Friggin' in the Riggin'
Title: Friggin’ in the Riggin’
Pairing: Koyama/Shige mostly with LOTS of passing pairings between NewS and KAT-TUN members.
Rating: R for lots and lots of sexual act mentions.
Words: 3,365
Summary: “Katonova meets a bunch of gay sailors and they take him for a ride." That was the original summary. Here’s a (hopefully) better one. Katonova’s womanizing ways were the stuff of legend. But when fleeing from an enraged father, his encounter with the good ship Loveless took him for one hell of a ride.
Notes: Title taken from the song of the same name by the sex pistols. I started this in July and have FINALLY finished it. It led to some interesting discussions with friends about just how one might engage in “friggin’ in the riggin’” which resulted in the following manipulation by breeitbe.
My first crack!fic. Yeah… Enjoy. XD
Their acquisition of him was one of confused surprise. Chased out of town by an irate father who demanded recompense for his daughter’s stolen virginity, Katonova slunk to the docks in the middle of the night finding the first ship with an awake face.
He almost didn’t see the man at first and had to backtrack when he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. “Oi!” he said in a hoarse half-shout. The round-faced man looked at him interestedly from where he leaned against the railing. “Let me talk to your captain!”
The man looked him over for a minute, watching him fidget, before laying out the plank to the dock. Katonova crossed it quickly and stood anxiously near the railing where the man had gestured at him to wait. After several tense minutes, the captain, half-asleep and grumpy, listened to his plea to join their crew and work for his passage away from the crazy then shoved him in the direction of who Katonova thought must be his first mate, judging by the fancy hat.
The short man sized Katonova up and he knew the man was thinking unflattering thoughts about him from the sneer on his face. He didn’t have to take that crap normally but he was desperate at the moment so he let it go. Then the first mate grunted and nodded at a pile of coiled ropes. “We’re all full but you can sleep there tonight.” And then he disappeared below the deck.
There was nothing to help it, he supposed, so he curled up next to the pile and used it as a pillow. As he drifted off, he realized that not a single name had been mentioned.
Katonova was awoken in the dark of earliest morning by a not-so-gentle nudge to the ribs. Groggily, he squinted up to see the first mate staring down at him. “If you want to eat, it’s time.” He stumbled along behind the man into the meal hall. The breakfast wasn’t bad, he guessed, but it was filling, and the scalding hot tea did well to wake him up. When he followed the first mate back to the deck, light had begun to filter through the clouds and the first mate stopped in front of a tall man.
“Koyama, this is Katosomethingorother. Do with him as you will as long as he’s doing something. Katosomething, this is Koyama, our navigator. Enjoy.” He went to walk away but stopped with a raised eyebrow at Kato’s gently cleared throat and anxious face.
“When I said, ‘work for my passage,’ I meant in the clerical sense.”
“I could throw you overboard,” he growled. “Would you prefer that?” The damn man didn’t even wait for an answer.
He was nonplussed, staring at the busy deck and the mop and bucket being held out to him by a smiling Koyama.
Koyama took to him like a fish to water, and even though Koyama was the navigator he kept Kato company as he did everything from swabbing the deck to tarring the ropes. “Why are you always following me around? Don’t you have… you know… work to do?” he grumped at the man after thoroughly embarrassing himself by slipping on the wet deck and sprawling awkwardly across it.
Koyama just grinned at him and gave him a hand up. “I’m making sure you’re comfortable with your tasks.”
Kato wasn’t an idiot. He had gone to school. That was code for I’m making sure you don’t screw up.
He met the other crew members: Nakamaru, a stuffy looking guy in charge of accounting in addition to being second mate, Masuda, the smiling man in charge of feeding everyone, and the able seamen, Koki, Akanishi, Ueda, Taguchi, and Kamenashi.
“Ah! Where’s Tegoshi?” Koyama asked himself and wandered around asking where he’d gotten off to.
They eventually found him when Koyama showed him to the navigation room/office. All Kato could see was the back of his head from where he was bobbing in the vicinity of Captain Yamashita’s crotch, the captain sprawled in an ornate chair and smiling blissfully down at his subordinate.
“Ah! There he is! Sorry, Captain!” Koyama called cheerfully as he backed himself and a traumatized Kato quickly out of the room.
He never did find out exactly what it was Tegoshi did.
