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sabraeal · 11 months ago

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Brewed With Intent, Part 3

[Read on AO3]

“You’re sure that you feel all right?” Shidan stoops— not far, but enough— to stare Obi right in the eyes, mouth furrowed deep into its concern corners. It’s habit to brace, to wait for her inevitable sympathetic flinch when that otherworldly something drives them back—

But it never comes. Shidan holds his gaze— a second, then two, then suddenly half a minute’s passed without a single shudder— and asks, “No itching or…hm…burning?”

Pencil-thin brows hike right up to his hairline, rumpling the scar that cuts across beneath it, both nothing and everything like Shirayuki had imagined. “Are those symptoms I should be worrying about, Doc?”

“Not a doctor,” Shidan reminds him absently, “and no.”

“What?” Obi sputters out. “Then why would you ask—?”

“The last time someone tried to cast something on you, you turned into a human bonfire.” Shidan levels a stare at him so flat she could skip rocks across it. “Taking some measure of caution seems prudent.”

It’s riveting to watch his mouth work, to see all the muscles twisting together to shape words that never quite manage to be more than a dissatisfied grunt. “Well, not a human one.”

The glare Shidan gives him could hang pictures. “Why don’t you go take a breather here in the back? Just in case. Last thing I need is a customer to spontaneously combust on East Broadway.”

“Please, I’m civilized, I’d make it to at least Belmont.”

“I still think it’ll be some frog action.” Yuzuri bumps the stock room door open with her hip, a box of vacuum-sealed herb packets teetering in her arms. “Or maybe a small mammal. I don’t know what your biology would do with something cold-blooded.”

“Best not to find out.” Suzu turns too-earnest eyes to him. “I think you’d make a handsome stoat.”

Obi presses a hand to his chest, shirt rumpling enough to bare even more bronze beneath, and ah, two buttons have never seemed so indecent. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Hey!” A cardboard corner lodges under his sternum in protest. “I called you hot!”

“Yeah, but that’s just facts.” Obi’s palm shoves against one flat side, angling her back toward the aisles. “Suzu’s showing some imagination. A little faith, if you will.”

“Really? You’re gonna lecture me about moralism? A de—?”

“How long should do you think we should wait?” Shirayuki asks, if only to give her an excuse to do something besides letting her eyes trace the length of his cheekbones another dozen times. “I was hoping to do some of my rounds today if, er…”

It would be insensitive to say, if Obi doesn’t explode on them. Though it’s certainly not as career limiting for him as it would be for, say, either her or Ryuu, the whole business with Haki had still come as a bit of a blow. Even now his hair hasn’t fully grown back in, just a thick forest of black bristle he complains is at the whim of his pillow, even though Shirayuki’s half sure she’s never seen him use one.

Shirayuki casts a curious glance at the hand he runs through it, ignoring the itching of her own palms. Whatever he's doing, it’s clearly working for him.

“Can’t say for sure.” Shidan scratches at his goatee, giving Obi a squint for good measure, almost as if he could see the inner workings of the charm over him, like a clock maker inspects gears on a timepiece. “Fifteen minutes?

“Oh, like one of those vaccines things, right?” Obi doesn’t sit so much as free fall into the bean bag chair in Shidan’s office, long legs stretched across the carpet. “Miss made me wait with her once.”

Yuzuri huffs as she heads toward the shop, one ear flicking. “It’s bullshit that you can’t get sick. Totally unfair. Proof that the universe has its fucking favorites, to be honest.”

“Don’t blame me.” He hooks his hands behind his head, eyes at half-mast, positively lounging. She catches herself mid-star, her eyes nearly raking across ever leather and denim clad inch. And especially the few inches with neither. “Blame— what’s it you guys call it? Speciation? Different biology.”

“Well, some of it has to be the same,” Suzu muses, chin in hand. “You know, for, uh” —he stutters under Obi’s sudden glare— “reasons.”

Shirayuki blinks. “Re—?”

“All right, I think we’ve done more than enough agitation testing,” Shidan grunts, getting to his feet. “Let’s let the guy catch his breath. Give him some space.”

“To combust? If he’s going to do that, a few feet won’t really—”

“Suzu!” Yuzuri stamps her foot just outside the office, ears pulled so low they practically disappear into her hair. “You can’t just say someone is going to explode.”

