For Services Rendered Afterthoughts

By: Bunny

Rated: Teen 15 and up

Genre: Romance, Comedy, AR

Summary: RyoSaku, AR. A collection of extra "scenes" from the For Services Rendered alternate reality fic of mine. Mostly drabbles, some of the past, some of the present story time and some of the future. This isn't complete or incomplete each "chapter" will be a separate self-contained scene that just adds onto FSR...think "bonus features" on a DVD. So I will add little drabbles here as I think them up and write them out. Heh...it will probably be mostly fluff. ...cowers...

I would recommend reading FSR first so you understand the basics of the alternate reality I created in that fanfic. Reading this will also spoil some of that fic if you don't want spoilers.

Twenty - Date

Present Day...in Melbourne, Australia

Echizen Ryoma wasn't usually elated to win a tennis match. It was a pretty much daily occurrence for him, and it had been that way for years. Every once in a while though, he'd get that wonderful feeling of a truly burning rivalry with a fellow tennis player.

Today had been one of those days. The Australian Open semifinals match against his girlfriend's old acquaintance from her school days Toyama Kintaro had easily been his favorite match of the whole tournament, possibly of the whole upcoming tennis year.

And now...he was going to claim his prize.

He'd been planning it out for over a week since he'd known he'd have three days between his semifinals and finals match, and he knew by experience that after the semifinals match was the time for some downtime to gear up for the finals.

He hadn't anticipated their private reconciliation happening before tonight, but since they'd worked things out this afternoon, Ryoma was sure his efforts for tonight would reap even sweeter rewards than he'd originally foreseen. At remembering the torments of the last week and a half he frowned for a moment. Ever since the day before the tournament started when he'd brazenly rubbed his hands down Sakuno's legs in the bathtub she'd been giving him a freeze out when they were in private. Oh, in public she played her role of doting girlfriend perfectly, but from the moment she'd got out of the bath and cut him off from their private intimacies, he'd figured out that her private attention she'd been giving him was way more important to him than her public.

So...he'd made a plan to get her to end the freeze out.

He'd been hearing tales about it since he'd first participated in the Australian Open, all those years ago when he was seventeen, but previously lacking completely in the romance department he'd always dismissed it.

This year...would be different.

Arriving back at their hotel suite, Ryoma instructed his girlfriend to get ready to go out for the rest of the day. Sakuno had given him a curious look, but prepared herself without question or complaint.

Yeah...she was kind-of great like that.

Soon enough they were getting into the car he'd instructed Horio to rent for them, and beginning their long drive for their special adventure. Ryoma drove leisurely towards their destination, after some time of driving through the city, they'd driven through a bit of countryside, before the highway had followed the coastline. Upon seeing the ocean, Sakuno's eyes had lit up with excitement and she'd began to barrage him with questions about where they were going. Ryoma had simply shook his head and told her it was a secret.

They parked their rental car and Sakuno paused at the odd sign in the parking lot, her head tilted to the side, a confused yet curious expression on her face.

The sign was in English, so Ryoma wondered if she really understood it, though he supposed even seeing the picture was enough to give someone pause.

The sign read simply:

please

check under

your cars

for Penguins

thank-you

Below the words was a simple depiction of a car with a little penguin underneath it.

Ryoma almost laughed as Sakuno turned her puzzled expression from the sign to him and then back to the sign. With his satisfied smirk in place, he approached his girlfriend, grasped her hand and tugged her forwards. As they approached the visitor's center building a women seemingly fairly close to their age approached them with a wide grin.

"Mr. Echizen. Miss Ryuzaki. Welcome to the penguin parade. I'm Sarah, your private ranger for the night. If you want to follow me, I'll take you to our private viewing area. We have a bit of time before the penguins arrive for the evening."

Sakuno blinked in confusion at the English greeting, while Ryoma gave the woman a nod of thanks.

The woman turned and began walking away from the visitor's center towards the beach beyond.

