Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections ❯ Preparations ( Chapter 9 )

Reflections: Preparations

Chapter 9

A Weiss Kreuz fanfic by L.A. Mason.

Standard disclaimer applies: No copyright infringement intended. No profit being made or sought.

Oh, sweet Jesus… There's a hand on my leg. Ken shuddered at the familiar soft touch of hard fingers, sliding up the outside of his thigh to settle lightly on his hip, meltingly cool against the heat of his bare skin.

He shot up with a jerk, panting harshly against the lingering grip of the dream. Shit! Now I'm dreaming about him. Because that touch had unmistakably been that of Aya. After a couple of minutes of fruitless flailing around, trying to orient himself, Ken realized a couple of things: one, he was still on the couch in the living room, having dozed off there after his conversation with Yohji, and two, he was completely alone. For once, he hadn't ended up in bed with anyone, and no one had crawled in with him. It was a relief, even if it felt… lonesome. He dragged a shaky hand through his hair, laying the thick brown strands down into something resembling order, and tried to still his pounding heart. He tried to focus on Yohji, and Omi, and whatever the detective could possibly have in mind for getting into the good graces of the cops, because there sure as hell was no way they could just sneak into the police headquarters. Not if they intended to learn anything useful and get back out again. Anything. He would think about anything. So long as it meant not having to contemplate his half of the mission, which was to get close enough to Aya to worm the rest of the story out of him.

Miserable, he let himself fall forward into a hunch, resting his elbows on his knees, and burying his face in his hands. There might be three more people in the house, but it felt painfully quiet, and he wondered what the others were up to. Well, Aya… Aya had almost certainly gone back to sleep. He had over-extended his waxing strength until exhaustion had claimed him not once, but several times in the past couple of days. If he didn't want to suffer a relapse, or get hit by the incipient pneumonia that Nariakira-sensei had mentioned, he would need to take it easy. Omi would almost certainly be up in the bedroom with the convalescent, just to keep an eye on him and to make sure he really did rest - even if there wasn't something going on between them. Ken shoved that thought away hastily. He could still taste his younger teammate's kisses in his brain if not in actuality, and he didn't need to go there.

That just left Yohji as a distraction. Yohji, who, since he wasn't in the living room smoking up a storm, and couldn't go outside, was most likely up in his own room. Without thinking, the athlete bounced off the couch and ran up the stairs two at a time.

Once he reached the hall that ran from front to back on the second floor, Ken discovered that the house wasn't as dead quiet as he had believed. Omi's bedroom door was wide open, showing that no one was home, as was the door to the bathroom. Down at the end of the hall, he could see that Aya's was firmly closed. But Yohji's, opposite, stood ajar and the low sounds of music poured out. The driving rock beat was muted, suggesting that the older man was trying to be considerate for a change. There was a pause, and the rising/falling cadence of speech, then the music started up again. This time it was recognizably T.M. Revolution, although Ken wasn't entirely certain which song it might be. He hesitated in front of the door, trying to decide if coming up to see the older Weiss was a good idea, or not.

"Come inside, would you? You make me tired standing around like that." The low, amused tone jerked Ken back out of his thoughts. Embarrassed, he nudged the door the rest of the way open and took a solitary step into the bare room. Stretched out flat on his bed, Yohji let the magazine he had been reading flop onto his chest.

It was weird; Ken couldn't remember the last time he had visited the older Hunter like this, was almost positive he had never been in his quarters at Villa Weiss before. At least, if he had, it didn't look anything like what he had imagined the space would be. There were no piles of dirty clothes on the floor, no piles of empty beer cans stacked precariously on every level surface. Just a boom box tuned to a radio station and a single overflowing ashtray. As he looked around, silently bewildered, the TMR piece ended and a slow song off a Puffy AmiYumi album began. `Kore ga watashi no ikirumichi…' That's the way it is…

Christ. Talk about setting the scene…

The blond's patient consideration was starting to get to him, and his voice low with desperation, Ken blurted out, "Yohji… What are we gonna do?" When the ridicule he expected failed to materialize, he felt his own gaze go skating off to the side, wanting nothing so much as the bland, non-judgmental surface of the wooden floor to occupy it. He registered the quiet squeak of the bed frame as the older man sat up. The magazine slapped onto the bare floor, dropped casually over the side.

"We're going to figure out what's wrong with Aya, and we're going to make it right." Yohji answered gently. "He may be a prick sometimes, but he's our prick… And he's our friend, too."

"But… how?"

"Hell if I know. Persistence, I guess. He wouldn't be reaching out to you and Omi unless he needed to, so I guess the thing to do is to go along with it, to give him what he's looking for."

Ken turned toward Yohji, seeing the consternation he felt mirrored on the senior Hunter's face: mouth turned down as his customary smile died, and sympathy in unexpectedly kind eyes. What he wanted to say got stuck on the way out. "He… needs… us?"

"Look, have you ever really given some thought to what kind of a guy he is?" the other man asked, scooting up to lean against the head board. He waved Ken toward the other end of the mattress, inviting him to have a seat. Frowning, he complied, but not until after he had given some consideration to Yohji's likely motives. The blond was right; if he couldn't put his suspicions out of his mind, there was no way Aya would be able to relax around him. And that was why he couldn't back out on his friends over this assignment that he had gotten stuck with.

"I don't know… A bastard, most of the time, I guess." Ken shrugged, fatalistically aware that it was not the answer his teammate was fishing for.

"Ah, but why is he a bastard? Have you ever wondered about that? I mean, all joking aside, bastards aren't born, they're made. So what made the Ice Prince into one?" Engaged, Yohji leaned forward, resting his elbows on the thighs of his crossed legs. It was a switch to see him so interested in a topic, but then again, it was about a person that they all lived and killed with. Aya's motivations would obviously be of interest. Yohji liked to read people, and was good at it. Trying to out-guess a guy as emotionally messed up as Aya had to be a real challenge.

