outfields | open post : picture prompt

"So that's what you remember," she teases, as if it isn't the point of the memory. They'd spent so much of that time wrapped around each other - what else was there to pay attention to? Even for Satsuki, whose mind is prone to never softening, it's almost all she can recall. Her hand follows his, almost startled, the reflex sharp - but she stops before she can touch him through the fabric. "Even memories have to be earned."

The touch is too deliberate; whatever work he's needed to complete, he's as near to done with it as he'll ever be. Satsuki's stoic in the face of so many challenges; it can only be on purpose that she drops her eyes down towards where she knows his hand rests, daring him to do something with it. She knows him too well, knows his movements. There are some things that are just predictable, even for their nonsense species. Satsuki knows he has his ways of responding to challenges. As soon as he rises, there's unlikely to be any more playing.

Her footfall is muffled on the floor beneath her. "Put away your needle and thread." It's no order when he's already finished sewing, just the feeling of their old, familiar paths. She brings a hand around to begin unfastening the top clasp sealing her into his latest project, pausing only to see if he needs to take final measurements.

"If you wish. I'm sure you have your own retirement to look forward to." She doesn't require any further assistance, and he's done enough work for the evening. Like Soroi, he'll volunteer herself for demands she hasn't even made yet. There's very little she can force them to do: frequently, they've already volunteered.

Without waiting for an answer, she stands and turns on her heel, making for her quarters at the end of the long back hallway.

Even around Soroi, she tries to keep her vulnerabilities to a minimum. These nightly rituals, close to when she'll be sleeping, are the most unguarded. In her sleep, Satsuki can hear a mouse sneeze a mile away, but to be domestically naked it to reveal herself...

Even the business is slowly waning from their conversation. "Attrition is up," she informs him, unbuttoning each jacket cuff before she pulls it from each arm. "But so is recruitment." No student should enter their first morning assembly without being properly tailored to their uniform. He'll know the demands born from a new crop of undisciplined children. She grasps at this familiarity, the knowledge that he can understand her with more said. The jacket drops to the small of her back.

Jokes about Sanageyama are low-brow, to be sure, such an easy hurdle to jump there's no challenge in it, but neither of them are above anything, realistically. He's content with taking what he can get.

"My tastes include your somewhat alarmingly, but endearingly, cliche horror collection," he says, following her without resistance. (For what it's worth, he's (mostly) speaking honestly - the murderers and monsters of her films, the gruesome gore and creeping suspense, all of that is straightforward. Much better than shadowy nightmares and toying with fate.)

He pauses nearly as she does, attuned to her movements with rote familiarity. He leans into her hand, lifts his own to curl his fingers over her wrist briefly. "You are as magnanimous as you are beautiful." He's laying it on a little thick, but she started it.

She made that trip remarkable. His record-keeping takes care of the facts of those days, but his memory had filed all of that away as unimportant, keeping instead the way her hair fell around her shoulders and the curve of her mouth against his.

His expression, still but warm, doesn't change as his fingers uncurl, or even as he draws back entirely to gather the loose end of the thread and tie it off. He'll complete it later - when he isn't looking for something more satisfying than beadwork. He ties the knot off and offers his palm for the pincushion.

"As you wish, Lady Satsuki," he answers, light with teasing.

He doesn't bother with a verbal answer, the short hissing sound of the folder sliding across the desk so he can tuck it safely under his arm and his footsteps following hers all the response he needs. He remains a half-step behind her the whole way, close enough he can catch her face in the evening light but far enough she has her breathing room.

"Meeting production requirements will not be problem," he answers. His hand moves automatically to find the collar of her jacket, thumb tucked under the collar and fingers tucked over, so that he can hold it and let her pull herself free. An inelegant, if apt, metaphor. "The most recent round of acceptances to the Sewing Club was larger than the previous, if you recall." He handles the Sewing Club, and has always kept the club's workings carefully under control, with as little outside interference as possible. It's the best way to keep the unwavering loyalty of his subordinates.

When she hears - or feels - the thread sever, Satsuki slips the hook from the eye, letting the dress start to fall open. Undressing has a different meaning for them, but she won't deprive him of having his hand in it if he wants to help.

Satsuki turns and drops the pincushion into his waiting hand, pushing his fingers closed around it. The dress, half-unfastened, drops loosely around her shoulders, exposing her collar bones, the old scars.

"It looks nice." Leave it to her to measure the success of his fashion. A triumph, even by your hands."

