Smothering
A/N – A little nothing drabble set in the same AU as Veteran and Novocaine, heavily slanted towards Ken/Sano.
Disclaimer – I don't own Ruroken, any of the canon characters, situations or settings. No money was made in the writing of this.

The summer heat is smothering.

Sano throws the tiny window as far open as he can and braces himself in front of it; Ken has a wheezing, rusty air-conditioning unit, but Sano knows better than to turn it on. Ken claims that the constant mechanical drone throws off his senses, and though he's known the other man for nearly ten years, there are some things Sano's not brave enough to question. And so he swelters in Ken's tiny sweat-box of an apartment, gasping for even the lightest brush of cool air, while all around Ken's neighbours have their air-con cranked up as high as it can go.

That doesn't mean he can't bitch about it.

"Man, it's like a goddamn oven in here," he calls over his shoulder, grousing sullenly. "If I wanted a sauna, I'd shell out the money for a luxury spa."

A cool, damp towel hits him in the back, a sharp shock to his system. He hears light feet padding deliberately over the scuffed lino floor – Sano has more than once complained about Ken's eerily silent movements – and he turns around, peeling the towel off, to see Ken newly emerged from the shower, his copper-tinged hair trailing wetly down his back.

Sano almost swallows his tongue. Ken's body is lean, lithe, with the crazy flexibility of a gymnast and the faded nicks, scars and swear-to-God bullet holes of the secret whatever-it-was-he-did during the war. Though Sano outweighs him and is taller by a full head, he knows better than to think he could ever take him unless Ken allowed it –

(get him on the right day and in the right mood, and Ken would allow almost anything)

– "Stop staring, Sano," Ken says mildly, "and go take a shower. Maybe it'll cool you down."