A Little Too Late
By Nix Winter
A hit is like any other job, Youji thought, dark hair a wave against a pale cheek, predatory violence a wave against his thoughts. Except that with this job, a little part of you never goes home with you. He fingered his wires. Darkness steeped in his soul like a bitter tea The sugar that he'd found at the bottom of the cup, one day, while looking in Aya's eyes only made the tea more bitter.
Or maybe it was that the sugar was so very fragile in the bitter. He waited there though, back to the wall, wires in woven around fingers like a deadly cat's cradle. This was the exit path Omi had expected their target to take. People needed someone to protect their hopes and dreams, to protect their daughters and sisters. That's why Youji was there, waiting in the dark, with sin a deep bitter tea in his soul. The man who'd try to escape up this passage, and out to a waiting helicopter, owned a pharmaceutical company which produced drugs that lowed inhibitions. Not that this was his company's main focus, at least on paper. Girls and women cried, bore marks on their souls and bodies because of this man. Youji closed his eyes. It was the least he could do to shift some of that sin back onto the creator.
"Kudou?" Aya's voice silked through the com link between them all and Youji wondered if he were the only one who heard that silky smooth voice, heard the poetry and potential, or if they all heard it, but were just not perverted enough to get a hard on waiting in the dark.
"Hai?"
It was perverted too. Aya hated him and Youji knew it. There was that sugar, lingering like potential happiness, potential smiles, under their daily lives, and Youji knew he'd ruined the sugar for himself only hours before the mission. Aya had been leaning on the counter in the flower shop, reading, sunlight in his hair, finger tips gliding and pausing along the lines of an English novel. It had been one of those moments when Youji felt alive, felt hopeful, felt like he wasn't completely ruined, and he'd leaned against the counter too, meet Aya's gaze when the man had looked up at him. 'I love you,' he'd said, just out of the blue, no preamble, no explanation, no taking it back. He'd smiled. It was the most alive he'd felt since Asuka's death and at that moment he would have traded the very rest of his life for another five minutes of looking into Aya's eyes, another two minutes from the five for a smile in return.
Love me back, he'd asked with the seduction in his green eyes, silky hair vainly around his face, collar open. He'd begged inside his soul, 'Love me back.'
He'd been too busy looking at Aya's eyes to notice the fist. Somehow the rage hadn't made it to those eyes, so deep and soulful, with such personality and such beauty. The impact of Aya's elbow had knocked him back, then the back hand of a fist against his chest was quickly followed by the other fist against his ribs.
Youji had crumpled a rice paper crane in the rain of reality. Ken had caught the next blow before it could blacken Youji's face. "Mission," Ken snarled.
It wasn't like they didn't all fight. It wasn't like they didn't all say hurtful things from time to time. It was the kindness of the damned, just to make sure they were still alive, maybe.
Aya stepped over Youji even as Ken held out his hand. The darkest bruise in Youji's soul though was that he didn't love Aya even a sip less. It was bitter tea.
"Kudou," Aya snapped, irritation sharpening the words.
"What?" Youji sorted his threads, deadly threads of life and death. "What do you want?"
There was a pause and Youji could feel his heart beating, his breath holding, as he waited for the next words, any words from Aya. There was a tiny fuzz of static as Aya switched to a private channel, taking Youji with him. "Are you hurt?"
"The target hasn't even got here," Youji said, dancing around the fight they'd had earlier. Forgiveness, tarnished and bitter, but it was his version of forgiveness anyway. God, he wanted a cigarette. "I'm okay."
That was a lie, but a small one. His side hurt, hurt more than he was going to tell anyone else, but it wasn't bad enough to slow him down.
"Did you mean it?"
Youji blinked, slowly licked his lips. Aya was going to kill him, and he couldn't bring himself to lie anyway. To deny that he loved Aya, this secret and maybe parasitic well being he got by loving Aya, would be, well, to die. "I meant," Youji paused, distracted by the echo of running feet in the passage. Omi and Ken had flushed out the target, and a friend or two. Crap. "Target's here."
