[fanfic] Power Rangers: Evening Preparations

[higuchimon]

Title: Evening Preparations
Characters: Kat, Tommy||Pairing: Kat x Tommy/Tommy x Kat
Word Count: 1,990||Chapters: 1/1
Genre: Romance||Rated: G
Notes: This takes place about 2004, but Power Rangers: Dino Thunder is not referred to.
Summary: Kat and Tommy get ready for bed, with sweet talk and sweet deeds for one another.

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He'd lost track of how many times he'd pulled the brush through his hair tonight. It had to be over a hundred. He was somewhat certain it was in the vicinity of two hundred, but it was hard to tell. After all, he'd lost track.

Though when one got right down to it, it didn't matter that much. What mattered was the brushing. He couldn't do this forever, but it always relaxed him. It wasn't the only thing that did, but one of those things.

He glanced over to the other side of the bed, smiling a touch at the sight of her there. His eyes were drawn almost inexorably not just to her, but also to that long wealth of brilliant golden hair that cascaded down her back. He wanted to reach out and play with it some, but he held himself back. All things in due time.

“So, how was your day?” It sounded banal, but he was really interested. Besides, it made for something of an icebreaker when he had other things on his mind.

“Same as usual. The new building plans should be finished any time now.” Kat leaned her head to the side and ran her brush through her hair as she answered him. “What about you? What's it like in the fascinating world of flora?”

Tommy tried not to roll his eyes, but he couldn't help it. The way she made it sound so silly was just...silly. “Not bad. The new cuttings are due any day now.” If anyone had known, or had any idea, that Tommy Oliver, martial artist and race car driver extraordinaire, was going to wind up being a botanist, and had told him that when he was seventeen, he probably would've been convinced they were out of their mind.

If he had anyone to thank for this change in things, though, it was Kimberly. She'd always been into this kind of thing and when he'd made a trip to Florida not long after passing his powers on to T.J., they'd had a very long talk. It had ended up with him taking a few botany courses, just to see what she had found so fascinating about grubbing about in the dirt.

“I heard from Kim, by the way,” Kat commented, working carefully at a particularly obnoxious tangle. “Her new business is going really well.”

“Hartfelt Florists.” Tommy shook his head at the name. Kim had a way with words sometimes. He wasn't always certain it was the right way, but it was a way all the same. “Is she planning on expanding here or just visiting?”

“Just a visit. But I think she'll probably want your opinion on some things.” Kat worked at another knot, then put the brush down. “You've been working on your hair for half an hour now, Tommy. I don't think you've got a single knot left in it. So what's up?”

He pulled his eyes away from her hair and stared up at her. “What makes you think anything's up?”

“If it isn't, you've got something on your mind.” Kat eyed her husband a little more closely. “I know you, Tommy. You can't fool me.”

He blushed a little, then put the brush down. “I was wondering if you wanted some help with your hair, really.” He paused for a second, looking into those crystal blue eyes of hers. They'd always seemed to cut right into him, no matter what kind of thoughts were going on in her mind. It was one of the reasons he loved her so much. He couldn't hide anything from her, no matter how much he might want to. It was a comforting feeling. “It does tangle a lot, you know.”

“It's my hair, Tommy. Of course I know.” She ran the brush through the long mass a few more times, then handed it to him. “But you can brush it if you want. It's hard to get to the back sometimes.”

The words were casual, commonplace, even trite to some, but both of them had what could only be defined as a hair fetish. Kat enjoyed having someone brush out her hair for her, especially when that someone was Tommy. Most especially when that someone was Tommy. As an added bonus, Tommy himself enjoyed brushing her hair out. It was something they'd learned very early in their relationship.

As he began to run the brush through her hair, making certain not to yank at any knots, he let his mind wander back through all the times he'd done this. There had been so many of them that it was impossible to number them all. He lumped it under 'not enough' and kept on brushing. Kat's hair was satin-soft, with just a hint of dampness from her evening shower, and the faintest aroma of strawberries from her shampoo. Tommy ran a hand down the mane softly, sliding his fingers in just enough so he could massage her scalp at the same time.

“Mm...I hope you know what you're doing.” Kat purred softly, leaning back some. “And I hope you didn't really have any plans to go to bed this early.”

“Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't.” Tommy grinned at her, knowing she couldn't see it from where he sat. He kept on brushing lightly as he did, taking far more care with hers than he ever had with his. “Maybe I just like playing with your hair.” It was the same game they played every night, with different words and sometimes taking turns. But always the same winners: both of them.

“What if my hair doesn't want you to play with it?” Kat challenged, moving her head forward a touch. “What if there's something else around here that might?”

Tommy laughed and moved closer to her, moving his free hand out of her hair to caress her shoulders gently. “I don't think that'll be a serious problem. I don't mind playing with something else.”

Kat's eyes sparkled with mischief as she inched a bit more away from him. “That does sound like fun. But what will we do afterwards?”