To cap a bad day, he was completely horrified when he realized he’d have to sleep on the damp, hard, dirty, deck floor of the shared sleeping cabin. There wasn’t even enough room for another hammock to hang even if they had given him one. And they hadn’t.
“That’s inhumane!” he told the first mate. “Have you seen the floor? It’s disgusting! And I won’t be able to move tomorrow if I have to sleep on it. Then you won’t get any work out of me anyway,” he finished, crossing his arms haughtily.
Nishikido gave him a look that said, Wanna bet? before simply walking off to his own, probably clean and spacious, cabin.
“You can sleep with me, if you want,” Koyama offered shyly. “I don’t take up much room.”
Well, he thought in defeat, at least it’s not the floor.
When he woke up, Koyama was practically wrapped around him, long limbs tangled with his own and he flipped them out of the hammock and onto the hard floor with his flailing. Koyama blinked sleepily at him and pouted.
“Ow,” he complained, rubbing his hip.
“You, sir, are highly inappropriate,” he said indignantly, the tips of his ears red.
“I’m sorry,” Koyama replied shamefacedly as he climbed to his feet. “I should have told you that I have a tendency to hug in my sleep.”
“Well. Just. Don’t let it happen again.”
In the kitchen, Masuda slung an unappetizing slop into Kato’s bowl, smiling like he was doing the entire world a favor. Kato sniffed it suspiciously and watched Koyama scarf down a few bites. When the navigator didn’t keel over, he decided it was probably safe and dug in. Luckily, it tasted better than it looked, if only just, and as soon as he finished, Koyama handed him over to Koki.
“Just until I finish my work,” he said with a smile. “Besides, Koki will show you the basics of the actual work.”
Kato blinked at his new dangerous-looking companion. The man was covered in colorful tattoos of dubious content and leanly muscled. Then suddenly the man smiled at him, eyes and corners of his mouth crinkling in a friendly manner and Kato had no idea what to think at all.
Koki’s looks were at odds with his friendly manner, but not with the way he pushed Kato to work and Kato grumbled constantly under his breath at the back-breaking tasks. But at the end of several hours, when he could successfully rig the boom among other things, Koki looked impressed. Kato smiled smugly and proceeded to trip fantastically over a thick rope to sprawl, again, on the deck.
A hand was offered and he gripped it and was pulled easily upright, right into Captain Yamashita’s personal space.
“Uh. Thanks… Captain,” he said uncomfortably and tried to disengage his hand.
Yamashita smiled pleasantly at him and held on. “You have beautiful hands,” he said thoughtfully, and brought his other hand up to run rough fingers across the soft backs of Kato’s hand.
“Uhhh…”
“Almost like a woman’s.”
“Oh. No. I mean, I have calluses. On my fingers. From writing, see?”
“Easy to ignore.” Yamashita’s grin was suddenly predatory and Kato squeaked and forcefully pulled his hand away.
“I. Uh… definitely. Don’t want… ummm…”
Suddenly hands were on his shoulders.
“Hello, Captain! Koki, how’d he do?” Kato was strangely relieved to hear the navigator’s voice and he shrank back against him.
“He did okay,” Koki replied grudgingly.
Kato felt Yamashita watching him musingly as Koyama led him away.
“You must have done really well for Koki to say that!”
Later in the day, just before the sun went down, Koyama was off talking to Nakamaru who was at the helm, so he was blissfully alone. He lugged the heavy mop bucket into the aft cabin, and he moaned to himself, dropping the handle and gasping at his throbbing hands. He froze when he realized that his moan and gasp were being echoed… and echoed. He felt his lips twist into a horrified expression as he slowly turned his head to see Nishikido leaning over Masuda, the younger man’s hands flat against the bulkhead, Nishikido snapping his hips unforgivingly against the man’s ass. He screamed like a girl and ran.
The days wore on and Kato decided he was going to throw the next person overboard whom he caught fucking someone inappropriately in his line of sight. Sadly, the next person was Captain Yamashita with Akanishi bent over the table in the meal hall after breakfast when Kato came in to mop. He spent the rest of the day growling irritably at everyone.
Koyama was undaunted. “You remind me of my kitty before I shipped out,” he said affectionately and rubbed their cheeks together.
