Title: only about things that are mine

Summary: Astral can never seem to get any work done with Ryoga in one of his moods. Yuma, of course, completely misunderstands.

Warnings: Drabble (because that’s all I can ever seem to write anymore). AU crossover. I don’t 100% consider this Unawareshipping??

Author’s Notes: I said this AU was only going to exist in art. I swear it wasn’t a lie, at the time. Someone stop me. This AU will destroy me. It already has.

“I wanna see it.”

Astral’s hand paused along the worn red spine of an encyclopedia volume his fingers had brushed against (Garrison to Halibut, volume 10 of a 32-piece set his father purchased years before Astral was even born). A tiny frown tugged at the corner of his lips and he felt the telltale swelling of a long-suffering sigh building up within him. He turned slightly to his left and let his lone eye narrow at the relaxed figure of his ever-present bodyguard, whose arms were crossed and his rump was nestled against the edge of Astral’s desk like it belonged there.

“Can you not see that I am busy?” Astral ventured to answer. His fingers twitched against the book’s spine, itching to continue their journey across the bookcase. He really had work to do and this distraction wasn’t helping. “I cannot properly attend to our guests without knowing of their customs. The Prince is rather…”

Astral paused to search for the right word to use. There were many that would have sufficed as fitting descriptions, but most could be construed as rather negative and Astral wanted to at least attempt to say something nice.

Even if there was nothing nice to say at all.

“Spoiled?” his guard supplied when he failed to tack a word onto his sentence. Blue eyes glazed over with irritation and his eyebrows knit together, the complete annoyance ringing clear in his voice. “Annoying? A brat?”

’More or less.’ Astral mused to himself.

He shook his head at nothing in particular.

“…regardless,” he continued, avoiding the subject altogether. Insulting guests was not a thing he was raised to do. Even if the insults were justified or true, it was rude. “My research cannot be interrupted without good reason. This is not an emergency, Ryoga.”

His bodyguard, “Ryoga” (though that wasn’t his real name and never would be; because a Barian was a Barian, regardless of what form they took), shrugged and carelessly gestured to the neatly stacked and organized papers and books arranged on Astral’s desk.

“You’re always busy. You can’t go a day without stuffing your nose into some dusty old book, but no one is around. So,” he said and pushed away from the desk’s edge with a small push of his heel. “I want to see it.”

“…”

Choosing not to answer (because Ryoga was stubborn and wouldn’t listen anyway), Astral’s eye merely narrowed even further and he turned back to the bookcase to resume his search. His fingers happily continued to dance along book spine after book spine and Ryoga, surprisingly enough, remained silent.

“Oi, don’t ignore me.”

Very briefly.

“I said,” Ryoga started, an edge to his voice and Astral heard footsteps cushioned by the gray carpeting coming his way. “I want.”

Astral let out a tiny noise when he felt hands closing around his upper arms and give a yank. He was whirled around and pushed up against the bookcase with enough force to rattle the books resting along their shelves.

“To see it.”

Astral’s gaze flickered up to catch Ryoga’s smiling lips and see the amused glint in his eyes. He gave a displeased hum before finally releasing that sigh he had repressed earlier.

“…fine.”

The black eye patch keeping Astral’s right eye covered was removed not a moment sooner and was tossed to the floor without a second thought. Ryoga grabbed hold of Astral’s chin to keep his head in place and leaned in. His breath smelt of the rice he had tried making Astral eat earlier that afternoon (because Yuma made it and though Astral had a fondness for Yuma and rice in general, his appetite was very poor and he often had to be coaxed into eating, something that forever annoyed Ryoga).

“Open it.” he ordered, in reference to Astral’s still-closed eye.

Astral followed the demand and allowed his eye to open. The otherworldly pink glow of an array that had been etched into his eye greeted Ryoga like an old friend and he did nothing more than stare at it, for whatever reason looking rather relieved and quite satisfied with seeing his mark.

It was an odd quirk of his, Astral had come to learn, and while the young business owner failed to understand just what fascinated his bodyguard so much, he didn’t try to argue against it (too much). Barians were a strange but deadly race of creatures that could mimic human form at a whim and tear the skin right off your bones if they found you distasteful in anyway.

