[Fruits Basket] Haru/Rin, #19

Title: "Every Bridge We Build"
Author: Ysabet MacFarlane (ba087@chebucto.ns.ca)
Pairing: Sohma Hatsuharu and Sohma Isuzu (Rin)
Fandom: Fruits Basket
Theme: #19 (red)
Disclaimer: Fruits Basket belongs to Takaya Natsuki and Hakusensha;
English-language versions by FUNimation (anime) and Tokyopop (manga). This piece
of fiction is in absolutely no way endorsed by or affiliated with any of the
copyright holders.
Warnings/Notes:

--Set four months post-series, with no spoilers past vol. 22. Contains fairly
explicit sexual content.

--Beta work by Sean Gaffney. Initial blame goes to Miss Ginny T, but the
execution does not.

--Title from Tom McRae's "Walking 2 Hawaii".

--This story stands on its own, but it's technically an interlude between the
two halves of a post-series fic which is still being written, and as such it
contains implicit spoilers for the first half. If by some chance you really
prefer not to read stories whose context isn't finished yet, well, when that
story is finished (the plan is to post it for two of my remaining 30 Kisses
entries) I'll be linking back to this one to frame it properly. But this has
been basically finished for over a year and a half, and since it can be read on
its own, it's time for it to stop sitting on my hard drive.


**********
Summer 2001
**********

Haru thought Rin was asleep when he first stepped into the summer guest house
and saw her curled up on the couch in the front room, head pillowed awkwardly on
her arm. She didn't stir at the sound of his footsteps; the door had been left
open to admit the faint breeze from the ocean, and bare feet didn't make much
noise. He walked around the room, adjusting the blinds so that the afternoon
sunlight wasn't falling directly across her face.

Her eyes were open by the time he sat down beside her, her attention fixed on
the small watermelon he was carrying under his arm. "Hi," she said, making room
for him while he rolled it onto his lap, letting its chill seep into his thighs.
She raised her head and leaned in to inhale its scent, and he idly wondered what
it smelled like to her. It prickled his nose like seawater stripped of its salt:
cold and pure and subtle, all the sweetness still locked inside. "What's this
for?"

"Family tradition," he said, rapping it with one knuckle. "To celebrate babies."

"Are you insane?" But she sat up to inspect the melon more closely: it was
almost perfectly round, stripes only slightly darker than the rest of the rind.
"Since when is that a tradition?"

"Since Hiro found out about Hinata-chan."

"Since--" A smile tried to escape. "One baby doesn't make a tradition."

"Gotta start somewhere if we're starting over."

"Ah." She pressed her hand against the melon and shivered before reaching over
to trail her fingers across the back of his neck, trading the cold that had
seeped into her skin for his warmth. "I see," she whispered, leaning close
enough to invite a kiss, and he obliged, slowly, leaving her free to pull away.
Instead she sighed against his mouth, matching his careful softness. "So, is
smashing it barehanded part of the tradition, or was that a one-time thing?" At
his look of surprise, she added, "Hiro mentioned it when I said we were coming
up here."

He looked past her, remembering the crack of sun-warmed rind under his fist.
"That'd be harder to explain if the others get back while we're eating it, so
unless you want to tell them already..." She shook her head. "Anyway, too much
of it gets wasted."

"Well, it's still going to be messy. We should probably go eat it outside."

"Were you sleeping?"

"Not quite." She frowned absently as she stood up, running a hand across his
arm. "If I nap too much the others'll know something's wrong."

"Nothing's 'wrong'--"

"Fine, but they'll know something's weird," she interrupted. Haru watched the
distracted, uncertain pattern her fingers traced over her still-flat belly, the
fleeting tension in her shoulders when she saw him looking. It was nothing new
to see her at war with her body, but it made him itch to trap her hand in his.

Instead he followed her into the kitchen, where a quick search turned up a
respectably sharp knife, and she rolled her eyes and let him talk her out of
finding napkins or plates. "We've got the rest of our lives to be grown-ups," he
said.

"Promise not to rinse me off by tossing me in the ocean?"

"Promise," he replied, setting the melon and knife down long enough to leave his
wristband and rings on the windowsill.