"Well… There's the Takatori-killed-my-parents-and-put-my-sister-in-a-coma thing." Ken offered self-consciously. Phrased like that, it didn't sound like a whole lot, and it bothered him that he had been living with the guy for close to two years and that was nearly the sum of his knowledge. "Unless the whole `reaching out' thing is supposed to confuse us and throw us off the track. Because I'm sure as Jesus walked on water confused. I mean, Christ, he was kissing Omi." Resentfully muttered, the aside won him an amused snort from the much-entertained blond. Who didn't need to know that Ken had been on the receiving end of some attention himself. He'd be lucky if he didn't wind up with whiplash from trying to follow the sudden changes in mood and behavior.

"Ah, ha." Grinning, Yohji waggled a finger in his face. "You're only seeing the tip of the Fujimiya iceberg. Once I got past the `call me Aya' part, I did some research of my own, back when he first started with us. Did you know he was only eighteen when he was orphaned? And, coming from a rich family, I'll bet he had no idea how to deal with the world we live in. Aya was the proverbial Babe in the Woods when it came to getting revenge. Add to that the fact that I don't think he has a clue how to handle grief, or guilt, and voila, a bastard is born."

"Orphaned? You mean, we actually have something in common?" Thoroughly confused, the brunet latched on to the one word that made any sense. It figured that Yohji had given in to his curiosity and checked up on the swordsman when he had been dumped on Weiss. Just because Omi declared that he would respect the redhead's privacy, and wait for him to open up, didn't mean that the other blond on the team had. But even though Ken learned that Aya's little sister was at the center of nearly everything that the man did or thought, it hadn't occurred to him to wonder about his family or his background. Maybe that was why he had been so horrified when the American, Benson, had accosted Aya in the hotel's restroom all those weeks ago? Benson had known something about Aya that he, a teammate, hadn't taken the time to learn…

Thoughts derailed, he warily eyed the chortling man. Okay, fine. So it had finally dawned on him that murdered parents equated with being an orphan. Yohji could just bite him. The term to Ken's mind had always gone with his own situation of being family-less, of living in an institution for as long as he could remember, and not with the way Aya's had been cut down in front of his eyes. That was about hatred, and the need for revenge, not about sleeping in a dormitory, and making do with second hand clothes, and second hand affection, doled out by the Sisters who had too many kids and never enough time or money. Growing defensive, Ken resisted the urge to deck his teammate. It never failed to irritate him that Yohji found nearly everything that he did to be funny. To be fair, the playboy acted that way toward everyone, even Aya who generally had no sense of humor and less patience. Then it struck him; this was subtly different. The ever-present sunglasses and pack of cigarettes lay abandoned on the tiny nightstand beside the bed; within reach, but untouched. And the expression in Yohji's warm eyes was anxious, worried about not only Aya, but… about him. About Ken.

He wanted to scramble off the bed, run - do not walk - to the nearest wall, and beat his own brains out. There had been that brief moment during their escape from the last crazed-ninja-whatever attack, when Yohji had twisted around in his seat in the car and practically homed in on his teammate's misery, and Ken had known then that this was coming. And if Omi was annoying when he decided to obsess about whatever was bothering his companions, it was nothing on Yohji when the older man was on a tear.

Of course, if he complained, it would just be perceived as further proof that he needed to be mothered.

Yohji's flexible spine slouched even lower against the headboard if that was possible, and he drew up one knee, allowing his forearm to dangle across it. The gaze he fixed on the younger man was too perceptive as he added, "Yeah, Aya's an orphan, too. All he's got left is a sister he doesn't talk to, and us. He needs you, Kenken, and besides, it would be good for you, too. You don't need to be alone any more than he does."

"Drop it, Kudoh." Ken growled warningly. He could feel the heat of a blush creeping up from his neck, and wanted out of the conversation before the idiot started teasing for real. It wasn't fair that his skin, like his mouth, tended to react first and think later. Held at bay, he drew his legs up, wrapping his arms around his jeans clad knees. It figured that he had come in hoping to be distracted from thoughts of the slim redhead, and here they were being shoved in his face. Ken didn't see how the kind of relationship he was capable of would do him or Aya any good. "I didn't come in here to talk to you about me, anyhow. I wanted to ask how you figure you and Omi can get anywhere with the cops."

"Easy. I walk in their front door, with Omi. The kid is someone I picked up in Tanagawa, and I'm looking for the investigator in charge of that case, to see if I've got someone he might be interested in. There are people at the station who are going to remember me, from before. That'll give me some creditability. If anyone asks about my supposed death, I'll just wink, and say that the reports were a bit exaggerated. If they persist, I'll hint that I was in a witness protection program, and had to lay low for a while. It's not too far from the truth, and it dove-tails with the cover story Kritiker has had in place for just that eventuality."

Startled, Ken blinked. He could actually see how it might work. Once Yohji had the right police detective in his sights, he would exercise that golden tongue of his, and wiggle his way into the guy's confidences. With a little luck, the lead officer would take him back to his office, or to whatever conference room they were handling their investigation from. Even if the cop didn't share information, the Weiss Hunters would end up knowing where to search if they had to come back, and whose shoulder to look over for the future. As plans went, it was so simple that it was brilliant.

He wondered when he would quit being surprised that Yohji had a brain in there, sharing space with his over-developed libido.

A mellow Yohji was actually a fairly pleasant one. Given that he had neither insulted nor pursued teased Ken, making him feel defensive and oddly inadequate, the lazily relaxed man was pretty good company. When things were like this, when they were talking about the logistics of a mission, it wasn't too awful being stuck around him. Relaxing, Ken settled into a more comfortable pose, legs stretched out in front, his weight leaned back onto the hands that he planted on the mattress behind him. His oldest and rattiest jersey, maroon with the Kashima Antlers' emblem of a stag's head emblazoned across the front, made him feel a little more confident, too. Especially when Yohji was wearing a scruffy blue tee-shirt that had to be at least as old, and lounging on his rumpled bed in blue jeans with worn out knees, and bare feet.

"So, Ken… Haven't you ever wondered about our team? I mean, really thought about who we are, and how we ended up together?"

"We…" Caught by surprise at the change of topic, Ken paused. The strangeness of the query struck him. He had been about to say that they were all Weiss because of the desire for vengeance, or justice, or some such, but that didn't seem to be exactly what Yohji was after. "I don't know." he admitted. "What are you getting at?"