But Astral owed this one his life.

So, he didn’t have much room to complain about such things despite their deal. Besides, Ryoga (or, rather, Nasch) wasn’t as bad as Astral’s own people had made Barians out to be. He was strangely kind in comparison to all the stories Astral had been told growing up and after that night in which his would-be murders were all slain and reduced to nothing more than bloody smears and helplessly gutted pigs, Astral had to wonder if any of those stories (aside from the obvious killing tendencies) were true at all.

Barians weren’t supposed to help humans (pity or otherwise), but Ryoga had. Why was still a mystery that not even the Barian himself could seem to answer.

“It suits you.” Ryoga said after a stretch of silence passed. He forced Astral’s head to tilt a bit, enough to better observe his glowing eye. “You should keep it uncovered more. It’s fine if it’s just us, right?”

This again…

“It’s not safe.” Astral insisted, repeating the words with a weariness he shouldn’t of had. “You know that, Nasch.”

If Ryoga were capable of pouting (and he swears up and down that he wasn’t because a Barian Lord did not pout, contrary to Astral’s observations), he would have just then.

“Then make more time for me. I wanna see it more.”

“Learn to obey orders and I’ll consider it.”

Astral’s lips twitched into an amused smirk as Ryoga’s turned downward and the pressure against his chin rose in warning.

“Tch. The Prince isn’t the only brat around here.” the Barian stated and he growled. “You annoy me sometimes.”

Astral’s little smirk didn’t falter and he opened his mouth to make some sort of witty remark bound to further infuriate his alien guard, but at the sound of a door creaking open, his voice caught in his throat and a panicked sheen glistened in his mismatched eyes.

“Astral!”

His heart skipped a few beats.

Of all the people to walk in at such a time, it just had to be Yuma. The last person he ever wanted to find out about this Barian contract.

’He cannot know!’

He thought he would hyperventilate and faint on the spot, but thankfully Ryoga had quicker reflexes than he did and before the door could finish opening and expose their dirty little secret (that Astral made a deal with the devil, that Ryoga was a Barian in disguise, that the Queen’s faithful watchdog was committing treason), he had thrown a hand over Astral’s glowing right eye to stop anyone from seeing it.

“I have some thing to…tell…you…??”

Yuma’s cheerful, generally well-liked expression fell to one of confusion as he stepped into the room and caught the two of them in their awkward position against the bookcase. Astral had an arm pressed against the bookcase behind him and the other was pushing at Ryoga’s chest while the purple-haired guard kept his free hand latched onto Astral’s hip.

It looked questionable and Yuma suddenly looked very embarrassed.

“O-oh, uhm, I…I didn’t mean to interrupt! Sorry!” he spluttered out, cheeks reddening and his returning smile looking so out-of-place that it caused Astral to worry. “I-it can wait till you guys are done! Ahehe…”

Done?

It was Astral’s turn to look confused. What was Yuma talking about?

“I didn’t know you liked Astral…” Yuma mused, looking slightly uncomfortable with the situation. He brightened up nonetheless, after a moment, and gave the two of them a thumbs up. “Well, good luck! Use protection, though. Mom says that’s important and uhm…”

Yuma’s cheeks flushed even more and he excused himself before hastily dashing off.

Ryoga blinked after Yuma’s retreating figure in bewilderment before closing his eyes and letting out an amused snort around the same time the door snapped shut.

“I think he has the wrong idea about us.” Ryoga mused, lips curling into a smirk. The hand he had been using to shield Astral’s glowing eye moved to trace a finger just underneath it. “Or…maybe he’s on to something?”

Astral swatted the hand away with an indignant huff and pulled himself out of the little cage his guard had him trapped in.

“Narcissist.” he accused.

Ryoga merely watched as Astral retrieved his eye patch and began to tie it back in place.

“Only about things that are mine.”

Astral paused at that, but said nothing to confirm or deny it. He just finished tying his eye patch back on, straightened out his coat, and then left to find Yuma to try and explain.