"Ryoma," Sakuno began quietly as they followed along behind the park ranger, "Did she just say penguin?"

The corner of Ryoma's mouth tilted up, but he didn't answer.

Excited and frustrated with her lack of understanding and her companion's lack of response, Sakuno tugged down on Ryoma's hand that was entwined with her own, "Ryoma! Did she say penguin?"

At her insistence, Ryoma snickered a bit in mischievous glee.

Sakuno rolled her eyes, but she was no dummy. She was pretty sure from the sign she'd seen in the parking lot, the strange English greeting she'd just received, and Ryoma's lack of explanation that there was something wonderful that probably had to do with penguins in store for her that evening. She was starting to feel extremely excited.

She'd had no idea there were penguins in Australia. If there were...how had she missed them on her tourist activities exploration on the computer? Was it because they were about an hour away from Melbourne?

Within a few minutes, Sarah had led them down to the beach and had spread out warm blankets on the cool sand and handed the two of them binoculars.

As they sat down, Ryoma turned towards Sarah for a moment and said in English, "My girlfriend's English is not very good, so I will need time to translate most of what you have to say for her."

Sakuno understood the first part of Ryoma's words about her not knowing English very well and thusly embarrassed, she looked away towards the drooping sun with uneasiness.

Was it really necessary for him to point out her flaws to others?

Sarah on the other hand, gave a nod of understanding in her desperate efforts to keep up her cool at being the personal guide for the evening of the super famous sexy tennis star and his made famous overnight simply by dating him girlfriend. The girl, Sakuno Ryuzaki seemed just as sweet as she appeared to be in every picture or video coverage she'd seen of her. Ryoma Echizen the tennis prince on the other hand, was overwhelming. From the moment she'd observed him step out of his car in the parking lot the reasons why he'd been named sexiest man alive had been quiet manifest to her. His intoxicating presence was making her feel beyond nervous.

Sakuno Ryuzaki was such a lucky woman.

Ryoma had taken every care it seemed, to plan the perfect date for his girlfriend. Sarah knew it all first hand, as she'd been the one to take his call, make the booking and discuss his plans. It was to be a secret for Sakuno that she was going to see the little six inch penguins there on the beach that night. With the sun setting, the beautiful ocean, and the cutest little creatures on the planet that were due any minute now to start parading past their feet, Sarah was impressed at how romantic the man that people magazine had bashed repeatedly about having no love life was with his girlfriend.

Maybe the two had been dating for ages, and he'd been keeping Sakuno a secret to the rest of the world?

Sarah desperately wanted to ask. Her curiosity at the couple's relationship was enormous, but she knew if she so much as opened her mouth to ask such a thing the wrath of Ryoma would be massive and she'd possibly lose her job.

If only his sweet girlfriend understood English. Surely, she would tell her...

Sarah watched as Ryoma's fingers made soft drifts along Sakuno's back as Sakuno watched the horizon. It really was rather relaxing. It was nice to be away from the crowds for a night as well.

Sarah's eyes drifted towards the water, looking for the tell-tale signs of the arrival of the little penguins in the shallows. Sure enough she caught the first of little ones beginning to wash ashore just as Sakuno let out a squeal of excited delight.

Sakuno had spun around on the blanket to grasp onto her boyfriend.

"Ryoma! It's penguins! THEY'RE SO CUTE! How did you! EEEEEKKKKK!"

Sarah didn't understand the quickly spoken Japanese words, but the excitement she witnessed by the Japanese woman was a sight she'd witnessed many a times...or rather every night for as long as she'd been working there at Phillip Island. It was universal, and no translation was really needed. She knew without a doubt that Sakuno Ryuzaki was thrilled to her bones to see the cute little ones waddling up the shore towards them.

Ryoma grinned at Sakuno as she clutched tightly onto his arm, her body pressed closely against his side, her smile wide, her eyes glowing at the adorable little animals marching determinedly past their toes.