Wire flashed, nooses, webs, pulling, splattering. Youji always got his hands dirty. There was something separate about this part of a mission. Kudou Youji was a detective, a drinker, a player in the sun with a generous smile, and a hedonistic streak like bourbon on a Friday night. Balinese was deadly, sin and death, the flash of wire, a smile with a fleck of blood on pale cheek. Balinese reveled in Aya's rejection. Balinese squared off with the remaining protector of the target, pausing in some kind of honorable ritual to allow the man to draw his weapon. When ya gonna learn? The target edged towards the exit. The protector's hand shook. There blood flecks there too.
Cat's cradle around the wrist, shift the pattern. The protector screamed, gun hitting the floor with fingers that never got the impulse to squeeze the trigger.
Balinese could hear Aya's breath, still on the private channel, there with him in some kind of intimacy that Balinese didn't understand. Abyssinian and Balinese were the same, grief manifest as death. Balinese gave chase to the fleeing man who'd sold so many other lives away for his drug profits. Justice and revenge incarnate, Balinese spun wires that snared a husky throat and pulled, arms wide, the struggling man close enough to put a desperate elbow into already bruised ribs. Balinese grunted. Aya snarled on the other end of the com link. Balinese tightened wires, making a garrote of them. It was close. It was personal. It marked his own soul with a black self hate that Aya's rejection gave him no reprieve from.
Another elbow took his cracking ribs. Aya's breathing was fast, panting in the connection. Darkness narrowed Balinese's vision, closing it in like an old TV set shutting off. The man in front of him sagged, and the wires finally freed themselves, slicing through everything caught within them. Balinese staggered back a couple steps, lost without his target, he became Youji again, Youji with warm blood soaking into the cold black of his assassin gear. Shot? He turned to find a pistol held in the protector's left hand, crazed eyes trying to focus on him, but the hand shaking too much to get a good bead. Youji's hands lowered to his sides. Until that very moment, he hadn't realized how much he'd been living for Aya, for those soft and infrequent smiles, for the honest heart that hide in the rage and grief. Youji closed his eyes and told his knees to hold.
"Aya?"
There was only panting as a response. Aya was running. That made the most perfect sense. The mission was finished. They all needed to meet at the extraction point. "Aya. I meant it."
The man holding the gun on him fired again, getting his arm, but just such a slight scratch. Youji stood his ground, eyes closed, letting his mind play through the times he'd watched Aya quietly. Aya was nothing like Asuka, really, but he was better, fascinating. Youji had always known he'd never marry Asuka, never even ask her. He loved her, would always love her. The sex had been good, but it was like sex with the women he went through like packs of smokes. It never went deep enough and he'd told her to leave him anyway, told her to run. He'd only slowed her down. He would have slowed Aya down too.
The next shot missed completely. Aya's scream echoed through the tight passage, rage like he could make a sword of that alone, and suddenly Youji considered running. Being shot might be nothing compared to what a truly enraged Aya could do to him. The shooter lost his head, then the blade came back through body and spine. Youji blinked. Through the com link he could hear the hissing snarling breath against Aya's lips. "Are you going to kill me," he whispered softly into the com link.
Aya's fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword. In his eyes he saw Youji standing there shaking, the blood soaking into the edges of leather, dimming the shine of it. A breathing Youji was the most beautiful sight, next to his sister waking, maybe even then. Aya reached up and adjusted the connection, in time to get a nearly hysterical Omi in his ear. "Where are you both!? What are you doing? Abyssinian! Balinese!"
"Target down," Aya said calmly, watching Youji with calculating eyes. "Balinese has taken damage. Going to the Dollhouse."
"You need help," Ken asked, voice clearer.
"Am fine," Youji said, flicking the switch that would disengage his used wire, dropping it to the killing floor.
"Negative," Aya said without much confidence. He wasn't really sure that he could carry Youji. Youji was taller and despite being slender was all muscle.
It was his left knee that bent first, forward, back, then forward like something broken. The rest of him went to, crumpling to the side in a spiral of numbness. Aya's arm slipped under his and slowed the fall, guiding him down. "No, assistance needed. Get med assistance waiting."
Youji thought he sounded so urgent. It wasn't as if it really mattered. Aya's fingers caressed his face, wiping away blood. A thumb brushed over his eyelashes, and he let himself dream that Aya was touching him, loving him, concerned for him. Anything was possible in the land of dreams, and that was where Youji went.