She's careful not to disrupt his handiwork, even as she stands astride him, one foot on either side of his knee. She's close enough to bring his face against her stomach if she pulled him there. Instead, she drops her hand to his elbow, bracing him so he can pull himself to his feet - and just maybe into her mouth.

She's always one step ahead of him, and especially so when it comes to something he stitched her into, translating the movements of his fingers into sentiments. He squeezes the pinchushion, once, and transfers it from one palm to the other to set it aside, looking up at her all the while.

The movements are rote and familiar, but looking at her is always finding something new, past the scars of childhood stripped too young. "If you like it, then my work here is done," he says, because he wouldn't put a dress he's unsatisfied with on Satsuki's skin. Nothing but the best of his best for the lady of the manor.

The heat of her is distracting, over him as it is, but he sets his hand to her arm and rises, to his feet, to her embrace. His hand curves at her cheek, and he kisses her with the satisfaction of a man impatient.

Satsuki shrugs her shoulders once as soon as the jacket's gone, feeling the new freedom in her arms.

"Your roster should be long enough now. The Honnouji Academy Sewing Club follows a unique code of conduct. The resources required to train new members ensure that the Life Fibers are only touched by capable hands." All information he knows, of curse, but Satsuki relays it thoughtfully as she continues to walk and undress, fingers deft on each button. Capable hands, another phrase which for them holds multiple meanings: the fervent deification of the Life Fibers and their true presence as a formidable threat.

She's half-naked by the time they reach the bath. "I plan to increase the Club's voting weight in matters pertaining to budget and overhead." Satsuki tsks softly. "Make sure you spend it in the right place."

There it is, brief and delicate though the moment is: a split second of softness and familiarity. Her eyebrows peak. "Are you really so eager to serve as my attendant in this capacity? I've asked enough of you." No doubt he'd follow her willingly, but in her service?

Satsuki's always shy when they kiss like this, a completely different side of herself from what others see - what she lets them see. It's in the subtle way she tucks her head, the way her hand hesitates on the way up to cover his. She's not a timid or submissive person, but the intimacy disarms her and leaves her soft.

She leans her head to the side, the right side of her neck straightening into a tight, sloping line. As the kiss breaks, she touches her cheekbone to his.

"How could I not?" Satsuki has her high standards. Her expectations have always been cloud-buried, insurmountable to all but a select few. Putting down her false life that came with her dictatorial mantle hasn't changed that. Anything Iori makes, he makes with skill and care. She doesn't have to weigh its value: She'd love anything. As if in confirmation, she drops her free hand low on his back to pull him flush against her.

He drapes her jacket gently over his forearm, letting her talk. The fluff of familiar information usually follows a path to a different conclusion. At her warning, a flash of laughter lightens his mouth. "My thanks, Lady Satsuki. I'll be sure to allocate all of our new funds to increasing the firepower in the Symphony Regalia's Presto."

He catches her eye, eyes lowering to the floor and then flicking back toward her face. "I choose this duty for myself," he says, "please do not concern yourself." The things he can do for her are wrought with the duty they took on as children. This is not duty, and it will never be enough.

Satsuki, as Shiro knows her, is a sharp blade and surprisingly soft eyes, beautiful and radiant. In the moments between the quieter warfare that is business and the noisy warmth that is her - their - family, the moments they have for themselves, she's... cute, in her way. His fingers flutter under hers when she touches him, and when they break he sighs breath out.

He leans into her without protest or second-guessing, familiar as stitching a seam, pleasant as a freshly-pressed coat. "Your confidence makes it impossible to rest on my laurels, you know," he says, gently pleasant, and skims his fingers down her arm. "We should hang this up," he says, and it's not just because he doesn't want it to wrinkle.

"She won't know what she could have missed." Nonon is the one and only person who'd be pleased by that development. Even the suggestion, no matter how glancing or teasing, would light an unparalleled egotism in her. They'd never hear the end of it - or her suggestions.

"In that case, then. Excuse me. You know where to find the robe and linens." Satsuki gives the direction halfway to the shower already to rinse off, the curve of her spine exposed as she removes everything still left on her upper body. There's a fluidity to her movements, a confidence that never quite melts off of her - but as soon as her breasts are bare she's sure to keep her back to Iori.

"I'll be out presently, so there's no need to worry about the water. What good is a bath if you can't feel its heat cleansing you?" She wants it drawn practically scalding, longs for a heat that can open her muscles. She can withstand the burn - if she can't, what other pains will stop her in her tracks? No.