Sakuno looked up at him and their eyes locked for a moment; Sakuno's glowing with happiness, Ryoma's smoldering with unguarded affection for the woman that was now a part of his life.

Making her happy...it was the best...

Sakuno blinked in surprise at the look in the famous tennis prodigy's eyes. Her...her...fake boyfriend was looking at her like...like...

like...

She peered over his shoulder to their private guide and the empty beach beyond. Hmmm.

"Ryoma?" She asked as she met his eyes again.

He was still looking at her like...

"Why did you bring me here?"

Her boyfriend's eyes hardened for a moment. Giving her a guarded look he asked, "What? You don't like it?"

Sakuno's eyes widened. She squeezed his arm for emphasis as she exclaimed, "No, no! I LOVE IT."

His eyes warmed again and he gave her a soft smile, "Good."

"It's just...it's like..." Sakuno looked away for a moment as she bit her lip in embarrassment, "It's like a date."

Ryoma gave a grunt of disapproval, "Of course it's a date."

Unable to help it, Sakuno felt her heart burst with happiness at his words.

Their first date!

Ryoma moved his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. Sakuno relished in the warmth of his body.

This was...perfect...

"Ryoma?"

"Hn."

"The beach is empty."

Ryoma grinned in the darkness at the little penguins at Sakuno's observation.

That's right...their first date...was private...because it was for them.

Did she get it?

Hey everybody! So...I miss you all so much that I'm tempted on an almost daily basis to start posting up It's Complicated, but...it's just not ready yet and I'm still writing it. I'm on chapter 12 already...can you believe it? I still have quite a bit I want to write for that fanfic too, but I'm hoping it will be well worth the wait. :) I actually wrote this drabble a while ago and I was waiting to post it up until I'd written out drabble #21, but my muse has been so busy with writing It's Complicated out that I haven't really had time to even think about drabbles for this fic. So I decided to go ahead and post this up. I'm actually trying to clear out some doc space so I can upload the completed chapters I have so far for It's Complicated and begin the final edits on them so when I finish writing I can get to posting up the 100x edited versions of the first chapters.

So on that note, if any of you have some drabbles requests, I'm up for it. Ideas to get the muse going on more drabbles will be most welcome. :)

UPDATE: Sooo...two of you have already asked about it, so here's my answer: Does Australia really have penguins? Yes, penguins really do go to Phillip Island in Australia every night. If you do a Google search for "penguin parade" it will come up with information, pictures and videos. I got the idea for this drabble from my niece that actually went to the penguin parade and saw it first hand. She told me about it and I got the idea of including it as a drabble since it's a Melbourne attraction and the Australian Open is in Melbourne.

Anyhoo...

redwhatsername - Yay for the same way of thinking! I hope your fanfic turns out awesome. I was just poking Cin the other day and telling her to write something for me to read. LOL.

