully, and pretended he was in control of himself for about five seconds before he groaned and shuddered and leaned against the wall, tore open the button on his pants and started jerking himself off, quick and hard and oh god, Shinji's name on his lips when he came. It was the most stupid thing he'd ever done, he was sure, and it also felt better than anything, ever.

[ayretala.livejournal.com]

Shinji just blinked at the door. That man...was infuriating. Confusing. Sexy as all fucking hell. And completely out of his league. Sighing, Shinji straightened and went over to the couch, fixing the makeshift bed he had been sleeping in before pulling his shirt off and dumping it on the floor nearby and collapsing on the 'bed'. Maybe Tachibana had it right; sleep was going to feel really good. When he got to sleep, after hours of remembering what that hair felt like, and that skin and...fuck. Sometimes he hated Tachibana, because even when he was an arrogant arsehole the guy still managed to turn on every button Shinji had. Maybe he should ask Sada for help...and he really was tired, and apparently insane because that was just about the dumbest idea he'd ever had. He went to sleep, thinking of his sister and her new brother and her old brother and he didn't want to think about what else.