"Well… We know that Kritiker runs other units, even though, as Omi likes to point out, they try to keep us as separate as possible. Hasn't it ever struck you as weird that our team is all guys? And another thing, Omi is gay. You and I are at least nominally bi. Lord only knows what Aya is, but judging by what's been going on, he isn't totally opposed to things. Do you have any idea what the odds are on four guys with tastes like ours ending up together? You'd think that there would be one normal, plain vanilla type in the bunch."

"But…" The athlete struggled for a moment, before blurting out, "But you prefer women. You said so yourself. And, Omi isn't necessarily gay just because he's got a crush on Aya. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Schwartz had a crush on him. The guy is gorgeous-" Scowling dangerously, Ken cut off the rest of that thought. Yohji was giving off that idiotic, braying laugh that said that his funny-bone had just been mangled in a major way, and he was in danger of losing control completely.

"Oh, please!" the blond sputtered. He swiped at the tears that were running freely down his cheeks, manfully suppressing the urge to howl again. "Omi is so gay. Have you ever watched him with the girls when they mob the shop? He's more terrified of them than he is of an entire squad of yakuza enforcers. And no, I don't think that it was working in the flower shop that traumatized his burgeoning sexuality and turned him. Sex doesn't work that way. Although, the way some of those girls act, it would make any sane man want to take a vow of chastity at the nearest Buddhist monastery."

In spite of himself, Ken felt an answering grin tug at his mouth. Yohji was right; Omi was absolutely petrified of being cornered by the after-school fan club. They were a force to be reckoned with, and he could imagine even the biggest and beefiest enforcers turning pale and running from them. Maybe that was the real reason Aya had never succumbed to the temptation to go fetch his katana and have at? Maybe Mr. `Die, Takatori' was leery of tangling with a bunch of teenagers? "You're nuts, Kudoh." he answered easily. "Why would Kritiker go to the trouble of assembling a team like that?"

"Hmm? Why do you think, Kenken?" Yohji's smile grew broader, more self-satisfied, as he leaned back, and the light in his green eyes turned devilish.

"Nah, you can't mean we were set up…? Oh, that's just so… wrong!" The younger Hunter was off the bed, pacing across the smooth plank floor and back in rapid, agitated strides. The track ended with him standing over the reclining man, glaring down at him. "You cannot seriously be thinking that Kritiker wanted us to get involved with each other!" he shouted.

"Yes, I can." replied Yohji imperturbably. "If it were done right, it would have melded us into an incredibly tight unit. Probably into the best that there is. Didn't you ever wonder why Schwartz beat us all the time? Well, I figure it wasn't just their super-powers, I think it had just as much to do with the fact that they were all mentally linked on some level. They aren't nice people, but they're a tighter team than we are. Kritiker just underestimated how broken we are… they probably figured it would make us look for comfort in each other, instead of making each of us more and more alienated."

Ken knew that his brown eyes were popped open wide in disbelief as he whispered, "Until Aya didn't come home…"

"Right. Instead, Aya got taken, and something changed him. Now he needs us, and it's changing how we all interact. I mean, look at us, Kenken. Would we have been having this conversation a month ago? How about six months ago, when we first finished up that mess with Esset wanting to use Aya-chan? Or, before that, when that ass-wipe Taketori tried his little take over? You and I have eaten together, worked together, killed together, but we've had more serious conversations in the past twenty-four hours than we have in three years. And all roads point back to Aya being the cause." Yohji straightened up, a grim clench to his jaw.

This was no joke; the senior Hunter was deadly earnest, and it sent a prickle of apprehension skating down Ken's spine. He didn't like the thought of having been set up to fall for his teammates, but Yohji was right; the odds were definitely not in favor of the four of them winding up together by chance. Especially not when he considered the extensive psych profiles that their employers had on each of them. Aya had gotten bounced through at least one other team, as they searched for a place that he fit, and now Manx was giving thought to moving him again.

Just when he was beginning to belong.

Ken jerked as if he had been stung by a wasp. Manx considered the redhead to be a liability, a threat to their group's safety. She had said so, back during their debriefing from the hospital rescue. That the two subsequent attacks on them had failed wouldn't mean a thing to her - it all came down to the cold, hard fact that they had even happened. First Aya hadn't bonded with them properly, and now he had led trouble Weiss' way. Just solving the mystery as to why Aya had been abducted wouldn't be enough; they had to prove to their handler that the damaged man was worth more if he was with them, than if they were split up. Much though he hated doing what Kritiker and their team of tame psychologists wanted, Ken knew that letting go of their friend would be worse.

A light touch to Ken's shaking fists brought him back to himself. From the look of things, Yohji had been talking to him or otherwise trying to get his attention for several minutes. Blatant concern shadowed the seated man's eyes as he gazed up at his brunet teammate. "What are you thinking?" he asked softly.

"Manx. She said they were going to move him. We can't let them. We just can't."

*************

It had sounded easy to carry out his part of the mission following that heart to heart with Yohji, but now that Ken was face to face with Aya, on his own, without Yohji's support to fall back on, it was proving to be damned hard. How was he supposed to know how to `seduce' the man, or whatever the hell it was that his partners expected, anyway?

He had blundered in a like a charging water buffalo, ready with all kinds of stupid declarations about trust and being there for Aya, only to find his quarry propped up on pillows with a sleeping boy snug in his embrace. Omi's golden head was pillowed on the man's chest, hair gleaming brighter than a new-minted coin in the shaft of late-morning light that seeped in around the window shades, with Aya's chin resting lightly on top. Too vivid, baleful eyes met Ken's unblinkingly, and except for being the wrong color, they could have belonged to a tigress with her cub.

Except, Omi wasn't a kid anymore.

The whole predator/prey analogy thankfully fell apart when Aya shifted his attention to the youngest Hunter, murmuring something too soft for Ken to catch into Omi's ear. The teenager stirred reluctantly, his shoulders bunching up as he physically resisted waking, grinding his face against Aya's shirt-front between his fisted hands before straightening. His lids were closed sleepily over dark blue, leaving only slits of color to balance the soft pink of his lips and tongue as he yawned a little. White, white fingers curved around his chin, starkly visible against the fair skin, tilting Omi's head a bit to the side so that Aya could lean down into him. Without the length that that red hair used to have to act as a veil, the slow thoroughness of their kiss didn't leave a whole lot to the imagination.