Satsuki's acquiescence is in a soft mm, punctuated by a squeeze of her hand low on his back. It would be cheeky coming from anyone else; from her, it's...cheeky. "As you say." She turns her head once more, to get one final, full look at the dress in the mirror. Her blind eye to any shortcomings in his handiwork aside, it really is beautiful.

Deftly, but handling the dress as though it's the powdery membrane of a moth's wings, she reaches behind her to continue working open the closure, needling at his impatience with her steady, unhurried hand, and knowing he has two of his own, if he has such a problem with it. And, in truth, the process doesn't need her leading to make it any more arduous. Hung and bagged, the bag looped, the bag tied, his kit pushed safely back beneath the work desk they've been using half as studio, half as office. She stops moving so slowly, then.

Less a testament to her capacity for multitasking and more a testament to her capacity for eyefucking, Satsuki holds his gaze while her fingers work, forfeiting another kiss for this.

"Certainly not," he acquiesces without inflection. Gestures work better on Nonon, keep her from swelling up with pride even louder than usual. Much like Satsuki's careful turns away work better on him than the expanse of bare skin brushing under her hair.

"As you wish, Lady Satsuki." He's already moving to gather her worn clothes and set them aside for washing, to lay his mask and coat out of the way, folder tucked inside the side pocket where its loss would be immediately apparent, when she starts her directions. These are not paths quite as well-traveled as his fingers with a needle, but they're worn enough he spends more time adjusting the water temperature, back of his hand held closely over the slowly rising water level, than he does anything else. It's hot enough he would worry for her skin, if they were anyone else. (But while she may fray at the very edges, Satsuki Kiryuin is a blade forged in ugly truths, and he has always been his first and most trusted mannequin, for the wearing and taming of Life Fibers.)

The woman who was content to tease him through chiffon moments ago has been left behind with such swiftness he's very nearly surprised. Very nearly isn't certainty, though, and his hands duck around her to start from the bottom of the row of closures. Satsuki is the master of eyefucking in this relationship, her intensity narrowed down to live hot under his skin, but Shiro has been making board meetings more exciting with his fingers on a pen and half-lidded eyes for years. This dress, born of his hands, is a child's six-piece puzzle, solved with ease, and when it lays open he finds her skin.

He brushes the pads of his fingers in a loose arc across her back just before he curls his grip closed, and he gently begins to draw the fabric forward, drawing his lower lip between his teeth and barely catching more skin revealing itself in the corner of his eyes.

She can't stand when he bites his lip like that. It's enough motivation to draw her into retaliating; Satsuki ducks her head, not all shyness this time, but vigor. Her nose just touches his; their mouths and the rest of them, she keeps separate.

"Frightened?" she asks, even the word a challenge, as if she might bait him him into slipping from the game. (And why not? Why play when they're this close together?)

One of Satsuki's arms slopes across her ribs, collecting the dress before it can fall too far from her body or hit the floor...but it's low enough. Satsuki handles this disrobing with a care she rarely shows for clothing. She's nearly tender with the way she helps it fall. She touches the back of his neck, then his chest, then her own waist. For a moment, it seems she might let their mouths touch again, but it's a ruse - a trick to rouse his teeth from his bitten lip in pursuit og her.

There's a palpable silence now, punctuated only by the merging sounds of water running both soft and loud. Enclosed, lungs filled with steam, Satsuki enters a state of near-meditation under the water. To keep so tight a tourniquet blocking blood that runs as hot as hers does is nearly stifling. In the privacy of running water, she sighs.

Satsuki covers up as soon as she emerges from the shower, beats of water still clinging to her throat and shoulders, her skin steamed pink. She has nice skin, she's heard from Harime, her smile like razors.

Satsuki's presence hangs an intimidating shadows over Iori's kneeling back when she approaches him. She lays her hand on his back; for a second, she is another person, a shadow of something that died. Does he think he'll see that girl again before her time runs out?

"That's full enough."

He knows the shape of her reaction the moment his lip moves. She's not predictable, but she is fond of a challenge, and he won't give her the empty satisfaction of a victory barely won. His eyebrows rise, and he blinks, long. This quickening is anything but fear.

His fingers draw free of fabric, finding the dip of her spine, and he lays his palm there with enough pressure it can't be immediately dismissed. He draws in a breath, eyes flicking toward her mouth - and he knows she won't miss it, because when has she ever? Her trap is confident, and there's a thought of resisting for a moment longer, but hasn't he waited enough? He leans up to close the space between them. If she doesn't like his lip between his teeth, perhaps she'll like hers there better.