By the time bedtime rolled around, Kato was more than ready for sleep, exhausted by his simmering irritation and he fell asleep at once, cradled in Koyama’s arms. Hours later, though, Kato struggled into consciousness, suffocating in warmth. “Oh my god,” he moaned when he realized just why he’d woken up. “You stink!” he said and shoved Koyama out of his own hammock. He could hear Koyama mumbling incoherently and he raised his own arm to sniff experimentally. “Oh my god, I stink,” he half sobbed. “I can’t sleep like this. Who can live like this?” He felt Koyama stretching the netting and climbing back in. The older man wrapped comforting arms around him but that just made him cry more. “Everyone on this damn boat stinks. Why can’t we bathe like civilized people? How come only Captain Yamashita doesn’t stink?”
Koyama ran soothing hands across Kato’s shoulders. “Because he’s the captain, of course.”
“And why do you insist on cuddling me all the time?! What are you? A bunch of gay sailors?”
There was an awkward pause and then, “Kato, we’re at sea a long time,” he began gently. “You see-“
“No! I don’t want to know. Could you please stop touching me?” But the older man just gripped him tighter.
“Shut the hell up!” someone who sounded suspiciously like Ueda yelled.
In the morning there was the best news Kato had ever heard. They would be making port in a matter of hours. He could get off this god-forsaken ship and take a bath and a woman, and get some decent food for a change.
If he could have kissed the ground when they landed without getting trampled by the rest of the crew when they came off, he would have. Instead he raced toward the nearest inn, demanding a room with a hot bath and a woman to be sent up after an hour. First things first. Then he’d have dinner.
He turned the water black before he felt clean enough and he dried himself with a fluffy towel. The girl had an average face but a decent body and she was lithe enough. When she left him sprawled out on his bed he felt halfway human again. After dinner he felt fanfuckingtastic.
That feeling lasted right up until the innkeeper told him there would be no traveling out of the city by anything other than sea for at least three months and there were no jobs available in town for “an intelligent boy like yerself.” Which meant they didn’t hire strangers here. With a heavy heart he returned to the ship, Koyama beaming happily at him before slinging an arm over his shoulder as they walked up the gangplank together.
“You smell nice, Kato-kun!” Koyama said cheerfully.
Captain Yamashita caught that and looked interestedly at him and smiled. Kato just wanted to cry.
After three months on board the Loveless, Kato had seen enough man-lovin’ to make a whore cry. The best had been the time Yamashita had hauled him into some dark corner and shoved Kato’s hands down his pants, only to exclaim sadly, “I waited too long! They’re all calloused now,” before removing Kato’s hands and moving sadly off, probably to go find Tegoshi, whose job Kato still hadn’t been able to divine. The worst had been the time he caught Taguchi with his hands down Koyama’s pants, Koyama’s head thrown back against the wall, hips arching into Taguchi’s touch. And then, because fate hates Kato, his mouth suddenly formed a pretty ‘o’ as he orgasmed with a breathy moan.
Kato had suddenly sprung a hard-on and he backed away, quietly horrified at this development, but Koyama had chosen just that moment to open his eyes and spot him. Koyama had apologized for the next three days straight and Kato thought Koyama believed he had cheated on him. It was unnerving.
What was more unnerving was the way he felt his body beginning to respond to the way Koyama wrapped around him at night. Or the way Kamenashi rode Nakamaru in the rigging like a stallion. Or, perhaps most disturbingly, the way Masuda licked his big wooden spoon when he was cooking dinner. His body was turning traitorous. He punished it by not eating for two days, but then he’d passed out, and Koyama had nursed him back to health and that just made things more complicated. He also spent a lot of time crying. Ironically, that’s how he found out what Tegoshi’s “job” was.
Kato sat, morose, on an upturned bucket, scowling. He didn’t see Tegoshi sauntering over until the man was crouching next to him.
“You look upset.”
“No shit.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“No.” There was silence for a moment and Kato finally looked over into bright eyes and a wide smile. “Gah.”
“I think you should talk about it. It really helps.”
“If I say no again, will you go away?”
Tegoshi smiled charmingly. “No.”
Kato heaved a sigh. “I just want to get back to my normal life. I miss bathing properly, having sex regularly… I miss my job for fuck’s sake. And no offense against Massu, but his meals aren’t exactly culinary masterpieces.”
Tegoshi tapped his chin and looked up for a moment. “I think you’d find that regular sex isn’t all that hard to come -“
Kato cut him off with a hiss. “I have found that. Thank you. Not interested.”
Tegoshi pursed his lips. “I see. Tell me about your ‘normal’ life.”