By Nix Winter
A hit is like any other job, Youji thought, dark hair a wave against a pale cheek, predatory violence a wave against his thoughts. Except that with this job, a little part of you never goes home with you. He fingered his wires. Darkness steeped in his soul like a bitter tea The sugar that he'd found at the bottom of the cup, one day, while looking in Aya's eyes only made the tea more bitter.
Or maybe it was that the sugar was so very fragile in the bitter. He waited there though, back to the wall, wires in woven around fingers like a deadly cat's cradle. This was the exit path Omi had expected their target to take. People needed someone to protect their hopes and dreams, to protect their daughters and sisters. That's why Youji was there, waiting in the dark, with sin a deep bitter tea in his soul. The man who'd try to escape up this passage, and out to a waiting helicopter, owned a pharmaceutical company which produced drugs that lowed inhibitions. Not that this was his company's main focus, at least on paper. Girls and women cried, bore marks on their souls and bodies because of this man. Youji closed his eyes. It was the least he could do to shift some of that sin back onto the creator.
"Kudou?" Aya's voice silked through the com link between them all and Youji wondered if he were the only one who heard that silky smooth voice, heard the poetry and potential, or if they all heard it, but were just not perverted enough to get a hard on waiting in the dark.
"Hai?"
It was perverted too. Aya hated him and Youji knew it. There was that sugar, lingering like potential happiness, potential smiles, under their daily lives, and Youji knew he'd ruined the sugar for himself only hours before the mission. Aya had been leaning on the counter in the flower shop, reading, sunlight in his hair, finger tips gliding and pausing along the lines of an English novel. It had been one of those moments when Youji felt alive, felt hopeful, felt like he wasn't completely ruined, and he'd leaned against the counter too, meet Aya's gaze when the man had looked up at him. 'I love you,' he'd said, just out of the blue, no preamble, no explanation, no taking it back. He'd smiled. It was the most alive he'd felt since Asuka's death and at that moment he would have traded the very rest of his life for another five minutes of looking into Aya's eyes, another two minutes from the five for a smile in return.
Love me back, he'd asked with the seduction in his green eyes, silky hair vainly around his face, collar open. He'd begged inside his soul, 'Love me back.'
He'd been too busy looking at Aya's eyes to notice the fist. Somehow the rage hadn't made it to those eyes, so deep and soulful, with such personality and such beauty. The impact of Aya's elbow had knocked him back, then the back hand of a fist against his chest was quickly followed by the other fist against his ribs.
Youji had crumpled a rice paper crane in the rain of reality. Ken had caught the next blow before it could blacken Youji's face. "Mission," Ken snarled.
It wasn't like they didn't all fight. It wasn't like they didn't all say hurtful things from time to time. It was the kindness of the damned, just to make sure they were still alive, maybe.
Aya stepped over Youji even as Ken held out his hand. The darkest bruise in Youji's soul though was that he didn't love Aya even a sip less. It was bitter tea.
"Kudou," Aya snapped, irritation sharpening the words.
"What?" Youji sorted his threads, deadly threads of life and death. "What do you want?"
There was a pause and Youji could feel his heart beating, his breath holding, as he waited for the next words, any words from Aya. There was a tiny fuzz of static as Aya switched to a private channel, taking Youji with him. "Are you hurt?"
"The target hasn't even got here," Youji said, dancing around the fight they'd had earlier. Forgiveness, tarnished and bitter, but it was his version of forgiveness anyway. God, he wanted a cigarette. "I'm okay."
That was a lie, but a small one. His side hurt, hurt more than he was going to tell anyone else, but it wasn't bad enough to slow him down.
"Did you mean it?"
Youji blinked, slowly licked his lips. Aya was going to kill him, and he couldn't bring himself to lie anyway. To deny that he loved Aya, this secret and maybe parasitic well being he got by loving Aya, would be, well, to die. "I meant," Youji paused, distracted by the echo of running feet in the passage. Omi and Ken had flushed out the target, and a friend or two. Crap. "Target's here."
