#iskwrites

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Free! Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Matsuoka Rin/Yamazaki Sousuke Characters: Nanase Haruka, Tachibana Makoto, Background & Cameo Characters, Matsuoka Rin, Yamazaki Sousuke, Mikoshiba Seijuurou Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Humor, Alternate Universe, Non-Graphic Violence Summary:

They’ve only ever been two dogs chasing the same car. When does it give?

Makoto has tattooed a countless number of athletes over an eight year career as an artist, and whether it be obtuse depictions of their accomplishments or their passions, or precise and simple stampings of their records or their medals, each piece shares one common swell of feeling across all clients: pride.

So he notices the distinct absence of this feeling when a walk-in asks him to cover up a well-crafted piece of five bright and brilliant Olympic rings, turning their message of unity into a free-handed band of colorful hydrangeas and rue flowers beneath a man’s collarbone who doesn’t watch Makoto do it, and doesn’t explain himself either, forcing questions to sit on Makoto’s tongue as he works while he wrestles with the urge to reassure the stranger that whatever happened to him that made him want to hide this, it won’t hurt forever (as few things do).

It was Haru’s turn to go shopping, and it would’ve taken him ten minutes tops, as all he needed to pick up was vegetables for the week given they had meat leftover in the freezer from the week prior... but no, he forgot, it didn’t get done, and now it falls to Sousuke on one miserably hot and late Friday afternoon.

It brings him to a choice, a vindictive vegetable choice, knowing full well Haru hates bell peppers and while Sousuke doesn’t care for them much either, a scorched earth approach to tonight’s dinner would at least match his mood and drag Haru down to his level to put them on even irritated ground.

Now that he’s stemmed the bleeding, Haru wrings out a clean rag in a basin of warm water, lays it over the four adjacent deep gash wounds marring Sousuke’s thick forearm, and rolls his eyes all the way back when Sousuke hisses and snarls through the sting of it not unlike the wolf that caused his injury.

“That hurts, Haru, be careful,” Sousuke rumbles more feral than anything from deep in his chest, beastly body tense since he sat down and now nearly made of steel, “or did you forget this is your fault for running away straight into a pack of wolves like some idiot?”

previously on 3 sentence soumako werewolf au...

The Iwatobi Fire Department’s annual community barbecue is one of Makoto’s least favorite occupational obligations, because after six years and six barbecues, he’s yet to get away from the grill long enough to get to eat any of it before it’s all gone.

And this guy, who’s been eyeing Makoto up and down since he got there, swings back through the dwindling line for seconds- and on top of that has the gall and the total lack of self-awareness to lean into Makoto’s space like he knows him and smile wide and easy as if Makoto smiled at him first (he didn’t... did he?).

Sousuke tags along because he can’t ignore his curiosity anymore, which feels like a defeat in and of itself because he’s never been concerned with how Makoto and Kisumi run their collections route so long as it gets done before the end of the month, the money falls to the right hands, and no one needs a hospital - and so far so good to two out of three of those criteria on average.

But no one’s questioned those two in the entire year they’ve been in charge of their own route how the good gracious fuck two professional outlaws ended up with Mighty Moo, the ice cream shop an entire town over, on their collections roster, and Sousuke needs to know what sort of mafia-grade protection a goddamned ice cream shop needs.

Considering all of the creative and violent ways this undead world could’ve chosen to dispose of him over the years, slowly dying of exposure and dehydration while snagged up in a prey net hanging from a tree due to a sloppy groggy morning misstep ranks damnably low on Sousuke’s imaginative list of meaningful death scenarios, but hey; there’s some sort of noble poetry in serving as the next passer-by’s cautionary tale of unchecked stupidity.

He has nothing but time to stare at his dropped hunting knife sitting pretty way down below upon the forest floor and to passively contemplate the irony in stumbling into what just might be the most zombie-proof positioning there is also serving as his imminent makeshift suspended casket; but in the end, this is just another day of mild inconvenience, as nothing really surprises him anymore in a reality where death and taxes are actually not guaranteed.

Sousuke lectures him until his voice is hoarse and husky: I’m not surprised she got that bottom feeder for a brother loose of his cell, my Captain, she could’ve shook the key ring in your face and you still wouldn’t have noticed she’d lifted it, my Captain, you were too busy staring elsewhere, my Captain (sarcastically delivered every time and through clenched teeth without exception as it turns out), and should we go over the last time this happened because we sure can, my goddamned Captain.

But nothing can beat back Makoto’s grin today, because sure Gou freed her brother from his crew’s custody (again), and sure Makoto was too busy with unraveling the mysteries to all of her leather and lace to notice he’d lost that key to her within the first two minutes of her arrival to his quarters, but Sousuke’s scorn is hardly as solely critical of his Captain as it seems on the surface.