They were staying in the smallest house along the family's stretch of
beach-front property, and the space behind it offered the illusion of privacy,
although sound carried a surprising distance; the low murmur of the sea and the
higher cries of bickering gulls filled their ears as soon as they stepped
outside. The immediate yard was set with irregularly-shaped, perfectly flat
stones that absorbed heat early in the day and held it past sundown. The first
few steps on them were almost painful before bare feet adjusted to the shock of
the temperature. Rin waited while he settled into a comfortable cross-legged
position, and then sat close enough to stretch her legs out over his. "So I
don't burn myself on the ground," she said, brushing a dry blade of grass off
her skirt.

"You know I'll get watermelon juice all over you if you sit like that?" He
balanced the melon on her thighs, watching her shiver. "It's not still that
cold, is it?"

"Just cut it." She steadied it while he carefully sliced a manageable chunk out
of the top and passed it to her. She took a slow bite, her eyes softening with
pleasure at the taste; Haru thought he could spend hours watching the rare sight
of her eating something with enjoyment. Her lips seemed pale against the red of
the melon, but she looked less tired than she had that morning. "So we're
celebrating, are we?" she asked, after she'd swallowed.

"Seems like the thing to do." He cut another piece and bit into it thoughtfully.
"We could ease into it--say we're celebrating that we trust each other not to be
like our parents."

"Let's start with that." She ate another bite, her mouth shining with the juice.

"Okay, then." Haru leaned closer and kissed her, sharing the flavor. "Cheers."

It took a while to make a significant dent in the melon; he'd had years to get
used to the idea that Rin was more likely to eat reasonable amounts of food if
it was presented in small bits and pieces. At first he cut thin slices, but as
the efforts to keep the juice from getting everywhere became more and more
obviously futile, he stopped being painstaking. Rin was laughing silently by the
time they were halfway through.

"You're a mess," she said when she caught him watching her.

"That's what happens--" he cut a rough cube out of the melon and held it to her
lips "--when you get me to do the messy work."

She bit it tidily in half, crushing the pulp against the roof of her mouth with
her tongue until the juice was gone, and caught his wrist when he started to
withdraw the remaining piece; she tugged his hand back to her mouth, eyeing him
seriously. "I'm not done yet." She licked one of his fingers thoughtfully as she
picked the fruit up with her free hand and offered it to him. He ate it as
carefully as she had, kissing her fingertips when she ran them across his lips,
until she pulled her hand away.

Her nails raked up the inside of his forearm--hard enough to leave faint tracks,
too light to break skin--while she drew his ring finger into her mouth, placing
delicate bites across his knuckles as she went from finger to finger, ending in
an open-mouthed kiss on his palm. It was intoxicating to watch: the slow turn of
her head as she kept kissing his hand, the subtle mischief in her eyes when she
looked up at him. He tried to remember how long it had been since they'd touched
each other with such uncomplicated playfulness; it seemed like months, not
weeks, since she'd started being jumpy and self-conscious, avoiding his touch
and lying to both of them about what was happening to her.

"You're kind of a mess too," he said, throat suddenly tight, and he looked at
her body instead of her questioning eyes. She'd managed to keep her clothes
reasonably free of melon juice, but damp streaks crisscrossed her thighs. He set
the remaining half of the melon aside, stabbing the knife through an edge and
into the ground to keep it from rolling over into the sand. "Come here?"

Rin gave him a long, measuring look before she let him guide her to her feet and
tug her close so she was standing over him. He ran his fingers up the backs of
her legs, exploring the sharp definition of her tendons, the muscles that could
still carry her with inhuman quickness. He pressed his mouth quickly against her
knee when a few lingering drops of juice trickled down.

"Mmm--" The low hum of pleasure that escaped her when his lips moved across her
thigh was almost instantly cut off. Haru lifted his head, one hand kneading her
skin while the other caught her wrist.

"Don't like it?" He licked the inside of the captured wrist slowly, watching her
eyelashes flutter in response.

"It's good," she whispered back.

"There's no one here but us," he said. "You can make noise." Rin shivered at the
huskiness in his voice. "I like hearing it."

He kissed her legs again, enjoying the softness of her skin and the restrained
eagerness in the way she helped him get her panties off when he reached up under
her skirt. "Don't leave them lying around," she told him, unnecessarily; he was
no more in the habit of leaving evidence than she was.

"I won't." He tucked them away in a pocket, suddenly remembering the first time
he'd done something similar, and the faintly anxious way she'd informed him
she'd be expecting them back.