They finally drew apart, its recipient curled lazily within the circle of Aya's arms. By way of encouragement, the solemn man rubbed his chin across the top of his companion's bright hair. "Omi. I said `wake up.' It's time for you to get up. Ken is here, and he's wearing his mission face." Aya's level tone was implacable, but somehow the smaller assassin managed to ignore it, transferring his hold to his companion's collar while straining upward to find his mouth again.

That was the point at which Ken's concentration went out the window.

His skin felt too tight, and too hot across his cheekbones, a sure sign that his face had to be blazing a shade at least as dark as Aya's hair. It didn't help that his heart conveniently forgot how to beat for the duration, either. The abused organ gave a lurch and resumed its appointed task of pumping blood when Omi finally drew back, dazed and a bit flustered as he belatedly registered Ken's presence.

He rubbed at his mouth.

If he'd had any sense of self-preservation at all, Ken realized bitterly, he'd never have come through the door in the first place. Then he wouldn't have had to get trapped into watching, because Yohji was wrong: Aya didn't need him. Not when he had the petit assassin willing and available.

And the best and worst part was that he couldn't even fault Omi for seizing the opportunity, not when it was obvious to the most casual of glances that this was the happiest the teenager had been in months.

Out of all of them, Omi had never allowed himself the luxury of truly grieving for the sister he had barely known, or the brothers he had discovered only to lose by his own choice. The memory of his father's betrayal might have been buried deep, but its effects had colored his waking life none the less. It had never been a secret that the child in their midst had transferred his considerable capacity to lavish affection onto his surrogate family of Weiss, nor had it exactly been a surprise that he needed more in return than what they had given him. Omi never complained. He just continued on with researching and planning missions, with patching up their bodies, and mediating the inevitable arguments. Aya might not be the love of his life, but just as the moment, he was what the fair youth needed, both to receive, and to give, for his own healing. Numbly, Ken turned and walked out.

The light patter of hurried footsteps warned him that he wasn't alone.

Omi caught up to him at the top of the stairs, snagging his elbow to keep him from leaving. "Ken, please wait. I need to explain."

Sighing, the brunet paused. It wasn't as if he had a choice. "You don't have to tell me about Aya. It's not like it's any of my business."

"He turned me down."

"Huh?" Completely flummoxed, Ken spun around to stare at his best friend, who was not only grinning from ear to ear, but coloring a darker shade of pink than he had moments earlier upon registering that he was being observed. But embarrassed or not, Omi was genuinely amused by the reaction he had gotten. So much so that he couldn't resist teasing a bit.

"Sex, Ken-kun. I had Aya flat on his back with his shirt off, and man, oh man, is he ever hot." At Ken's involuntary meep! of shock, the deviltry lurking beneath the sly smile broke through and the slight teen began to laugh. Sputtering, he continued, "That's when he hugged me - me! - and told me that sex is a lousy substitute for love. So… we stopped."

Aggrieved, Ken muttered, "That so did not look like `stopping' to me. It looked like you were only a couple of stops shy of that train getting to the station, if you know what I mean."

Omi giggled. "Is this where I say that it's not the destination, but the journey that counts?"

"OMI!!"

His assassin's reflexes let him dodge the swat aimed at the back of his skull. Which was a good thing because the outraged athlete hadn't pulled the blow. They never did when they sparred together; neither could afford the split-second of indecision that deciding whether or not to go full out would mean in a real fight when their lives would depend on their skills. Ken couldn't suppress the relief that he felt, no matter how hard he scowled, nor could he stop himself from asking just one more question. "So… You've decided not to have sex, but necking is okay?"

"Yeah, for now. And besides, I like the kissing part. I don't mind taking things slow, if it's this good."

"Oh." There had been no hesitation or second-guessing in Omi's reply. Which wasn't so strange if one considered the steel and determination that he approached a mission with. The slightly-built blond wasn't the team's tactician because of his size or physical presence, but because of his focus and drive. If he had made up his mind to make Aya his first, Ken would hardly have been surprised if he succeeded. Then Omi jolted him out of his ruminations by bumping him with his hip and tossing carelessly over his shoulder, "Of course, I'd take you, too."

"What?! Hey! Wait up!" For all of about five seconds, Ken was frozen in shock, then he dashed after the smaller Hunter, relying on his grip on the handrails as he dove down the stairs three at a time. Breathless, he demanded, "What the Hell do you mean by that?"

Half-turned, Omi stopped so abruptly at the bottom of the stairs that Ken collided with him. The teen's thin, strong arms saved him from making a fool of himself, holding him carefully upright. Warm breath ghosted over Ken's ear as the slender body draped itself against his side. "When I'm ready, I wouldn't mind having you for my first."

An inarticulate mph?! was that Ken managed in response to that revelation. Omi's fingers threaded carefully into his thick hair, gently tugging him down so that dry, warm lips could glide delicately along his jaw before mouthing at the lobe of his ear, sending mingled sparks and shivers dancing across his nerves… raising goose bumps down the length of his arms, and across the outside of his thighs. The low, throaty moan that accompanied the touch of tongue to flesh told Ken that the reaction was hardly one sided.

Just how many `lessons' had Omi had from Aya, anyway? His embrace was everything that the earlier one had been: sweet, hungry, and intense. But more, as well. With the sensations sliding shivery-warm down Ken's spine, he could just about buy into Yohji's theory that this was meant to be, that Weiss had been intended to take on a bond that close between its members. Ken was having a hard time remembering that his intent had been to safeguard his younger teammate, to protect his best friend from emotional harm as well as physical.

Sunlight streamed in past the mostly drawn living room drapes, gilding the youth's hair with saffron and flax, smooth strands of shade and light. Omi was suddenly indescribably beautiful, fey and ageless rather than cherubic. Somewhere along the way in the past months since losing his family, he had started changing from hyperactive to swiftly precise, and from gangly to slender.

And it would be wrong to take advantage of the implied offer. Better to stand back, waiting to help pick up the inevitable pieces since he doubted that he would completely derail Omi from his chosen course of action. Ken gently disengaged Omi's fingers, lingering a little as the shaggier locks slipped through their combined grasp. "And what about Aya? I'm not stupid, Omi… It's really obvious that you…" The word `love' came unbidden, but he shoved it aside, instead saying, "…Want him."