And then, Kato didn’t know how, he found he had practically told Tegoshi his whole life story - his mother’s sordid affairs, his own, his work, everything.
"Ahhh, I see. It's all a subconscious attempt to lash out at your mother for having so many extramarital affairs that all of your siblings have different fathers, none of them her husband's."
Kato blinked rapidly and involuntarily. "What?! What's it got to do with my mom? Couldn't it just be that I like the challenge of seducing women?! Does there even need to be a reason? Maybe I just like having sex with WOMEN!"
“If you say so,” Tegoshi replied happily, standing, and Kato spluttered at him.
“I do!” Kato stood and kicked at the bucket. “What the hell is that all about? Walking around telling me that crap. Who does he think he is?” he muttered.
“That’s his job,” Koyama said from about two feet behind him and Kato nearly tripped in his surprise. “He’s here for morale boosting and moral support.”
Kato scowled at the deck. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Koyama smiled at him and put an arm around his shoulder. “Don’t be bitter, Shige.”
To better ignore the flopping of his stomach he elbowed Koyama in the side. “You stink. And why are you calling me so informally? It’s not right.”
Koyama looked at him, lips just beginning to pout. “But Shige… we sleep together.”
Oh god.
He lay awake in his hammock that night, Koyama wrapped around him, and thought. He liked women. He did not like being on this boat. Well, no, that was not entirely true. He didn’t mind the hard work and, really, the guys were a lot of fun, fucking like bunnies aside. And he liked Koyama - the navigator may be ditzy and doting but he was sweet and anyone who didn’t like him probably liked pulling wings off flies as a child. And, if truth be told, despite the stench, he found himself looking forward to his evenings now, longing to relax back against Koyama’s chest and sleep the fatigue away.
No. He tensed up. He was meant for more than swabbing the decks of a homosexually-staffed sailing vessel. He had a future. And it didn’t involve taking it over the railing of the Loveless. No, sir. They would make port in two weeks and he would get off and stay off and that was that.
It kind of hurt to see Koyama watching him with sad eyes when he refused to let the other man touch him for the next two weeks, shrugging out from under his arm, standing far enough away that Koyama couldn’t reach out for him. But he just couldn’t bring himself to sleep away from him. He told himself it was for Koyama’s sake. And Tegoshi’s knowing expression as he watched Kato interact distantly with the crew just made him that much more eager to get off the ship.
They docked in a nice, busy town that would no doubt hold plenty of job opportunities for a trained clerk like himself. And he’d already saved up quite a chunk of his wages from the ship that he could almost afford the trip home if he really didn’t like it there.
The hot bath was heavenly and he scrubbed himself pink. When the girl came in for him, though, he found himself disappointed. Not that the sex was unenjoyable… but it seemed to be lacking a little something. Koyama’s sad eyes flashed at him once from behind his closed eyes, and he nearly lost his hard-on. Damnit. In the morning. It would be fine, he was just still too close to it.
But it wasn’t any better in the morning. The girl was lovely - a sweet dimpled thing who did this thing with her hips. But. He stretched out across the feather bed face-down. “Damnit!” he shouted, muffled.
And then he was on his feet, striding out the door into the streets toward the dock. He only hoped he was in time. He made one quick stop along the way, tucking the soft bundle into the crook of his arm as he raced to the ship. He felt his heart leap when he saw its flag flying, still there.
Koyama stood resolutely waiting at the bottom of the gangplank and Kato could hear Ryo yelling at the man.
“Hurry up and get your ass on board. We should have left an hour ago.” No reaction. “I will leave you. We don’t need no stinking navigator.”
Then Kato was there, panting as he pushed the bundle into Koyama’s hands.
“For you,” he said.
Koyama looked down slowly and then squealed, squishing the brown-striped kitten between them as he hugged Kato.
“You’ll squish it!” Kato said, batting ineffectually at him. But Koyama was already cuddling the kitten and cooing at it as he walked up to the deck.
“You are so cute! Daddy Shige picked the best kitten in the whole world didn’t he? Yes he did.”
“Oi,” he shouted half-heartedly as he followed the man up with a smile.
Tegoshi smirked at him and Kato scowled menacingly but without any real heat.
The damn ship had grown on him. He didn’t even mind anymore when he found Kame and Massu going at it on the kitchen table. Especially because they’d often let him join.
And Koyama made it all worthwhile anyway, he thought as the lanky man nuzzled his neck in his sleep. Definitely. Except maybe the bath aspect. He was still working on that.