music4life1791 - I still haven't read your fanfic, I'm so sorry. I've have had it saved on my browser ever since you sent in your review and I've been looking forward to reading it, since the summary sounded promising. Anyhow, are you sure you want me to critique it? Read and review is one thing, but to me critique is another story...anyhow, I haven't read it yet, but I feel that I must forewarn you that when it comes to RyoSaku I'm like the pickiest snob-face about what I read. It's weird too, because it's not like I think I'm all that great of a writer, it's just that I am really picky about RyoSaku characterization, and them not being paired up with other characters since they're my ultimate OTP. I actually usually avoid reading a lot of the fanfics because I get so frustrated with all the OOC, or character destruction or poor grammar/spelling etc. and I flip out and I want to leave nasty ranting reviews and I'm a completely nice person that doesn't really want to do that, especially since I've had people leave me ranting reviews and I know first hand it sucks to get them, so instead I stop reading the fanfic and I have to go read a normal book or something to calm down. I know, I'm nuts. It's weird, because in most fandoms, I can handle those things, but RyoSaku are like my children to me or something, like seriously I am so nit-picky it's insane. I like to be nice in my reviews though, so it might be better for you to ask me to read the fic and say something nice about it than to ask for critique. Of course it's equally possible that you'll blow me away by being better than my fave RyoSaku author Hazelnut and then I'll have this glowing review of awesome epicness. That would definitely make my day. :) I just wanted to give you a head's up that I'm a raving lunatic about RyoSaku in advance just in case I don't leave a glowing review and if you really want me to critique, I will, but you might be really sorry you asked. I do believe that I'm capable of reading and leaving a nice review no matter what though. Let me know. :) And I really wish you had an account! I was thinking about you the other day and wishing I had a way to leave you a message, I want to say it had to do with a review for some other fanfic of mine. (goes off to try to find it) OH For Services Rendered - that fic is not old. I just finished it in...February? Even if it was old, like my oldest RyoSaku fanfic is a one-shot called It Was Me I would still have loved to read a review for it. I read all of my reviews, it doesn't matter to me if the story is old or new. In a way I actually enjoy the reviews on the older fanfics more because it gives me the warm fuzzies to know those stories are still being read & enjoyed. You know? I think you left some other reviews on this last drabble too...(goes to check again) Oh hahaha, you are so cute that my note made you so happy. That's just...really cool actually. It's the best part of fandom...connecting with your fellow fans...squeals! So happy to hear you think my notes are hilarious. That's really fun. I always think I'm a blathering dope and that usually people are thinking something like 'when is she going to shut up?' LOLOLOLOL. So thank you for the love and thank you for the support! I appreciate it more than words can say. :D You should be hearing from me soon on your fanfic. I've been really busy all summer, but things are calming down a bit now so I think I can do a R&R finally!

Luuvbeear - So happy to hear you're enjoying the drabbles! :D Thanks for the review love, it keeps me writing. ...hearts...

Guestof712012 - Yay that you were surprised about the honeymoon part. hehehe :) Thank you so much for the feedback and the story excitement! That was awesome to hear! xoxo

Black Rose - ...glomps and huggles you... I MISS YOU! ACK! Has it really been over a month since I updated? /dies/ Your review as always was so awesome! I loved it that you got everything I was trying to convey in the last drabble! I hope you liked this one too...heheheheheh

animecouplelover - I could write a book? hehehe :) You are too sweet to me! ...huggles... I'm happy you're enjoying the drabbles. As for new stories since For Services Rendered there are two completely new stories so far. The first one is called Coming Home it's already completed and posted up here for reading. If you have trouble finding it try clicking on my name to go to my profile. Also, if you have the non-M filter on you won't see it since it's rated M. It's NOT rated M for smut though, there's just some "mature" type of events that happen that aren't detailed, it's more of the topic matter than anything else, and I was probably being overly cautious rating it M, but whatever. The other new story is called It's Complicated. It's not posted yet since I'm still writing it, but I'm already on chapter 12, I hope you will read it when I start posting it up here. Thanks for all your support as always. xoxo

SinfulEmerald - EEEK! ...glomps and huggles you... I miss you! /dies/ I loved your review (as usual). So happy you liked married RyoSaku subtle sexy interactions. heheheh :)

ILoveSxS - hehe! I know, right? Sakuno gets married and she gets all dirty...lolololololol! :D

Lots of love to all of you and I miss you all like crazy. I'm writing It's Complicated out like a mad possessed woman in her cave of muse and wonder, but there is a lot of content to the story, so it's taking time simply to write it all out. I'm looking forward to posting it and sharing with you all and seeing what you guys think! Oh and...I also have 2 more brainstorms I've added to my 6 other brainstorms for future fics, so there should be plenty of RyoSaku from me to come in the future. :) Yay for fanfic writing funtime. I'd love to see more members joining in on the forums on pontapair if you all want to come stoke the fandom fire, we'd love to have you. xoxo ~ bunny