“Why?” He blinks, craning his neck down to stare. “It’s not like it’ll hurt him.”

“Still. It’s rude!” The graphic part of his tee crumples beneath her fist as she reaches out and tugs, yanking all six foot two of him right off his feet. “Now just get over here already. The last thing I need is you turning into a pile of ash and making more work for me.”

Shidan sighs, running a hand through his already tousled thatch of hair. “Well, that’s the peanut gallery. Shirayuki…?”

“I’ll stay.” It’s supposed to sound supportive, stalwart, but with the heat that licks up her neck, tickling at the apples of her cheeks, she doubts it makes the mark. “Just in case.”

“Your funer—” Shidan coughs, hand scraping over his stubble— “choice.”

“Don’t worry, doc,” Obi hums, head tilted back, skin stretched taut enough she can see his throat bob as he swallows. “This isn’t Miss’s first rodeo. She can handle anything my biology can throw at her.”

Shidan hums, unconvinced. “Right, well, there is a fire extinguisher under the counter. If you need it.”

“I don’t think we will, that sort of reaction tends to be, er…instantaneous.” Shirayuki angles her most grateful smile up at him. “Thank you though. Not just for the, er, information. But everything.”

His shoulders hike up by his ears, as allergic to gratitude as every other master practitioner she’s met. At least he isn’t trying to rush her out the door the way Lata did every time he caught a whiff of sincerity on her. “Don’t mention it.”

It’s hardly a long walk from his desk to the door, but it’s enough steps to see how he’s favoring one side, like Grandpa did whenever the weather got too wet out. “I could brew you something for that, if you wanted.”

His hand hooks on the jamb, holding him steady as he turns a furrowed brow toward her. “For what?”

“Your limp.”

It’s astounding how quickly the red rockets up his neck, not even taking a pause at his cheeks, just barreling up from his collar until it crashes against his hairline. “N-no!” He coughs again, hand scrubbing over his face. “I mean— it’s nothing. Works itself out in time. Just…worry about yourselves.”

It’s in her nature to gently insist, to wheedle curmudgeons around to a show of kindness, but she barely has time to take in a breath before the door slams behind him. Hard enough that it rattles the walls, setting more than a few of his pictures askew.

“Well,” she hums, reaching over to fix one within arm’s reach. “That seems a little unnecessary.”

“Miss.”

There’s no reason for Obi's mouth to hitch like that, or for his arresting eyes to soften, overflowing with affection she can appreciate every ounce of now that instinct is no longer blaring alarm in her ears. And yet, here he is, too-sharp canines dinting his lower lip, shoulders practically shivering as he bites back his snickers. Poorly, she might add.

It doesn’t make the picture of it any less pretty. And it certainly doesn’t do anything to discourage her staring at him, that’s for sure.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” she murmurs, her own cheeks flushed as she turns them away. “He’s injured! I was just trying to be helpful. That’s hardly a reason to get so flustered…”

“Miss.” The word practically squeaks out of him, laughter slipping out behind it. “How do you think he got that limp?”

“How would I…?”

It’s the pity that gets her, just the slightest sliver hidden behind the fondness in his eyes, the same kind Yuzuri gives her when she’s a little slow to understand something adult, and—

“Oh.” There'd been marks on Garrack’s neck, so fresh, only a handful purpled and even less yellowed. And a discount that she’d been so certain she earned them. “Oh.”

“There we go,” Obi hums, settling deeper into the bean bag. “Now you’ve got it.”

It’s only fifteen minutes— less time than it takes Ryuu to complete the sudoku in the paper, or Obi takes to make a sandwich— and yet every second of it is interminable, stretching by with all the speed of molasses down a bottle’s neck. No wonder Obi is always acting like he’s about to jump out of his skin at the library.

But this isn’t just an outright allergy to sitting stationary— no, Shirayuki has extenuating circumstances. The kind that make her wonder if that leather is as touchable as it looks.

“That bad, hm?”

Her eyes dart up, disrupted from the corners they’d been sneaking their surreptitious glances. His are still closed, head tilted back on his hands, like he’d be more at home with a hammock at his back than a bean bag, mojito within arm's reach. Only his smile’s strained, more teeth than teasing, braced for a blow. “Huh?”