Pairing: Koyama/Shige mostly with LOTS of passing pairings between NewS and KAT-TUN members.
Rating: R for lots and lots of sexual act mentions.
Words: 3,365
Summary: “Katonova meets a bunch of gay sailors and they take him for a ride." That was the original summary. Here’s a (hopefully) better one. Katonova’s womanizing ways were the stuff of legend. But when fleeing from an enraged father, his encounter with the good ship Loveless took him for one hell of a ride.
Notes: Title taken from the song of the same name by the sex pistols. I started this in July and have FINALLY finished it. It led to some interesting discussions with friends about just how one might engage in “friggin’ in the riggin’” which resulted in the following manipulation by breeitbe.
My first crack!fic. Yeah… Enjoy. XD
Their acquisition of him was one of confused surprise. Chased out of town by an irate father who demanded recompense for his daughter’s stolen virginity, Katonova slunk to the docks in the middle of the night finding the first ship with an awake face.
He almost didn’t see the man at first and had to backtrack when he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. “Oi!” he said in a hoarse half-shout. The round-faced man looked at him interestedly from where he leaned against the railing. “Let me talk to your captain!”
The man looked him over for a minute, watching him fidget, before laying out the plank to the dock. Katonova crossed it quickly and stood anxiously near the railing where the man had gestured at him to wait. After several tense minutes, the captain, half-asleep and grumpy, listened to his plea to join their crew and work for his passage away from the crazy then shoved him in the direction of who Katonova thought must be his first mate, judging by the fancy hat.
The short man sized Katonova up and he knew the man was thinking unflattering thoughts about him from the sneer on his face. He didn’t have to take that crap normally but he was desperate at the moment so he let it go. Then the first mate grunted and nodded at a pile of coiled ropes. “We’re all full but you can sleep there tonight.” And then he disappeared below the deck.
There was nothing to help it, he supposed, so he curled up next to the pile and used it as a pillow. As he drifted off, he realized that not a single name had been mentioned.
Katonova was awoken in the dark of earliest morning by a not-so-gentle nudge to the ribs. Groggily, he squinted up to see the first mate staring down at him. “If you want to eat, it’s time.” He stumbled along behind the man into the meal hall. The breakfast wasn’t bad, he guessed, but it was filling, and the scalding hot tea did well to wake him up. When he followed the first mate back to the deck, light had begun to filter through the clouds and the first mate stopped in front of a tall man.
“Koyama, this is Katosomethingorother. Do with him as you will as long as he’s doing something. Katosomething, this is Koyama, our navigator. Enjoy.” He went to walk away but stopped with a raised eyebrow at Kato’s gently cleared throat and anxious face.
“When I said, ‘work for my passage,’ I meant in the clerical sense.”
“I could throw you overboard,” he growled. “Would you prefer that?” The damn man didn’t even wait for an answer.
He was nonplussed, staring at the busy deck and the mop and bucket being held out to him by a smiling Koyama.
Koyama took to him like a fish to water, and even though Koyama was the navigator he kept Kato company as he did everything from swabbing the deck to tarring the ropes. “Why are you always following me around? Don’t you have… you know… work to do?” he grumped at the man after thoroughly embarrassing himself by slipping on the wet deck and sprawling awkwardly across it.
Koyama just grinned at him and gave him a hand up. “I’m making sure you’re comfortable with your tasks.”
Kato wasn’t an idiot. He had gone to school. That was code for I’m making sure you don’t screw up.
He met the other crew members: Nakamaru, a stuffy looking guy in charge of accounting in addition to being second mate, Masuda, the smiling man in charge of feeding everyone, and the able seamen, Koki, Akanishi, Ueda, Taguchi, and Kamenashi.
“Ah! Where’s Tegoshi?” Koyama asked himself and wandered around asking where he’d gotten off to.
They eventually found him when Koyama showed him to the navigation room/office. All Kato could see was the back of his head from where he was bobbing in the vicinity of Captain Yamashita’s crotch, the captain sprawled in an ornate chair and smiling blissfully down at his subordinate.
“Ah! There he is! Sorry, Captain!” Koyama called cheerfully as he backed himself and a traumatized Kato quickly out of the room.
He never did find out exactly what it was Tegoshi did.
To cap a bad day, he was completely horrified when he realized he’d have to sleep on the damp, hard, dirty, deck floor of the shared sleeping cabin. There wasn’t even enough room for another hammock to hang even if they had given him one. And they hadn’t.
