A fill from the Tiger and Bunny Anon Meme. Prompt: Since Antonio and Kotetsu have known each other since high school, Kotetsu probably knows enough Spanish to use during a mission. One day, Barnaby discovers this fact and is turned on by it...
Barnaby was sure he misheard Kotetsu as a collection of syllables tumbled from the older man's mouth. It didn't sound like intelligible words, or even the beginning of an intelligible word that Kotetsu had briefly forgotten the meaning of. It's just a tangle of rolled 'r's, hissed 's's, round 'o's, bright 'a's, and the strange, wide 'y' sound.
But the criminal they've caught in a stand-off cocked his head, and said, "No lo creo…"
"Créelo," Kotetsu responded. He spoke some more, words that hold absolutely no meaning to Barnaby, but the wanted man watched Kotetsu intently, answering whatever Kotetsu was saying with a clear, confident tone.
Barnaby discretely tapped the side of his helmet, bringing up a file on the criminal. Álvaro Serrano, from Madrid, Spain. Kotetsu is speaking Spanish?
With the understanding that these nonsense syllables formed a language, Barnaby could orient himself in their conversation a little bit. He recognized the masculine and feminine articles, "el" and "la," and he occasionally caught the possessive "de," usually translated as "of." But the rest of it remained a complete mystery. Barnaby couldn't tell where one word ended and another began.
After a while, the suspect stopped adding to the conversation, and Kotetsu spoke at length about something, Barnaby couldn't tell. He sounded so confident, so sure of his meaning, his purpose. It might as well have been an incantation, some old magic that Kotetsu invoked with this mystical language. The longer Kotetsu spoke, the longer Barnaby wanted to listen, falling under his spell.
"¿Entiendes?" Kotetsu said. "No voy a lastimarte. Te lo prometo, por el nombre de Tigre salvaje. Pero esto se acabó. Ven conmigo."
The suspect dropped his hands in resignation and walked with Kotetsu toward the police. Barnaby stared after them for a second before he realized that they had left. Shaking himself, Barnaby tried to clear his head of that strange, hypnotic language. He felt so strange—fingers trembly, breath shallow, stomach fluttery…
And… lower…
The metal helmet concealed his impossibly deep blush as Barnaby realized the true power of Kotetsu's aptitude for Spanish. That talented trilingual tongue of his could just as easily talk a man into turning himself in as it could make Barnaby's body shiver with want.
Kotetsu returned and flipped his helmet open, a stupid grin playing across his face. "Got him, Bunny! Man, I was so cool speaking in Spanish, wasn't I?"
Quite the opposite of cool. Barnaby thought. Kotetsu was hot when he spoke in Spanish.
"Kotetsu," Barnaby forced his voice to stay even. "How would you refer to me in Spanish?"
"Eh? You mean like your name? Well, names don't translate, but you'd probably be 'el menor' instead of 'junior.'"
"No," Barnaby insisted. "What would you call me in Spanish?"
"Bunny? Ah, I get it!" Kotetsu smirked. "I'd call you Conejito."
The word pulsed through Barnaby like an electric shock. Does this oblivious idiot have any idea what he's doing?
"You okay, Bunny?"
"Say it the other way."
"Conejito?"
Barnaby bit his lower lip to keep from making a sound. Rather than Bunny, which sounded diminutive, condescending, and petty, the translation, Conejito, held a deeper promise, like instead of calling Barnaby a mere bunny rabbit, it referred to him as someone precious and—dare he say?—someone so sexy he had a special name in Kotetsu's magic language.
"Conejito… Y'know..."
Barnaby strode forward and grabbed Kotetsu's wrist. "Keep speaking Spanish. We're going to the van."
"S-Si así lo quieres, Conejito."
He walked faster. The sooner they were in private, the sooner he could get this suit off, and the sooner he could have Kotetsu all to himself and whispering sweet Spanish nothings in his ear, the better.
Even back when Kotetsu had been begging Antonio to teach him Spanish just in case he ever ended up in a situation with a language gap like that, Kotetsu hadn't really believed it would come to pass. He mostly used it to watch Spanish sports channels. Latino people could get intense with their sports, and had Kotetsu enjoyed knowing what the hell everyone was talking about. Tense drills and vocabulary had sucked, but since Kotetsu got his revenge when teaching Antonio Japanese, he left it at that.
But this… Kotetsu felt really awesome in how he managed to clear up that misunderstanding between Álvaro and the Sternbild police: a simple case of a foreigner in a strange land, and everyone shouting at him in English had spooked him. And then Barnaby decided to drag him off to the transport van, his stride less than comfortable, and Kotetsu had no idea what was going on.
Barnaby pulled him up into the van and shut the door behind him, activating the interior lock so no one from outside could get in. Then he pulled off his helmet and tossed it aside, the chest armor and gauntlets quickly following it.