The sound of the water filling the tub changes timbre as the water level rises, the only soundtrack to the immense presence that is Satsuki in the shower behind him. It's nearly enough to get lost in, but when the shower turns off, his chin rises, tilts toward his shoulder to spot her over the steam-blurred fog of his glasses.

She would be ominous on her approach, if not for the weight of her hand on his back. The woman - the girl - he remembers from childhood flashes for that single moment, and then his duty here is once more on his shoulders. "Very well," he says, lowering his chin in a neat nod, and leans to turn one knob, then the other. He shifts his weight to stand.

The moan that leaves her mouth is earnest, her lips parting as soon as they brush back against Iori's. She lets him draw her into his mouth without resistance. It's what she wanted, the unbridled crush of his body against hers. The slight pain from his teeth in her lip is a thrill, and she finds herself pulling back just enough to make it sting her. She won't forget it soon; he'll be bitten back soon enough, not retaliation but escalation.

She's been holding up the dress so diligently that it's almost compromised the minute she pushes back into his kiss. Satsuki is a woman of resolve and will, and it's will and resolve that keeps her from trashing his handiwork. His firm hand on her back keeps her still, and it's in this stillness that her stomach shivers, twitches against his, an alien, but too familiar fire lighting in it. She's short-sighted with the heat of want, and she fidgets her hands and body anxiously, the way only she can.

Now her hands won't stay away from him. They travel back up his chest and into his hair and stay there this time, thumb tickling the back of his ear. But, oh, the dress - and, her tongue touching his upper lip, Satsuki grunts again, impatiently. She lets it drop, purposefully, neatly, letting it piled soft on the floor. They'll kiss without end if left to it; she's happy to move the action to a more comfortable place.

This time, she undresses unflinchingly, the towel unrolling from her body in white wing flaps. She drops the discarded garment over the nearby hanger and, as if she doesn't see Iori at all, walks past him to the side of the bath.

Satsuki steps in one foot after the other. She flinches at the temperature just once, then turns her face and mind to steel. She sits stiffly, back against the sloped bow of the tub's front wall. A moment of silence, two, three, the water parting and folding back over her chest and knees in gentle waves. Then she slides the rest of the way under, submerging her head entirely, disappearing - but not quite.

Her naked confidence - literally, in this case - is so familiar it aches in his bones. He doesn't watch, one hand lifted in case she deigns to need that help, but he expects it to go unused. His eyes lower to watch her sink into the water, face much younger without the obscuring shield of his mask.

There's an inelegant metaphor in watching her finally have a moment of peace, and having it walled off by water. He moves around the tub, behind her - he doesn't doubt she'll know where he's gone, as he pulls the stool his uncle leaves stowed under the bath cart free and sets it down on the tile. He settles on it, pushing up his sleeves, and waits for her to emerge.

Satsuki stays under the water until her lungs burn. She considers staying even longer. How long could she meditate down here? Two minutes? Three? Five? Satsuki holds her hands against her chest, feeling her blood run deep, warmed by the water.

She opens her eyes before she rises again, taking in the ceiling in an attempt to regain her composure. It would be nice to pretend that she's let her mind wander.

Even if she knows where she is when she rises - she does - Satsuki turns her jaw to her shoulder, moving just enough to get him into her line of sight again. It's reflexive. She trusts him enough to know he won't be offended by her checking. He knows she needs to be sure. Iori's right where she'd expect Soroi to be, and Satsuki nods her gratitude at him as she gathers her hair to the side. Satisfied, she rests her hands on either side of her, spine rolling out as she reclines. Maybe there are no safe places in the world, but she can't be harmed here now.

He anticipates the check even before she's split the water, and for his part it's a simple matter to nod back, watching her settle. His fingers curl loosely together, and he rests his knuckles on the rim of the tub, where they'll bump her shoulder if either of them move.

The heat of the water in the tub warms the whole bathroom, leaving steam sticking to his cheeks and fingers. The tub's porcelain is somehow still cool. It anchors him to duty, instead of useless admiration. He swallows, watching her, wondering why he can't do more. "Were you intending to wash your hair this evening?" he asks. Uncle would know this, but he thinks he's lost track.

open post : picture prompt

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she's not cute...she's manly as hell.

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she's both.

a woman of many trades

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and master of all of them

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brows emote

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/flops in here

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