"So? You and he aren't mutually exclusive, Ken. More… `complimentary,' I think. Pieces of the same puzzle, that fit together, and support one another. All of us are like that. I don't feel the same way about you that I do Aya, but it doesn't make it any less right." Omi's husky voice corrected him, drawing their still linked hands up between them to nuzzle at each of Ken's knuckles. Eyes shining, he took a step backwards, adding quietly, "When we get back from the police station, I'd like to finish this conversation. Okay?"

At the brunet's automatic nod, a more normal, sunny grin erupted, and Omi planted a sudden smooch on his cheek before spinning about and darting off to collect Yohji from the kitchen. Stunned, Ken pressed his fingertips to the still humming spot. He didn't know whether to be apprehensive, or expectant at that promise.

************

Omi came down wearing what Ken privately thought of as one of Yohji's `slut' shirts: a sleekly heavy thing of ultra-fine mesh that gleamed like liquid hematite poured over the small Hunter's delicate frame. Where the shirt was next to skin-tight on the taller of the blonds, it hung alluringly off one of Omi's shoulders, its open collar framing the fine lines of the musculature of his throat and the clear curve of his collarbones. He had tucked the hem sloppily into a pair of black cargo shorts that hung off his hips, leaving a wedge of faintly tanned skin and his belly button exposed, and added a pair of black high-top sneakers, and finger-less, black leather gloves. The overall effect was one of fifteen-year-old jail-bait headed for a life sentence tied to someone's bed. Ken choked at the mental image and took a step backwards, barking his shin painfully on the corner of the coffee table.

Even Yohji looked a bit taken aback.

"Um… if it's too much, I can take it off…?" The teen's husky voice was diffident, uncertain. His agile fingers were just undoing the top button of the few that were actually closed on the shirt when Yohji burst out with a strangled, "No! Keep it on!" Ken found himself nodding emphatically in whole-hearted agreement. An impromptu striptease was the last thing he wanted to see his friend do.

And just where had the kid gotten shiny pink lip-gloss from, anyhow?

"Christ…" Yohji turned away and leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the living room's balcony doors. Ken shot him a look of sympathy, for once not envying the senior Hunter that he was the one who was going to be going down into Tokyo to beard the cops in their den. The playboy was going to be in for a hard time when it came to acting natural, and not killing anyone who hit on the tarted-up boy.

The wonderfully clueless, innocent air to Omi as he glanced back and forth between his teammates didn't help, either.

In a way, it was almost too bad that it was all an illusion. Club Riot might be dead and gone, but there were other places catering to the wealthy that would have paid good money for someone with their younger companion's looks. And speaking of looks… Ken bit back a snicker. "Hey, Omi. Can I have a photo of you, before your guys leave?"

"I- I guess so." Confused, wide blue eyes blinked, revealing a shimmer of silver-gray eye shadow on their lids. "What for?"

"I want to email it to Manx and see if she has kittens."

Omi still didn't entirely get it, although he was starting to, to judge by the way his eyes darkened and narrowed. Yohji, on the other hand gave a strangled bark that might have been laughter, and thumped his forehead against the glass. The teen glared at both of them in turn and bit out, "On second thought, no pictures. Come on, Yohji-kun. Let's get going."

Definitely laughter. Yohji's shoulders shook as he dissolved into outright guffaws and staggered weakly over to the couch. "Manx… kittens… Oooh, that's priceless!" he gasped. Outraged, Omi squawked and heaved a pillow at him from the battered chair that he was closest too. The older blond made no effort to ward off the incoming missile; if anything, it made him laugh even harder. Then Omi made the mistake of stamping his foot in frustration, and Ken had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from losing it, too. If the younger Weiss hadn't been worried about mussing their outfits, he would have thrown himself on Yohji and tried to tickle him into submission, which would have meant Ken taking sides with whoever was winning. As it was, a sudden thought occurred to him, turning his smile at his friends to fondness: this was first time since Aya's disappearance that they had engaged in real horseplay.

A faint noise from above caught his attention, and Ken's joy faded. That sound had come from Aya's room. It wasn't as if the redhead had ever participated in the antics of his teammates. God forbid that the rigid man should unbend enough to have fun. But the fun couldn't change one essential fact: they had Aya back, but things were no longer the way that they had been. The intervening weeks had changed too much.

Omi was still snarling at the playboy, his voice cracking endearingly on every third word. Yohji had lost his sunglasses over the back of the couch after one particularly violent swipe with a pillow that connected with the top of his head, and he was making no effort to rescue the glasses or to stop the assault. If anything, he was egging the outraged blond on with snide comments that seemed to refer to Ken, Omi, and the head-board against the wall incident. With the team's genius on the defensive, he saw no reason not to get a few licks of his own in purely for the sake of revenge. Mildly sickened as his own thoughts got stuck on the one track named Fujimiya Aya, Ken had to turn his back, which meant that he just happened to be staring with unseeing eyes at the staircase when the object of his obsession descended.

Whereas Yohji had dressed to the nines for the mission, from an expensive camel-colored sport coat just a few shades darker than his hair, to a fine gold chain on his off wrist, opposite his watch, Aya had enveloped himself in yet another of his shapeless, over-sized sweaters. This one was a dusty, faded black that leached away what little color his wan features might otherwise have had, leaving him looking ill and exhausted.

Knowing that his teammates were going to Tokyo to try to find out what had happened to him, the very things that he didn't want to talk about, had to be killing him.

The blond pair was too absorbed to notice that they had added to their audience. Omi's rapid-fire insults were losing their eloquence and he was beginning to giggle every time Yohji meow-ed and tried to mimic Manx's horrified tones. It wasn't that he wanted to be rude to the closest thing to a mother that he could remember, it was just that the playboy was really on a roll. The shouting and uproar reached new heights, but Ken tuned them out in favor of studying the slender young man who hesitated at the room's margins.