“That’s inhumane!” he told the first mate. “Have you seen the floor? It’s disgusting! And I won’t be able to move tomorrow if I have to sleep on it. Then you won’t get any work out of me anyway,” he finished, crossing his arms haughtily.
Nishikido gave him a look that said, Wanna bet? before simply walking off to his own, probably clean and spacious, cabin.
“You can sleep with me, if you want,” Koyama offered shyly. “I don’t take up much room.”
Well, he thought in defeat, at least it’s not the floor.
When he woke up, Koyama was practically wrapped around him, long limbs tangled with his own and he flipped them out of the hammock and onto the hard floor with his flailing. Koyama blinked sleepily at him and pouted.
“Ow,” he complained, rubbing his hip.
“You, sir, are highly inappropriate,” he said indignantly, the tips of his ears red.
“I’m sorry,” Koyama replied shamefacedly as he climbed to his feet. “I should have told you that I have a tendency to hug in my sleep.”
“Well. Just. Don’t let it happen again.”
In the kitchen, Masuda slung an unappetizing slop into Kato’s bowl, smiling like he was doing the entire world a favor. Kato sniffed it suspiciously and watched Koyama scarf down a few bites. When the navigator didn’t keel over, he decided it was probably safe and dug in. Luckily, it tasted better than it looked, if only just, and as soon as he finished, Koyama handed him over to Koki.
“Just until I finish my work,” he said with a smile. “Besides, Koki will show you the basics of the actual work.”
Kato blinked at his new dangerous-looking companion. The man was covered in colorful tattoos of dubious content and leanly muscled. Then suddenly the man smiled at him, eyes and corners of his mouth crinkling in a friendly manner and Kato had no idea what to think at all.
Koki’s looks were at odds with his friendly manner, but not with the way he pushed Kato to work and Kato grumbled constantly under his breath at the back-breaking tasks. But at the end of several hours, when he could successfully rig the boom among other things, Koki looked impressed. Kato smiled smugly and proceeded to trip fantastically over a thick rope to sprawl, again, on the deck.
A hand was offered and he gripped it and was pulled easily upright, right into Captain Yamashita’s personal space.
“Uh. Thanks… Captain,” he said uncomfortably and tried to disengage his hand.
Yamashita smiled pleasantly at him and held on. “You have beautiful hands,” he said thoughtfully, and brought his other hand up to run rough fingers across the soft backs of Kato’s hand.
“Uhhh…”
“Almost like a woman’s.”
“Oh. No. I mean, I have calluses. On my fingers. From writing, see?”
“Easy to ignore.” Yamashita’s grin was suddenly predatory and Kato squeaked and forcefully pulled his hand away.
“I. Uh… definitely. Don’t want… ummm…”
Suddenly hands were on his shoulders.
“Hello, Captain! Koki, how’d he do?” Kato was strangely relieved to hear the navigator’s voice and he shrank back against him.
“He did okay,” Koki replied grudgingly.
Kato felt Yamashita watching him musingly as Koyama led him away.
“You must have done really well for Koki to say that!”
Later in the day, just before the sun went down, Koyama was off talking to Nakamaru who was at the helm, so he was blissfully alone. He lugged the heavy mop bucket into the aft cabin, and he moaned to himself, dropping the handle and gasping at his throbbing hands. He froze when he realized that his moan and gasp were being echoed… and echoed. He felt his lips twist into a horrified expression as he slowly turned his head to see Nishikido leaning over Masuda, the younger man’s hands flat against the bulkhead, Nishikido snapping his hips unforgivingly against the man’s ass. He screamed like a girl and ran.
The days wore on and Kato decided he was going to throw the next person overboard whom he caught fucking someone inappropriately in his line of sight. Sadly, the next person was Captain Yamashita with Akanishi bent over the table in the meal hall after breakfast when Kato came in to mop. He spent the rest of the day growling irritably at everyone.
Koyama was undaunted. “You remind me of my kitty before I shipped out,” he said affectionately and rubbed their cheeks together.