(Not so long after, she'd suggested trading pillowcases, wanting something with
his scent and too afraid to risk having his clothes discovered in her bedroom,
and had stared at him in confusion when he teasingly called her a hypocrite.)

He took his time licking the last of the melon juice off her thighs, its
sweetness tempered by the taste of her skin. She twitched away when his tongue
reached the side of her knee again, and he laughed, following it with a kiss
that was hardly more than a slow exhalation. The way she moved when he did
something ticklish aroused him in ways he'd never been able to explain to her
satisfaction--he loved the moment of uncontrolled motion, of purely physical
response. "Be nice," she said, nearly inaudible. Her fingers were light on the
nape of his neck, dragging up through his hair.

"'kay." A harder kiss on her inner thigh coaxed a moan out of her; he found her
pulse and licked at it, hungrier for her than he'd realized. "How do you feel?"

"Good." She stroked the side of his neck and the outside edge of his ear,
clicking the three hoops in his lobe together. "Really good." Her voice dropped
further. "Touch me?"

He nodded, keeping his mouth against her leg. "Fingers?" he asked, wanting to be
sure. She'd made herself excruciatingly unreadable over the past few weeks;
uncertainty lingered between them like smoke, made him second-guess the wordless
cues he usually trusted.

"Mmm. Yes," she said, kneeling down over his thighs when he reached for her. Her
left hand closed over his right, bringing it back to her mouth; her other hand
reached down to rub against him while she nibbled and sucked at each finger,
doing things with her tongue that made his hips jerk under her. "Fingers first."

Haru pushed her skirt up slowly when she let his hand go. "Lean back a little."
The soft sound of anticipation she made when he reached out to touch her sent a
delicious shiver up his spine, and made him want to move more slowly, to draw
out her response. But the first light touch of a fingertip between her legs sent
her head snapping back in obvious pleasure; he watched, entranced, while he
stroked her again.

Her eyes stayed tightly closed until his fingers started to penetrate her; then
she was staring at him, lips parting around a soundless gasp. "Do you think this
is strange?" She took his free hand and pressed it below her navel. With her
clothes between his palm and her skin, he wasn't quite sure if he could feel a
change in her body yet; he swallowed hard, suppressing the impulse to undress
her and spend the afternoon exploring her properly, discovering whether there
were discernible changes other than the slightly softer edges to her cheeks and
hipbones. Her face was tight with a blend of desire and anxiety, neither of
which invited that leisure.

"Maybe a little," he said, rubbing his thumb across her hip. She shifted on his
lap, nodding absently while he pushed his fingers further into her. "You said
Kana-san said this was safe, right?" She nodded more deliberately, already
moving against his hand. "Then it's okay if you want it."

She leaned forward and kissed him, quick and needy, moving from his lips to the
line of his jaw. "I don't know if it's safe the way I want it," she murmured
when she reached his ear, feather-light bites on the lobe sending tingles
straight through him. Harder licks and kisses marked the path she took down to
his throat, and he reached up to rub the back of her neck and hold her head
there. Sharp points of heat briefly burned his skin where his wrist rested
against the sun-warmed studs on her collar. She didn't offer an explanation, and
he didn't ask.

Instead he let his head fall back, concentrating on the feel of her voice
resonating through his bones, the way the subtly-changing scent of her body
mixed with the salt smell in the air. Her mouth found his again, hotter than the
afternoon sun beating down on them, her kisses becoming slower and less focused
while she squirmed against him.

He kept kissing her, smiling at the small gasps and whimpers that sounded like
wordless invitations to take his hand away, to unfasten his pants and rub up
against the tantalizing wetness that had his fingers all slick, thrust up into
her with the sudden, almost-rough rhythm she liked... It took real effort to
keep his touch steady instead.

"Rin," he said, licking her lower lip, feeling her tongue sliding back against
his. "Look at me, sweetheart," and she started to climax almost before he
finished the request, her eyes going wide and glassy as it hit her--really hit
her, instead of building slowly and washing up over her the way they were used
to. It tore a low cry out of her throat, made her muscles clench down on his
fingers; she grabbed his wrist awkwardly to keep his hand in place, almost
losing her balance. He automatically steadied her with his free hand, stroking
her spine while she curled in on herself, forehead pressed to his shoulder,
labored breathing hot on his skin.

"Oh," she whispered, and then stopped, as if an important thought had crossed
her mind and escaped.