“Sleep?”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Tommy, you're going to be the typical guy until the day we put you in your coffin. Is that all you can think about?” She laid a slender finger against his lips when he tried to say something, not even bothering to look behind her to do so. “No, I don't really want you to answer that. I think I already know what you'd say.”

Tommy chuckled a little, not really stopping his one-handed tending to her hair. “Am I really that see-through to you?”

“Sometimes.” She sighed a little, leaning into the brushing as it kept going on and on. “But sometimes not. That's why I love you. I can't always be sure what you'll say or do next.”

“That's not always a good thing, though.” Tommy found a small knot and started to carefully work on it. It made a nice distraction from what else they were talking about. He didn't like thinking about just how he fit with anyone, or didn't fit, as the case might've been.

“It is for me.” Kat's voice held no hint of denial. He had to stop brushing as she turned away to look him in the face. “Tommy, you're probably going to doubt yourself at least a little bit all your life. That's just how you are. But I don't doubt you, and I don't doubt us. I don't want to hear about how you shouldn't doubt after all this time. Don't worry about it. It's part of what you are. So just finish what you're doing, and we'll do something else, and then let's get some rest. We both have a lot to do tomorrow, anyway.”

She turned her head so he could get back to brushing it, sighing briefly in pleasure as he did just that. Tommy ran the brush down until he found the tangle he hadn't been able to finish getting and carefully worked at it. He was aware that a lot of people would have kept on in the original conversation, but he just wasn't in the mood. As much as it bugged him sometimes, she was absolutely right. So he wasn't going to stress about it. Not now, anyway. Maybe later, when there weren't any delicious distractions to deal with.

“Why did you grow your hair so long, anyway?” He hadn't really paid that much attention to what she'd been doing with her hair over the last couple of years. When he finally had opened his eyes and noticed that it reached nearly to her waist by now, it had been on their wedding night, and he'd had a few more things to do than ask questions like that.

“Because of you.” Kat answered promptly, grinning. “It was just after you went to Florida to go see Kim. I wanted to be sure that when you came back, no one mistook me for the guy in the relationship again.”

He put the brush down and leaned around to stare at her. “Don't tell me someone actually did that?” Even with his long hair, no one had ever called him feminine, and if anyone could take one look at Katherine and even consider she was anything other than the perfectly female female that she was, they needed more than glasses, they needed eye surgery!

Kat looked as if she were about to say they had, and he started to prepare the loudest groan he was capable of. Whoever this was, they were getting a visit from him! “Jason.”

Oh. Well, that was different. “What made him say that?”

“The fact that just then, you did have longer hair than I did.” Kat grinned, running her fingers through his hair for a few seconds. “Have you ever really thought about cutting this, anyway?”

Tommy shook his head quickly, then paused. “Well, maybe a little. I've been letting it grow ever since that mission to the moon with the others.” He ruffled it a little, then ran a hand over his chin. “What do you think? A short hair cut, and maybe a little goatee or something? How would it look on me?”

Kat eyed him carefully, then rolled her eyes. “Silly. Finish up my hair, I already told you we have a lot to do.”

“You said we had a lot to do tomorrow.”

“We have a lot to do tonight, too.” With that, she very deliberately tapped the brush in his hand and turned so he could get to her hair once more. He brushed neatly and thoroughly, paying special attention to all the knots and tangles, and finally delivering a perfectly brushed head of hair.

As he turned off the lights and she moved closer to him, he ran his hands once again through her wealth of moon-touched hair and whispered softly how much he loved her. Kat laughed and brought her lips down closer to his. “You just love me for my hair.”

“That's just a bonus. You know that.” He couldn't resist a soft groan of pleasure as she began to caress his own hair. They were two of a kind, that was for certain.

An immeasurable amount of time later, Kat curled up against her husband, yawning in deep relaxed bliss. “No, that's a bonus.” She murmured, yawning once again. “I have to wonder, though...”

“Mmm...wonder what?” Tommy didn't have the mental capacity to think very much right now. He didn't care, either. It was too much work to think. He'd do it later. If he remembered to.

“What color hair the baby will have.” Kat's breathing measured out into the long, slow ins and outs of sleep and Tommy started to join her.

“Good question.” He maintained just enough thought process to murmur the words before he sat up straight, sleep forgotten. “The what?”

The End

Author's Note: Those who read it long ago may find similarities to my old fic Hair Care. That's because this is that story, rewritten and renamed. Complete plotless fluff, but I enjoyed writing it. I love Kat/Tommy, and it was good to rework this one. I kept the ending, because I thought that was fun, and funny. If anyone's really curious enough, I could probably write up Kim's visit and something or other about her floral place, mentioned here as Hartfelt Florists, but I don't really have anything planned for it right now. Thinking about it makes me want to write it as a Kim/Skull, so if anyone's interested, drop a line and I'll see what I can work up.

The End