The giddy - for Aya, at least - joy that he had exhibited upon first seeing his partners had nearly faded away. And now that he had turned Omi's advances aside, it seemed that he was closing himself off from more physical outlets too, retreating back into his shell. But the surface of cold fury that had sustained him first through his hunt for the Takatori, and later during his sister's abduction by Esset was missing, leaving what Ken could imagine was melancholy sorrow and regret in his steady, watchful gaze. Unthinkingly drawn, the brunet skirted the furniture grouping and the still-battling blond duo, and approached the silent figure obliquely. Aya noted his presence, flicking him a sharp glance, but otherwise ignoring him.

"Hey… You okay with staying here while they go?" Ken asked. He halted just inside the limits of what Aya regarded as his personal turf, looking up into the pale, frozen face.

"Hmph." Aya grunted. He shrugged slightly, folding his arms across his chest. "It makes no difference. They need to go, to eliminate questions regarding my status as a threat."

"Aya…" Impulsively, he reached out and dropped his hand lightly onto the wool clad shoulder. A stronger, rolling shrug knocked it off, and Aya pointedly turned his back and headed for the kitchen.

How the fuck was Ken supposed to be the one to reach out, when his quarry acted like that?

It was going to have to wait until he could get the rest of his team out of the house, because they didn't need to be heading into a precarious situation with distractions like Aya weighing them down.

A discrete cough behind him alerted Ken to the cessation of noise from his partners. Omi offered a polite, "Excuse me… but can we do the equipment check? Yohji and I need to get going soon."

"Um. Sure, I guess." Forget the jerk, he told himself firmly, allowing Omi to drag him over to the low table.

The collection of equipment they had was eclectic, to say the least. Before Omi could start whining about how he wished Kritiker had issued them gadgets on par with what the swordsman had used on his solo mission to the auction, Yohji picked up a small transmitter/receiver rig from the conglomeration spread out on the surface. Clicking his tongue with annoyance, his mission partner promptly plucked it from his fingers. "No, I told you; that one's not compatible. Here, take this."

Yohji's brows hiked up and he stared with comical concentration at the replacement. "I don't see the difference." he admitted. They looked the same to Ken, too. Omi huffed.

"Look, we're working with things scavenged from the first car, that big Lincoln, from the loft's safe, and my old equipment that I had here at Villa Weiss. It's, like, five different generations of parts. I had enough trouble just getting audio to uplink through the cell phone towers to my laptop. We don't have video at all." As he spoke, his clever fingers disassembled one of the headsets and began rewiring the tiny microphone and a watch battery into a clunky pendant on a heavy chain. Yohji eyed it skeptically, relieved only when the necklace slipped over Omi's head.

The chain was too heavy for his fragile neck, but none of the remaining Weiss dared argue the point. Fiddling alternately with the bugged pendant and his laptop, the team's technician finally nodded to himself, satisfied, and dropped the chromed blob down inside the collar of his shirt. He selected another rig from the mess, and ruthlessly stripped it down to its bare components of microphone, receiver, and battery - all strung together with a couple of thin wires. Distracted, he murmured, "Hold still, Yohji…" as he carefully taped the remnants of an ear bud behind the respectable-looking assassin's ear. "…it's not perfect, but even if you keep playing with your hair, no one will see it back here."

"Hey! I resent that remark!" Yohji protested. "I won't be able to hear Kenken or Aya like this." Omi's hands paused in the act of threading the wires down inside the collar of his partner's shirt, and his tawny brows skated perilously high as he took a careful step backwards. The former P.I.'s expression shifted toward the horrified end of the spectrum. How Omi managed to pull off a tiny, evil smirk as his body settled into a boneless, unnervingly accurate mimicry of Yohji's stance, right down to the way he raked his hair back from his forehead was beyond Ken. But it was patently obvious that even the dumbest cop wouldn't be able to help noticing if the receiver was lodged in his ear. So. Deciding vote placed the bit of electronics under a protective covering of flesh-colored bandage, and behind the fall of long, wavy hair. Yohji shook his head slightly in protest, muttering in a mixture of frustration and worry.

"Oh, it gets better, Yohji-kun." the hacker replied absently. "I can't wear a receiver at all - no place to hide it that they would be sure to miss if they decided to arrest me."

"Wha--!" Ken exclaimed. The smooth-cheeked features briefly appeared older than his real age as Omi pondered how to say what he wanted. Eventually, he gave up, and shrugging said simply, "If Ken-kun or Aya-kun has to order us out of there, it'll probably already be too late."

Oh. Not good. He really didn't like the thought of his teammates, stranded and helpless in the clutches of the cops. Almost certainly aware of Ken's concerns, Omi ignored the brunet until he was finished with setting up the relay to his laptop. "Okay, that's it. We'll use Yohji-kun's cell phone to connect once we're in place. Other than that, everything is ready to go. My computer will record everything the transmitters can pick up. You don't have to do a thing, Ken-kun."

Self-conscious, the athlete rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn't good at projecting maternal concern, like Omi was, without coming across as a raving paranoid, but he figured he had to try. "Um… A- are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, what if it turns out that the big secret is that they know all about us?"

The smaller blond hugged him impulsively, which, given the slinky outfit, provided a whole other set of distractions that Ken could have done without. "It'll be okay." he promised earnestly. "We'll be careful. Right, Yohji?"

"Yeah." the older Hunter came up on Ken's other side, ruffling his dark hair gently. "Nothing's going to happen to us. You just concentrate on your goals, and leave the worrying about the cops to us."

Sighing, Ken pushed aside the sinking feeling in his gut that things just weren't going to be that easy - for either half of the mission.

************

Ken's resolve to stay the hell away from moody redheads barely lasted long enough for the blond contingent to make it to the foot of the Villa's drive.

"Then what did you kiss me for?" he demanded angrily, rounding on the taller Hunter. A frown drew the angular claret-red brows down. The mouth that Ken knew from personal experience could be soft and enticing followed, tightening into a thing line. Aya side-stepped, intent on walking around Ken and out of the kitchen. The furious athlete grabbed at his good wrist, hauling back with all his strength, jerking the taller man around. "No!" he ranted. "You are not giving me the silent treatment like I was some dumb jock. You're staying here until you tell me what's going on in that head of yours!"

"Let go."

"No, dammit. Not till I get some answers."

An exasperated sigh greeted the latest evidence of his obstinacy, making Ken irrationally feel like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. "There is nothing to explain."