"That was..." he tried to think of a graceful, or at least gentle, way to
describe what was simmering in the back of his brain, in his groin, in the way
his hands itched to touch her everywhere at once. "Um. Kind of insanely hot."

"Oh?" she said again, somehow sounding both sated and hungry, as conflicted as
his own urges to caress her slowly and take her hard and leave her so boneless
with pleasure that she'd stay pressed against him forever.

"Yeah." He slid his fingers free, wiped them across the side of his leg, and
cupped her face between both hands to kiss her. "I almost got off just watching
you."

"It was too fast." Her hands crept under his shirt, restless on his sides and
chest.

Haru briefly considered teasing her--*greedy today?* rested on his tongue for a
moment--but her eyes were too serious and intent when she looked at him. "What
do you want me to do?"

She exhaled slowly, the flush in her cheeks already fading; he traced the
delicate curves of her ear with his thumb, wanting to keep her skin sensitized.
"Isn't it your turn to pick?"

"Hmm..." He leaned forward and kissed her nose. "See, it's like this: the most
gorgeous woman I've ever met is sitting in my lap, and already told me she'll
sleep with me for the next sixty years or so, so I don't really care too much
about whose turn it is right this minute."

Rin stared at him and then pressed her forehead against his. "Mm hmm." One hand
slid back down between his legs while she balanced on her knees, tugging at the
top clasps on her shirt. "What about _this_ minute?" She kissed his jaw
purposefully, and then his earlobe, toying with his earrings. "Want me dressed?"

He touched her sides slowly, reaching up to grip her hand and take over the task
of undoing her shirt. "Maybe a little less dressed."

She only laughed in reply, but he wasn't going to ask for more when she was
stroking him with such easy confidence, taking him from want to _need_; her
breath was warm in his ear, cooled by her tongue exploring its ridges. Haru
gritted his teeth against the groans of desire that tried to escape, trying to
remember to listen for any sound of returning voices along the shore. Her hands
drew sounds out of him in a way nothing else did, something she seemed to regard
as only fair.

"Do you want--" Rin broke off, licking behind his ear "--want me to beg you for
it?"

He hadn't, not particularly, not until she asked. "Maybe," he hedged, trying to
swallow the temptation that didn't seem to belong in the sunlight with them.
"You're on top of me, though. Maybe I should be begging you." Her shirt was
halfway open, and he hesitated, running a finger down between her breasts.
"Don't you usually wear a bra with this?"

"Yes." She met his eyes squarely and then shrugged, accepting the distraction.
Her hands closed over his, pushing them back to the narrow row of clasps. "It
was too tight with anything under it." She sighed in relief when he finished
unfastening the shirt. "Didn't think I'd have to buy new clothes already."

He bent to give her collarbone a leisurely kiss while he slid his hands up over
her back. "Wouldn't want this to go to waste," he said, waiting until he felt
her silent laugh before he lowered his mouth to her breast, bringing a hand
around to caress her. She stiffened in surprise when he used his tongue
teasingly, her hands tightening on his shoulders. He kept his voice low as he
glanced up. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Her reply was too quick, but she continued speaking. "It doesn't
usually feel like--" The backs of her fingers grazed his lips. "I mean, it
usually feels nice, but not..."

"Want me to do it again?" he asked. Rin nodded unsteadily, shifting herself on
his lap in a way that made it very hard to think, but in the next moment she
shook her head; her arms came up as if she meant to cover herself, and then she
stopped, her eyes squeezing shut. He felt vaguely guilty about the lingering
look he took before pulling her against his chest. The change wasn't markedly
visible, only a slight swelling of her breasts--the shirt was normally tight
enough that it wouldn't take much at all to make it impossible for her to wear
it, bra or no bra--but they'd felt intriguingly heavier in his hands.

"This can't be comfortable," she said quietly, the movement of her lips on his
neck sending a jolt up his spine.

"I'm fine." Haru straightened his back when she shifted her weight to her knees,
still kneeling over him. Her fingertips skimmed over his collarbones, along his
sides, back between his thighs.

"That's not what I meant." She unzipped his pants, caressing as she went. "Want
to go inside for this?"

"Here's good." He took a moment to peel his shirt off and ball it up. "I just
want to move a little." He lay down under her, watching the way her eyes darted
over his face, and pillowed his head on the bunched cloth. The flat stones
radiated heat into his bare back, enough to make him flinch away before the
first shock of it passed. Rin settled herself on top of him as soon as he'd
finished stretching out, her body nearly as warm as the ground.