“You know…” One large hand waggles over him, a sliver of gold peeking through his eyelashes. “The new look.”

Is it? That’s what she’d like to ask— if when he looks in the mirror, this is the face he sees, or whether Shidan’s charms have polished the edges off they way they’ve erased the extra eyelid. If this is just a human face plastered over a more eldritch one, more palatable to the small animal that is her brain, or what had been hiding beneath that miasma all along, waiting for a heart stout enough to be seen.

Instead she watches his eyelashes splay over the golden arch of his cheekbone and feels her mouth go inexplicably dry. “N-no! Yuzuri’s right. It’s, um…”

“Hot?” he offers, entirely too eager. Even rolls up to his side, one arm angled behind his head, like one of those pin-ups the Laxdo dorm boys had hurried to take down from the wall the last time she stopped by.

“Attractive,” she allows, ignoring the insufferable angle his smirk slants itself to. “You’ll certainly draw attention while we’re out.”

“Attractive.” He tests the word, savors it, and apparently likes the taste. “But am I attracting you, Miss?”

It’s mortifying how quickly her skin goes hot, a slight flush to lobster red in seconds. “Obi!”

“Kidding, kidding!” His hand fly up, but she’s in no mood to be placated, not when they tremble at the same frequency as his laugh. “All this being perceived— it’s going straight to my head.”

He deserves every ounce the scowl she gives him, gaining gravitas as it ramps over the forbidding fold of her arms. “Be that as it may, it’s still not very nice to tease! Especially when you’re not even interested in the answer.”

“I wonder.” There’s a strange set to his smile, like his mouth doesn’t quite fit on his face, like it belongs to a different man entirely— but it’s gone as quick as it arrived, disappearing behind what she’s quickly coming to realize is his usual grin. “So where to next, Miss? After the Doc gives me a clean bill of health, of course.”

There’s a plan, a list, but— but he stretches. Palms press flat to the wall behind him, exaggerating the arch of his back, and— and his shirt rolls up, baring the barest sliver of bronze right above his waistband. A dusting of dusky hair peeks above the brass button, trailing down to parts unknown, and her fingers itch, wanting to know it’s as silky as it looks, or— “I don’t know.”

He blinks, gold making his eyes all the more owlish. “You don’t know?”

“Ah, I mean…” She shakes her head, as if percussive force might knock her tongue loose of its tangle. “There’s a few places…that have put out requests, I mean! And I thought we might have, um…”

This isn’t working. Whatever this is— she’s got to get a hold of herself. With a steeling breath, she slaps her cheeks, hard enough to feel the sting.

Obi’s arches a narrow brow. “You okay there, Miss?”

“Yes, sure.” Barely. “There’s no requests for urgent consult, so I thought head toward the market first and maybe make out way n—”

“The market? You mean…” A groan really should looks so good “Don’t tell me, we’re going to the harbor.”

“What”— Kihal hooks her hands over her hips, thunderous as any squall over the Sound— “is that?”

Shirayuki blinks, tracing the finger she points right over her shoulder to where Obi lounges against the pier, jacket slung over his shoulder. It’s brisk this close to the water, but with the temperature Obi runs at, anything more than short sleeves is for aesthetic. Certainly no cause for alarm, but today—

Well, today she can see how the seam of his sleeve strains around his bicep, and the way his torso tapers right down to his waist, practically a triangle—

She swallows. “Obi’s trying out a charm Shidan made him.”

“Demon boy?” Kihal makes a disgruntled squeak back in her throat, half-threatening, half-cute, and all annoyed. “Oh, I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.”

Shirayuki watches him unfurl from his lean, hips rolling as he saunters toward them, and can’t help but think, get in line.

#obiyukibingo24 #obiyuki #snow white with the red hair #akagami no shirayukihime #magic au #urban fantasy au #my fic #ans #i had thought I'd get to really dig into Kihal's whole thing this chapter #get a little bit of worldbuilding in here with shirayuki's demi panic #but i suppose it'll have to wait until next chapter #since it was too fun to torture shirayuki in an enclosed space 🤣

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