"Then why did you kiss both of us?" Insistent, the younger assassin shifted about to where he could look his taller teammate in the face. Aya's remarkable eyes were closed in apparent frustration, but coincidentally preventing Ken from discerning any of the thoughts that flitted behind their mirror hard surface. With an effort, the brunet brought his free hand up, rubbing his thumb carefully over the taut tendons held fast in his grasp. "Come on, Aya…" he whispered. "Tell me why. Why Omi, why me?"

" `Omi' and `Ken' are mutually exclusive?" The low inquiry was impersonal.

Ken twitched involuntarily, telegraphing his shock to his captive. A faint smirk, gone almost quicker than the younger man could catch, flashed across the perfect features. Aya gently disengaged the hold on his wrist. That the slender swordsman was about to make good his escape galvanized Ken. He blurted, "Hey! Wait! I'm not done talking to you. I need to know - what are you doing with Omi? How can you fool around with him, then tell him that you don't want him. This is nuts!" Ken took a deep breath, forcibly reining in his temper. "This isn't fair to him. We're all he's got."

"Exactly. Do you think that anyone outside of Weiss would understand him? Could even want to try?"

"Of all the lame, half-assed excuses-You're trying to tell me that you're only doing this for him? As if! Why can't you just admit that you need someone, too, you stuck-up pain in the ass." shouted Ken. Aya recoiled as if he had been slapped, then his eyes, cold as winter frost, narrowed and he ground out, "Don't try to tell me what I need. You don't know anything."

"You're the one who said that you'd discovered that being alone was a weakness." Furious, Ken retaliated, stepping up close, into Aya's personal space, fists clenched, daring the older Hunter to stand up to him.

"And where else do you think he'll go? Who is going to accept him, for what he is, if not us?"

For the barest second, understanding illuminated Ken's brain, but then it was lost in a flood of whirling emotion and barely controlled temper. "So, it was all an act? You don't like making out?

"Hardly." That harsh, frustrated note was back in Aya's voice. This time he made it past his shorter partner, stalking into the darkened living room. The sun had vanished into a sulky, lowering sky that promised slow, tedious rain, and very nearly the only light was the glow from the computer's dancing screensaver. Ken slapped the thin white fingers away from the laptop's touch pad, refusing to allow the aggravating man to retreat into electronic limbo.

"Stop it! You've been dancing around whatever it is that's bothering you from the get go." There. He was certifiable. Now the conversation was officially going to Hell in a hand-basket. But at the same time, Ken couldn't bear to see someone that he had worked and lived with for two years running around like a weasel caught fast in a trap. It was only a matter of time before Aya did the human equivalent of chewing his own leg off to escape.

Which explained why the swordsman's eyes narrowed, taking on a gem-like, glittering hardness, and he turned the attack back at the suddenly apprehensive brunet. "And what is your assignment, Ken?" he hissed. "Are you to protect me from those who have been attacking us, or to distract me from what Yohji and Omi are up to?"

It was on the tip of Ken's tongue to bite back with `Neither. I'm supposed to seduce you and pump you for information,' but he couldn't quite bring himself to say it. Not after he had just watched Aya frenching his best friend, who rather seemed to be enjoying it, by the way. Even if Omi had shifted his sights from the mingled vision of Blood Red and Snow White, to the more earth-bound, ordinary Frog.

Aya didn't wait for him to reply, but continued bitterly, "Or is your job to see that the crazy one stays out of trouble? And if it is, do you think you're up to handling it?"

The hurt beneath the rage grabbed Ken by the chest, freezing his breath in his lungs. It hit him all over again - Aya was only a year, or at most two, older than he was. It would have seemed like an insurmountable number when they were children, but now… So how dared that red-headed demon talk down to him? "I am not a kid!" Ken growled, furious. "So don't treat me like one." His earlier thought about two-year-olds, and tantrums, was coming back to bite him in the butt, but dammit, he wasn't a child, and he resented Aya's patronizing manner. The urge to shock the other man out of his complacency was overwhelming. One more push, and that already fragile composure would crack, and the victory that he scented would be his.

Ken's eyes narrowed. There wasn't a thing that he could put his finger on, but what did he have to lose? "You." he snarled. "You're looking for something the only way you know how, aren't you? This has got nothing to do with Omi, or with me. You keep trying things on for size, hoping this one'll fit the hole you've got. Because you're just an empty loser." The way that the swordsman's slim, erect figure stiffened told him that he was on the right track, and righteous satisfaction flooded through Ken. Aya probably didn't even know what it was that he was trying so blindly to find, other than that he was hurt somewhere deep inside, and the imperative to bind that wound was irresistible. The compact brunet gave a single sharp nod, and took a step back. "All right then. We'll do this your way, asshole. For now, you just keep your damned secrets. But don't think I'm giving up, Aya. `Cause I'm not."

Sometimes, it felt really good to be the one holding the moral high ground.

****************

They didn't speak again until Ken came upstairs to curtly inform him that Yohji and Omi had reached the police station, and finally been referred to the lead investigator on the Tanagawa case. Aya slid him a sideways glance, dark and smoldering with what might have been temper, and might have been hurt. It was impossible to tell which, and Ken hardened his heart against any stray thoughts about offering sympathy.

Silently, wrapped in his dull black sweater, Aya padded noiselessly across the gloomy room to where their hacker's laptop waited on the scuffed oak coffee table. Tense and irritable, Aya coiled his long legs under him on the couch, leaving Ken to drop down to sit on the floor. Given that Omi had set everything up ahead of time, there was nothing for them to do but to listen, and listening was a tougher assignment than it first seemed.

The quality of the sound pouring from the laptop's miniscule speakers was barely a step up from `pathetic.' Yohji's annoying drawl was unmistakable, even tinny as it was, but half the time the words were drowned out in the bedlam that was a big, urban police station. Whined complaints and shrieked obscenities rattled off concrete and tile, adding to the deafening cacophony. Ken's best guess had them in the station's main lobby, facing the booking area off to the right, and the `Information' desk straight ahead. The plan was for the Weiss pair to start there, and only to progress to more underhanded methods when just asking for help failed. At least that was the logic Ken tried to sell himself on. Personally, he was aching to rip something or someone to bloody shreds with bare fists or with his tiger claws; he wasn't picky; either would do.

