tj_rowe | fic: RaiClay: Don't Say It

Title: Don't Say It
Author: TamerTerra
Word Count: 300 (triple-drabble)
Pairing: ClayxRaimundo
Warnings: Implied Character Death, boytouching.
Summary: Just practicing... until it wasn't.

"Just so that we're clear: this doesn't mean anything," Raimundo clarified as the two boys sat hesitantly astride the temple roof.

Clay nodded. "Just for practice like." He smiled, trying to cover his own nervousness.

"Yeah," Raimundo agreed, and finally leant forward for the kiss, holding his body stiff and not daring to make too much contact. Later, time would teach him to relax, but there on the roof he was nervous and unsure of what to do.

It was the first encounter of its kind that occurred between the two monk-apprentices, but it wasn't the last. Things progressed, slowly, as they were wont to do when two boys started putting their hands on each other.

Love Bites were next. Clay could do them easily, but Raimundo struggled to get the technique right and the cowboy had to demonstrate a lot, applying his mouth to collarbones and skin that was usually hidden under robes. Kimiko would never let them live it down if she found out, after all, and a visible Love Bite would be too big a clue.

But then the mistake happened, when it all went wrong.

Three words. Three words were all it took, three words that were whispered by accident into Raimundo's ear after a particularly boisterous 'training session' late at night. They avoided each other's eyes after that, messing up formations by pulling hands away suddenly at crucial moments in embarrassment. When the next Big Bad came along, it won due to the failing team dynamics.

Looking out over the darkened world, Raimundo blamed himself. He knew, deep down, that it had been up to chance who let those catastrophic words out first. Maybe, if they hadn't hidden from each other, they wouldn't have been beaten so thoroughly by a Bean, of all things.

(x-posted to