Arashi fic - Taste
Title: Taste
Pairing: Aimiya
Genre: Fluff
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Do not know or own Arashi.
beta'ed by sleep-typing (I love Nino!) eva_lee
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“Come on, let's go talk.”
It's said casually - a little too casually - especially when Aiba takes into account that it's Nino who says it. Not that Nino can't be casual, but after a day of snippy comments and costume frustration (sometimes the seemingly painted-on jeans are a little too much), Aiba simply knows better. Reading Nino isn't something he's especially adept at, but he has a better grasp than most.
“Come on,” Nino repeats with a wide smile, enough to show his spotty gums, and somehow it rubs Aiba the wrong way. Aiba blinks in an odd sort of silence and looks around the room like a wide-eyed animal to make sure there isn't anyone else Nino is cajoling along.
“Me?” he asks, pointing a finger at himself.
“You!” Nino laughs, grasping at Aiba's hand. He ignores the sweat that lightly coats Aiba's palm and laces his fingers through his friends, helping him stand from the plush red sofa in their dressing room.
Aiba follows without complaint as Nino pulls him out the door and down the hall, past the wandering staff members and a sleepy Leader. Nino seems so focused on the path ahead, his lips still parted in a grin, and Aiba tries to convince himself that it's not completely out of the ordinary, that it's just another normal day. It doesn't have the effect he was going for and Aiba is left with a sinking feeling in his gut, like his stomach is hollow and he'd forgotten to eat breakfast that morning. He thinks it might have something to do with the hand that's lightly squeezing his own.
His heart speeds up as they stop near a window that overlooks the atrium, and he feels oddly awake and tired at the same time, as though it's not real at all. Nino turns to look at him with wide, beaming eyes and Aiba can't, for the life of him, look away. He wants to speak, wants to do something, even if it's the awkward, breathy laughter he so frequently emits, but nothing comes out. His tongue is tied.
“It was hot in that room,” Nino explains. It takes all Aiba has to concentrate on what he's saying. “Don't you think?”
Aiba blinks again, tightly this time, as he tries to clear his vision. His eyes wander to Nino's lips and he watches them move in slow motion, open and closed, stretched and pouted, and he's mesmerized by the action. He can't look away.
“Are you okay?” Nino asks and his eyebrows are furrowed like Aiba is used to seeing. He reaches a hand up like he's going to hit Aiba for not listening, but then he catches himself in mid-air and his palm goes to lay flatly against Aiba's forehead. “You're hot too, you know.”
But Aiba doesn't hear it. There's a stuffiness in his ears that won't allow him to and his eyes are still on Nino's lips, watching the different shapes his mouth makes as he forms his words. And what snarky words they probably are. Nino has a sharp tongue, Aiba knows, but sometimes his words and his lips are soft and pliant, melting under the right moment. Aiba wants to taste them. So he does.
Nino's in the middle of a word when Aiba leans forward and catches the sound between his own lips, as well as the gasp that Nino lets out shortly after. There's no hesitation, no thinking involved - just lips and tongue and a moan that Aiba isn't sure comes from him or Nino. When he pulls back, it isn't enough to put any distance between them, and their lips are still touching as far as a kiss is concerned, just a hair's breadth between them. His eyes are half-lidded and so are Nino's, and a pathetic whine seems to escape somewhere deep in Aiba's chest before he recaptures Nino.
“Aiba-chan.” He hears Nino's voice somewhere behind him and Aiba knows there's something strange going on, but he can't register what it is exactly, not when Nino is responding just so and there's a hand creeping up the hem of his shirt.
“Aiba-chan.” The voice is calm and quiet, and strikes Aiba as odd because he can hear Nino's heavy, shallow breath in his ear as he trails wet kisses down Nino's jaw and then his neck. There's no way Nino could sound so collected while he's clutching Aiba's shoulders, his fingers digging into the soft fabric of Aiba's shirt.
“Aiba.” It's more forceful this time, sounds a bit more like Nino, but it's not Nino. Aiba knows because he's holding Nino up, arms round his waist and under his shirt, rubbing at the heated skin as the shorter man seems to arch forward and backward at the same time. They're not close enough, but Aiba can't think of a way to make them any closer and it's really, very frustrating.
“Aiba!” There's one more kiss - he needs one more kiss - before everything goes white and the world disappears around him.
Aiba opens his eyes groggily and forces the side of his face further into the cushion of the red sofa. He whines and grasps at the side, figuring of course it had to be a dream. There's someone standing above him though, so his dismay is short lived as he turns over to lie on his back and face a disgruntled Nino.
“You're still running a fever, aren't you?” Nino asks, his voice rebuking even behind the white mask he wore. Aiba knows it's only because he cares. “I told you to go and get a shot if it got too much worse, didn't I?”
There's not much Aiba can say to that. He's been mother-henned to death by Nino, and Jun, and Sho, until he was actively avoiding anything they suggested. He gets hard-headed when he's sick and the others know this, but it doesn't keep them from pushing back.
Still, there's another thought that plays on Aiba's mind and keeps him from commenting on that particular topic. Visions of kisses, moans and tiny little sounds he isn't even sure Nino's capable of, float through his head and Aiba wants nothing more than to find out how well his dream compares to reality. He can't though, in good conscience, act on impulses he doesn't normally have (even if he is Aiba), so he sits and cools down, holding a pillow over his lap.
The curiosity doesn't die though. “Nino...” he starts off hesitantly as Nino drops to sit beside him on the couch. His eyes are once again drawn to Nino's lips, the way they curve upward at the corners, the different angles and planes. He really, really wants to know. “What would you do if I kissed you?”
Nino looks at him weirdly, and Aiba shrinks back just a bit.“Well, you're sick, so I would most likely smack you and say thanks a lot,” Nino answers honestly. Aiba's head falls forward and he tries not to look too defeated. “But when you get better... that's a whole other story. We'll talk about it then.”
“We'll talk?” Aiba snaps to attention and there's a new kind of hope reflected in his eyes.
Nino nods soundly, with the barest hint of a smirk. “We'll talk.”