"Um… Bunny?"
Barnaby glared at him. "I told you to keep speaking Spanish."
"But why?" Kotetsu obeyed, but the confusion remained. "Why do you want me to talk to you in a language you don't understand? It defeats the purpose of talking."
Freeing himself from the leg armor, Barnaby turned his attention to Kotetsu, removing the older man's helmet and letting it fall carelessly.
"H-Hey, Saito works hard on our armor, don't you think we should treat it a little better?" Kotetsu couldn't vouch for in the field when lives were at stake, but he avoided abusing the suit of armor that kept him safe. Barnaby seemed to ignore Kotetsu and worked at the latches on the suit's chest armor. "Bunny—"
Barnaby's fingers slipped and a little sigh escaped his lips. "Again," he ordered. "Say that again."
"Bunny, what's wrong with you?" Kotetsu asked as Barnaby removed the chest armor and the gauntlets. Too much more and he'd be stripping Kotetsu bare. "You're acting weird."
Barnaby knelt and struggled a bit with the latches for Kotetsu's leg pieces, so Kotetsu reached for the opposite leg.
"No, I can get them," Barnaby said.
"I have no idea what you're trying to do, but I can take off my own armor," Kotetsu replied, effectively shutting Barnaby up. The younger man just stared at Kotetsu, lips slightly parted, eyes a little hazy, but that might just be from his lack of glasses. "Honestly, I can understand if you're moody sometimes, but you gotta tell me what's going on." Kotetsu scolded his partner lightly as he continued unlatching the leg armor. He freed both his legs with no more interference from Barnaby, and once he stepped out of the metal armor, he fixed Barnaby with the sternest look he could muster and asked, "Well? Are you happy now?"
Barnaby just stared at Kotetsu, a rosy blush across his cheeks, before he stood and wrapped Kotetsu in a tight embrace.
"Keep talking to me," he whispered. "I don't care what you say, just talk…"
After a second, Kotetsu returned the hug, pulling Barnaby a little bit closer. An unexpected pressure dug into his thigh, and Kotetsu had a sneaking suspicion of what it might be.
"Bunny… are you trying to tell me that Spanish gets you hot?"
Barnaby whimpered a little and nuzzled Kotetsu's neck.
"You really like this? You think I sound sexy when I talk in Spanish? Eh, Bunny?"
His partner didn't respond, not understanding Kotetsu's actual question, and leaned into Kotetsu even more, his breathing deep but heavy.
"What do you think I'm saying?" Kotetsu asked, exploiting their nearness and mumbling right in Barnaby's ear. "Do you think I'm saying dirty things? Talking about everything I want to do to you, Bunny? Or everything you want me to do to you?"
The lower, sultry tone combined with the Spanish language did Barnaby in. He moaned, hands roaming around Kotetsu's back for more purchase, but he couldn't get any closer to Kotetsu.
Well, he could. Kotetsu wanted to work up to that.
Taking advantage of the van's close quarters, Kotetsu only had to guide Barnaby two steps until the back of his partner's knees knocked against a sofa. From there, Kotetsu eased him down, still whispering Spanish affirmations, "Bunny, Bunny, cute little Bunny." The blonde protested when Kotetsu pulled away, but Kotetsu took one hand with him and kissed the palm.
"I understand, Bunny." Kotetsu said in between pressing his lips against Barnaby's hand, guiding it to stroke his cheek and jaw, tickling it a bit with his beard. "I get it that Spanish turns you on, but I always thought talk is cheap, you know?"
He knelt before Barnaby, enjoying his partner's hungry stare as he trailed his fingers across Barnaby's body, choosing innocent areas—outer thighs, upper abdomen, forearms, shoulders—but teasing with a sensual touch. "I can sit here all day and talk about kissing you, or touching you, or feeling your warm, hot skin beneath mine, and how that would feel so, so good, and how much we both want it… I can talk about that until I'm blue in the face."
Kotetsu removed his hands, and Barnaby groaned in protest, but Kotetsu stood and leaned over his partner, hand braced against the wall.
"But there is a big difference between talk…" Kotetsu leaned his face even closer to Barnaby. "…and action."
Barnaby tilted his head up and caught Kotetsu's lips with his own. His hands joined in and tugged Kotetsu deeper into the searing kiss, needy and pleading. Kotetsu returned it with tongue and teeth, meeting Barnaby wholeheartedly. They twisted together for a minute, before they broke for air.
Kotetsu smirked. "Good, Bunny," he said. "My pretty little Bunny…Now, kiss me again."
Even though he didn't understand the words themselves, Barnaby leaned up again and kissed Kotetsu fiercely, like there was nothing else in the world he wanted to do. Besides, Kotetsu shared the feeling, and mumbled over and over again, "Besame… Besame… Besame."