Wire flashed, nooses, webs, pulling, splattering. Youji always got his hands dirty. There was something separate about this part of a mission. Kudou Youji was a detective, a drinker, a player in the sun with a generous smile, and a hedonistic streak like bourbon on a Friday night. Balinese was deadly, sin and death, the flash of wire, a smile with a fleck of blood on pale cheek. Balinese reveled in Aya's rejection. Balinese squared off with the remaining protector of the target, pausing in some kind of honorable ritual to allow the man to draw his weapon. When ya gonna learn? The target edged towards the exit. The protector's hand shook. There blood flecks there too.
Cat's cradle around the wrist, shift the pattern. The protector screamed, gun hitting the floor with fingers that never got the impulse to squeeze the trigger.
Balinese could hear Aya's breath, still on the private channel, there with him in some kind of intimacy that Balinese didn't understand. Abyssinian and Balinese were the same, grief manifest as death. Balinese gave chase to the fleeing man who'd sold so many other lives away for his drug profits. Justice and revenge incarnate, Balinese spun wires that snared a husky throat and pulled, arms wide, the struggling man close enough to put a desperate elbow into already bruised ribs. Balinese grunted. Aya snarled on the other end of the com link. Balinese tightened wires, making a garrote of them. It was close. It was personal. It marked his own soul with a black self hate that Aya's rejection gave him no reprieve from.
Another elbow took his cracking ribs. Aya's breathing was fast, panting in the connection. Darkness narrowed Balinese's vision, closing it in like an old TV set shutting off. The man in front of him sagged, and the wires finally freed themselves, slicing through everything caught within them. Balinese staggered back a couple steps, lost without his target, he became Youji again, Youji with warm blood soaking into the cold black of his assassin gear. Shot? He turned to find a pistol held in the protector's left hand, crazed eyes trying to focus on him, but the hand shaking too much to get a good bead. Youji's hands lowered to his sides. Until that very moment, he hadn't realized how much he'd been living for Aya, for those soft and infrequent smiles, for the honest heart that hide in the rage and grief. Youji closed his eyes and told his knees to hold.
"Aya?"
There was only panting as a response. Aya was running. That made the most perfect sense. The mission was finished. They all needed to meet at the extraction point. "Aya. I meant it."
The man holding the gun on him fired again, getting his arm, but just such a slight scratch. Youji stood his ground, eyes closed, letting his mind play through the times he'd watched Aya quietly. Aya was nothing like Asuka, really, but he was better, fascinating. Youji had always known he'd never marry Asuka, never even ask her. He loved her, would always love her. The sex had been good, but it was like sex with the women he went through like packs of smokes. It never went deep enough and he'd told her to leave him anyway, told her to run. He'd only slowed her down. He would have slowed Aya down too.
The next shot missed completely. Aya's scream echoed through the tight passage, rage like he could make a sword of that alone, and suddenly Youji considered running. Being shot might be nothing compared to what a truly enraged Aya could do to him. The shooter lost his head, then the blade came back through body and spine. Youji blinked. Through the com link he could hear the hissing snarling breath against Aya's lips. "Are you going to kill me," he whispered softly into the com link.
Aya's fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword. In his eyes he saw Youji standing there shaking, the blood soaking into the edges of leather, dimming the shine of it. A breathing Youji was the most beautiful sight, next to his sister waking, maybe even then. Aya reached up and adjusted the connection, in time to get a nearly hysterical Omi in his ear. "Where are you both!? What are you doing? Abyssinian! Balinese!"
"Target down," Aya said calmly, watching Youji with calculating eyes. "Balinese has taken damage. Going to the Dollhouse."
"You need help," Ken asked, voice clearer.
"Am fine," Youji said, flicking the switch that would disengage his used wire, dropping it to the killing floor.
"Negative," Aya said without much confidence. He wasn't really sure that he could carry Youji. Youji was taller and despite being slender was all muscle.
It was his left knee that bent first, forward, back, then forward like something broken. The rest of him went to, crumpling to the side in a spiral of numbness. Aya's arm slipped under his and slowed the fall, guiding him down. "No, assistance needed. Get med assistance waiting."
Youji thought he sounded so urgent. It wasn't as if it really mattered. Aya's fingers caressed his face, wiping away blood. A thumb brushed over his eyelashes, and he let himself dream that Aya was touching him, loving him, concerned for him. Anything was possible in the land of dreams, and that was where Youji went.