By the time bedtime rolled around, Kato was more than ready for sleep, exhausted by his simmering irritation and he fell asleep at once, cradled in Koyama’s arms. Hours later, though, Kato struggled into consciousness, suffocating in warmth. “Oh my god,” he moaned when he realized just why he’d woken up. “You stink!” he said and shoved Koyama out of his own hammock. He could hear Koyama mumbling incoherently and he raised his own arm to sniff experimentally. “Oh my god, I stink,” he half sobbed. “I can’t sleep like this. Who can live like this?” He felt Koyama stretching the netting and climbing back in. The older man wrapped comforting arms around him but that just made him cry more. “Everyone on this damn boat stinks. Why can’t we bathe like civilized people? How come only Captain Yamashita doesn’t stink?”
Koyama ran soothing hands across Kato’s shoulders. “Because he’s the captain, of course.”
“And why do you insist on cuddling me all the time?! What are you? A bunch of gay sailors?”
There was an awkward pause and then, “Kato, we’re at sea a long time,” he began gently. “You see-“
“No! I don’t want to know. Could you please stop touching me?” But the older man just gripped him tighter.
“Shut the hell up!” someone who sounded suspiciously like Ueda yelled.
In the morning there was the best news Kato had ever heard. They would be making port in a matter of hours. He could get off this god-forsaken ship and take a bath and a woman, and get some decent food for a change.
If he could have kissed the ground when they landed without getting trampled by the rest of the crew when they came off, he would have. Instead he raced toward the nearest inn, demanding a room with a hot bath and a woman to be sent up after an hour. First things first. Then he’d have dinner.
He turned the water black before he felt clean enough and he dried himself with a fluffy towel. The girl had an average face but a decent body and she was lithe enough. When she left him sprawled out on his bed he felt halfway human again. After dinner he felt fanfuckingtastic.
That feeling lasted right up until the innkeeper told him there would be no traveling out of the city by anything other than sea for at least three months and there were no jobs available in town for “an intelligent boy like yerself.” Which meant they didn’t hire strangers here. With a heavy heart he returned to the ship, Koyama beaming happily at him before slinging an arm over his shoulder as they walked up the gangplank together.
“You smell nice, Kato-kun!” Koyama said cheerfully.
Captain Yamashita caught that and looked interestedly at him and smiled. Kato just wanted to cry.
After three months on board the Loveless, Kato had seen enough man-lovin’ to make a whore cry. The best had been the time Yamashita had hauled him into some dark corner and shoved Kato’s hands down his pants, only to exclaim sadly, “I waited too long! They’re all calloused now,” before removing Kato’s hands and moving sadly off, probably to go find Tegoshi, whose job Kato still hadn’t been able to divine. The worst had been the time he caught Taguchi with his hands down Koyama’s pants, Koyama’s head thrown back against the wall, hips arching into Taguchi’s touch. And then, because fate hates Kato, his mouth suddenly formed a pretty ‘o’ as he orgasmed with a breathy moan.
Kato had suddenly sprung a hard-on and he backed away, quietly horrified at this development, but Koyama had chosen just that moment to open his eyes and spot him. Koyama had apologized for the next three days straight and Kato thought Koyama believed he had cheated on him. It was unnerving.
What was more unnerving was the way he felt his body beginning to respond to the way Koyama wrapped around him at night. Or the way Kamenashi rode Nakamaru in the rigging like a stallion. Or, perhaps most disturbingly, the way Masuda licked his big wooden spoon when he was cooking dinner. His body was turning traitorous. He punished it by not eating for two days, but then he’d passed out, and Koyama had nursed him back to health and that just made things more complicated. He also spent a lot of time crying. Ironically, that’s how he found out what Tegoshi’s “job” was.
Kato sat, morose, on an upturned bucket, scowling. He didn’t see Tegoshi sauntering over until the man was crouching next to him.
“You look upset.”
“No shit.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“No.” There was silence for a moment and Kato finally looked over into bright eyes and a wide smile. “Gah.”
“I think you should talk about it. It really helps.”
“If I say no again, will you go away?”
Tegoshi smiled charmingly. “No.”
Kato heaved a sigh. “I just want to get back to my normal life. I miss bathing properly, having sex regularly… I miss my job for fuck’s sake. And no offense against Massu, but his meals aren’t exactly culinary masterpieces.”
Tegoshi tapped his chin and looked up for a moment. “I think you’d find that regular sex isn’t all that hard to come -“
Kato cut him off with a hiss. “I have found that. Thank you. Not interested.”
Tegoshi pursed his lips. “I see. Tell me about your ‘normal’ life.”
And then, Kato didn’t know how, he found he had practically told Tegoshi his whole life story - his mother’s sordid affairs, his own, his work, everything.