"Tell me," she said.

"What I want?" She nodded; when he licked his lips she bent down and retraced
the path of his tongue with hers.

"I want you to feel how badly I want you," he said. "I want you to take me like
you can tell how incredible your body feels to me."

"You don't think I know?" she asked, her eyes only inches from his.

"Sometimes I think you don't have any idea," he replied, resting his head back
on the ground. "But that's what I want."

"I see." She leaned closer and he brought his mouth to her throat, hard, kissing
and sucking at the tender skin above her collarbone, never quite biting down. He
didn't stop until she sat up, both of them trembling as she quickly touched the
reddening place where his mouth had been. Without speaking, she pressed one hand
against her belly and she used the other to guide him into her--smooth and
quick, sending his eyes rolling back at the sudden sensation, the rocking of her
hips that made him feel like he was being drawn deeper and deeper into her body.
Her palms came to rest between his hips and ribcage as he arched under her,
enjoying the obvious pleasure she took in the way his muscles moved.

"And tonight--" he caught his breath sharply when she ground down harder against
him "--tonight I want to taste you." She laced her fingers behind his head as if
to help him when he sat up, bringing their bodies closer together. "I'm gonna
lay you out on that bed in there and make you never want to get back up, love."

Rin fumbled for his hands, holding on tight enough to make him glad he'd taken
his rings off; her face was blank and focused, eyes staring through him while
she moved. It wasn't as bone-deep satisfying as when she came with a slow
torrent of kisses and barely-comprehensible babble, but there was a particular
thrill to seeing her so utterly unaware of anything but the feel of him inside
her. He tried to free a hand to reach down and touch her, but her grip was like
steel; he used his voice instead, unsteadily, telling her all the things he
wanted to do to her, watching her growing desperation for release from the
tension he could feel running through her. He forgot the heat of the sun, the
smell of the ocean, everything but her hands clinging to his, how her body was
pure warmth and hunger barely contained by her skin.

He came almost as soon as she did, a pure rush of ecstasy sparking from her
muscles to his like fire. Caught up in it, he didn't understand what she was
saying at first; it wasn't until the tingling in his hands and back had started
to ease that he realized she'd been whispering the same thing over and over, the
words fractured as if by a hunger they couldn't encompass.

*You're mine, you're _mine_...*

"Always," he said, and she froze, trying to look away. "Nothing's going to
change that." Her lips trembled against his when he kissed her. "Nothing, Rin, I
promise."

She lowered her eyes as soon as he stopped, her hands brushing awkwardly against
him while she pulled her skirt up higher, away from the growing dampness in his
lap. "I think we need to get changed," she said, moving as if to stand.

"If my clothes are a write-off anyway, you might as well stay put for a few
minutes," he replied, pulling her closer instead of letting her get up.

"All right." She nestled carefully back against him, disheveled afterglow
lending her a gentleness she usually lacked.

"Do you feel okay?" he asked eventually.

"Hmm?" Puzzled, she lifted her head to peer at him. "Oh--no, I feel fine. I
think everything's fine."

"Can you feel anything yet?"

She answered as if he hadn't asked the same thing the night before, and the
night before that, and when she'd first told him. "I just feel like I'd feel it
if something were wrong." The kiss she gave him when he started to speak was
unexpectedly intense. "The others really might be back soon. I know Kyo likes
long walks, but the afternoon's almost gone." This time when she tried to stand
up he let her go. "If I go down to the water, will you bring me a bathing suit?"

"Sure."

Once on her feet, she fastened enough clasps on her shirt to keep it closed, and
very carefully worked her skirt down far enough to give her a pretense of
modesty for the short walk to the shore, as long as no one came anywhere near
her. "Meet you in the water," she said as she disappeared around the side of the
house.

Haru did what little he could to clean up outside and then went into the house.
Walking through the front room on the way to the stairs, he glanced out through
the blinds on the windows. Rin was at the water's edge, bent over to trail her
fingers through the waves; while he watched, she straightened and quickly
undressed, tossing her clothes far enough that the receding tide wouldn't reach
them.

Between one blink and the next, she'd disappeared into the water. He waited
until he saw her surface a little further out, and then turned away to give her
a few minutes to herself before he went out to join her.


[fin.]