Although hardly reduced in volume, the quality of the bedlam changed a little, becoming more `office,' and less riot. Phones ringing replaced some of the shrieks, although the curses were every bit as prevalent. Yohji whistled annoyingly, and Ken could visualize him bouncing around impatiently while they waited.

"Well, as I live and breathe, if it ain't the Tanuki. Coming down in the world, aren't you, old buddy, if they got you cleaning up crap in Tanagawa." Yohji's derisive snort was hardly affectionate under the banter. A pocket of comparative comfort was better than none.

"Kudoh. I thought we had finally gotten rid of you." The bass growl was unpleasantly nasal, and unfriendly. The sound quality changed, becoming someplace smaller, and more private. The pair of assassins had entered a smaller room, maybe an office.

"Nah. I'm like a bad penny. I just keep coming back. Been a while though, since I had anything that would make it worth the hassle of coming downtown to see you." replied the assassin, his honeyed voice slipping dangerously close to poisonous. "but now that I get to see you, Tanuki, I guess maybe it wasn't a wasted trip, after all."

"Cut the crap. And it's `Tsanakia,' not `Tanuki,' asshole." The familiar creak of an office chair told the listening audience that the detective had returned to his desk rather than toss their partners bodily out of his office. Aya's expression was unmoved, but Ken felt a knot of subconsciously held tension easing from his shoulders. They were past the first major hurdle. If their luck held out, Tsanakia might voluntarily give them what they wanted, and if not, Omi would know whose desktop PC to hack, and which office in the warren of the police station to B&E. After a lengthy, considering pause, the investigator demanded, "And what could you have that would be worth my time, punk?"

"Him." The older blond dragged Omi front and center, chuckling while the kid cursed and struggled. Ah, ha! Hook, line, and sinker! Ken crowed silently. He pumped his fist, once, into the air, earning himself a sharp glance from his companion before the redhead returned his attention to the broadcast. But that was no surprise; Aya had hardly spoken to him since the other half of Weiss had left to attend to business. Personally, Ken suspected equal parts annoyance that he couldn't go, no amount of hair dye or contacts being enough to disguise his slender height and unbelievable looks, and unacknowledged worry. Aya always took the team back-up thing seriously. Or, at least he did when he wasn't trying to slice and dice a Takatori.

"I thought the Hot Body didn't deal in boys? And I don't think this one is a girl." The insulting smirk in detective's tone came through loud and clear. Ken's hands clenched into fists in his lap, even as he recognized the futility of the gesture. Tsanakia was not only miles away, but a senior investigator, with lots of cops to back him up. Taking him on would be suicidal at best.

There was a familiar pause in Yohji's reply as he lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. Ken took advantage of it to glance up at Aya, whispering, "Is any of this familiar?"

Aya shrugged, arms folded. "No. I don't think I've heard that voice before. It's distinctive. I would remember."

Without missing a beat, Yohji replied with a smirk audible in his laughing voice. "No, no boys." he conceded. "At least not usually. But some of the local scum made, ah, `special requests' from time to time. Yuki here had a regular who could fix a bit more than parking tickets, if you get my drift." The subtle reminder that the Hot Body's clientele had included members of what passed for the social elite in Tanagawa was not lost on the detective.

"I see… And you came across this tidbit how?"

Ken could practically hear the Hunter's careless shrug. "The usual. Wife looking to see if she had grounds for divorce. Funny thing, though. So long as the hubby was fucking a little rent-boy, she didn't seem to mind so much. I could probably have milked her for another hundred thou Yen if Yuki-kun had been a girl. More, if there had been, say, a little bundle of joy in the oven. But that's all in the past. Her loss is your gain, if you follow me."

A harsh bark of laughter from Tsanakia made the transmission crackle. "Now I know it's really you, Kudoh, back from the dead. No one else ever had your positive way of looking at the world. So, if you're still alive, where's your partner? I can't see Asuka-chan missing out on a chance to put my balls in a vise."

There would have been dead air over the transmitter if it hadn't been for the constant clatter and hum of the busy station in the background. Youji's voice, when he finally did reply, was low and completely devoid of humor. "She didn't make it."

An embarrassed cough broke the silence. Tsanakia's nasal bravado gave way to genuine sympathy for a moment. "Ah, fuck. Sorry to hear that, Kudoh. She was an all right PI. Not like your dumb ass."

"Hey?!" Startled, Yohji chuckled in spite of himself. "All right, you bastard. You scored that time. But about business, you want to talk to this kid, or not?"

"What makes you think that there's anything to talk about? We've done our little bit to brighten up society - the kids at the whorehouse were off the streets for what, three days? The media got their story, the citizens feel like we earned our pay for once, and in the long run, nothing changed."

Yohji's smooth drawl was darkly amused. "Oh, my mistake… For some reason, I had it in my head that you'd be interested in Iida and Mishakawa's out-of-town `guests.' Guess not. Well, that being the case, see ya around, Tanuki."

"Out of--?! Hey, wait just a damned minute, Kudoh!" Tsanakia's outraged shout would have been funny - Ken had felt the same frustration with Yohji more than once - but the game that they were playing was deadly earnest, despite the pun on the police detective's name. Calling him a `raccoon spirit' probably wasn't the smartest move, but it was certainly in keeping with Yohji's personality. "Get the fuck back in here, you moron."

There was a low chuckle, and Yohji said with quiet satisfaction, "Score, and the game goes to Kudoh. I didn't think they'd assign someone with your rank to a simple prostitution bust, old buddy. Nice to know I was right."

"Asshole." There was a lengthy pause, punctuated by the squeak of an office chair flexing under a considerable bulk, and a weary sigh. "All right. What's this going to cost me? And believe me, your little playmate had better know something good, or it's gonna be a long cold stay with some new friends in the lock-up." Omi gulped audibly at the thinly veiled threat, but Yohji chuckled softly.

"Just a little quid pro quo, Tanuki. Has it ever been more?" Sport coat rustling quietly, he settled into the office's guest chair, and began to spin out their agree-upon cover story, "Well, see, it's like this. Once upon a time, Two Bad Men…"

**************