"Ahhh, I see. It's all a subconscious attempt to lash out at your mother for having so many extramarital affairs that all of your siblings have different fathers, none of them her husband's."
Kato blinked rapidly and involuntarily. "What?! What's it got to do with my mom? Couldn't it just be that I like the challenge of seducing women?! Does there even need to be a reason? Maybe I just like having sex with WOMEN!"
“If you say so,” Tegoshi replied happily, standing, and Kato spluttered at him.
“I do!” Kato stood and kicked at the bucket. “What the hell is that all about? Walking around telling me that crap. Who does he think he is?” he muttered.
“That’s his job,” Koyama said from about two feet behind him and Kato nearly tripped in his surprise. “He’s here for morale boosting and moral support.”
Kato scowled at the deck. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Koyama smiled at him and put an arm around his shoulder. “Don’t be bitter, Shige.”
To better ignore the flopping of his stomach he elbowed Koyama in the side. “You stink. And why are you calling me so informally? It’s not right.”
Koyama looked at him, lips just beginning to pout. “But Shige… we sleep together.”
Oh god.
He lay awake in his hammock that night, Koyama wrapped around him, and thought. He liked women. He did not like being on this boat. Well, no, that was not entirely true. He didn’t mind the hard work and, really, the guys were a lot of fun, fucking like bunnies aside. And he liked Koyama - the navigator may be ditzy and doting but he was sweet and anyone who didn’t like him probably liked pulling wings off flies as a child. And, if truth be told, despite the stench, he found himself looking forward to his evenings now, longing to relax back against Koyama’s chest and sleep the fatigue away.
No. He tensed up. He was meant for more than swabbing the decks of a homosexually-staffed sailing vessel. He had a future. And it didn’t involve taking it over the railing of the Loveless. No, sir. They would make port in two weeks and he would get off and stay off and that was that.
It kind of hurt to see Koyama watching him with sad eyes when he refused to let the other man touch him for the next two weeks, shrugging out from under his arm, standing far enough away that Koyama couldn’t reach out for him. But he just couldn’t bring himself to sleep away from him. He told himself it was for Koyama’s sake. And Tegoshi’s knowing expression as he watched Kato interact distantly with the crew just made him that much more eager to get off the ship.
They docked in a nice, busy town that would no doubt hold plenty of job opportunities for a trained clerk like himself. And he’d already saved up quite a chunk of his wages from the ship that he could almost afford the trip home if he really didn’t like it there.
The hot bath was heavenly and he scrubbed himself pink. When the girl came in for him, though, he found himself disappointed. Not that the sex was unenjoyable… but it seemed to be lacking a little something. Koyama’s sad eyes flashed at him once from behind his closed eyes, and he nearly lost his hard-on. Damnit. In the morning. It would be fine, he was just still too close to it.
But it wasn’t any better in the morning. The girl was lovely - a sweet dimpled thing who did this thing with her hips. But. He stretched out across the feather bed face-down. “Damnit!” he shouted, muffled.
And then he was on his feet, striding out the door into the streets toward the dock. He only hoped he was in time. He made one quick stop along the way, tucking the soft bundle into the crook of his arm as he raced to the ship. He felt his heart leap when he saw its flag flying, still there.
Koyama stood resolutely waiting at the bottom of the gangplank and Kato could hear Ryo yelling at the man.
“Hurry up and get your ass on board. We should have left an hour ago.” No reaction. “I will leave you. We don’t need no stinking navigator.”
Then Kato was there, panting as he pushed the bundle into Koyama’s hands.
“For you,” he said.
Koyama looked down slowly and then squealed, squishing the brown-striped kitten between them as he hugged Kato.
“You’ll squish it!” Kato said, batting ineffectually at him. But Koyama was already cuddling the kitten and cooing at it as he walked up to the deck.
“You are so cute! Daddy Shige picked the best kitten in the whole world didn’t he? Yes he did.”
“Oi,” he shouted half-heartedly as he followed the man up with a smile.
Tegoshi smirked at him and Kato scowled menacingly but without any real heat.
The damn ship had grown on him. He didn’t even mind anymore when he found Kame and Massu going at it on the kitchen table. Especially because they’d often let him join.
And Koyama made it all worthwhile anyway, he thought as the lanky man nuzzled his neck in his sleep. Definitely. Except maybe the bath aspect. He was still working on that.