Title: Bird on a Wire
Characters/Pairings: Aomine/Kuroko; Kuroko/Kagami; Aomine/Kise; Momoi Satsuki; Midorima Shintarou; Murasakibara Atsushi
Summary: Aomine's very bad day, and what happened after. Or, it takes a village to raise Aomine.
Notes: Alternate careers AU; adult for smut; pining and bittersweetness. 41,169 words.

This fic has its own theme song, "Bird on a Wire," which is also the source of the epigraph and (obviously) the title. May I recommend the k.d. lang cover if you are inclined to give it a listen?

With deepest appreciation for branchandroot, who always helps me untangle the thorniest plot tangles, and andreaphobia, whose unrelenting enthusiasm for this fic made it particularly easy to keep up the writing momentum.

Additional pertinent information: #terrible things I have done to Aomine #beware of Feels #Aomine logic is not earth logic #Aomine needs therapy #I like to hurt the ones I love #I love Aomine an awful lot #Kise too #but trust me anyway #I know what I'm doing #I promise

Bird on a Wire

Like a baby, stillborn,
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

There was one point on which Kagami Taiga and Aomine Daiki were in full and absolute agreement, and it was this: it was all Tetsuya's fault. Oh, there were certainly contributing factors in play, neither of them could or would have bothered to deny it, but the beginning of it was definitely Tetsuya's doing. Daiki might have antagonized his boss a time or two too many by submitting half-assed paperwork (what, he was a busy guy, and besides, who cared as long as the bad guys ended up behind bars where they belonged, geez) and Taiga might have been a little too slow about paying back the favors he owed the other guys at the firehouse (he was gonna return the favors, seriously, except that nothing had really come up lately; otherwise he wouldn't have owed so many of the guys all at the same time, honest), but it was definitely Tetsuya who had gone to his principal and pitched the idea to him with heartfelt sincerity beaming from every pore (Tetsuya had never claimed not to be evil).

"It's a safety issue," he had said, calm and collected, hands folded neatly in front of him and eyes beaming earnest concern for the welfare of his charges. "The students should know that if they're ever in trouble, they can trust the police and the fire department and other emergency personnel to help them. Don't you think?"

And because the idea came from Kuroko Tetsuya, who was a ninja when it came to getting his own way about things, his principal had agreed with whole-hearted enthusiasm. Not that Kiyoshi Teppei ever agreed to ideas without wholehearted enthusiasm, of course, especially when they had to do with getting students involved in the community and promised the excuse for holding a carnival to boot. His vice-principal kicked up more of a fuss, mostly on the principle that organizing the darn event was going to land on his shoulders, but then, as Kiyoshi pointed out, clapping him on the back, wasn't that what vice-principals were for? And Hyuuga Junpei could not disagree.

And that was how the first annual Seirin Elementary Academy Donuts with the Departments festival had its genesis.

And it was all definitely Tetsuya's fault.

The thing was, and Daiki had argued this point strenuously to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen, the thing was, he wasn't good with kids. Like, at all. Like, he didn't understand the little monsters, who (as monsters did) excreted various sticky and/or smelly fluids and operated on baffling, incomprehensible agendas of their own devising.

Not that anyone had listened to him—not his partner, who had rolled her eyes at him and told him to suck it up (and since it was Satsuki, had gotten away with so doing) and definitely not his boss, either. Imayoshi-keishi had listened to Daiki's itemized list of reasons why he shouldn't be assigned to go to some elementary school or another's festival to fingerprint rugrats and make nice with the little brats while he was at it, had smiled sweetly the whole time, and then, once Daiki had wound up with his triumphant conclusion, said, "I'm sorry, at what point was I unclear? This wasn't a request. It was an order."

So that was a bust.

And so Daiki rolled himself out of bed on what should have been his day off, had the world been a just place, pulled on his uniform, and made the commute across town to the frou-frou elementary school that wanted to acquaint its students with various members of the emergency services. Or something like that; Satsuki had been the one paying attention, not him.

She was waiting for him at the school's front gates, at least, every inch of her neatly pressed, and holding two cups of coffee. Daiki appropriated the one on the left—black, two sugars, definitely his—and grimaced in acknowledgment of her greeting. "No booze in this?" he asked after tasting it, brandishing the cup.

Satsuki rolled her eyes. "It's not even eight in the morning yet. Also, you're supposed to be setting a good example for the children."

"Which is why there ought to be whiskey in here," Daiki told her as she retrieved the box at her feet and took off at a brisk clip. He followed after her, since she seemed to know where she was going and all. "I need something to fortify myself."

"Then you should have gotten your own damn coffee," Satsuki told him, cruel and unforgiving to the core.

Daiki accepted this philosophically, because Satsuki pretty much was the ideal partner on most other points, and cradled his unadulterated coffee close to his chest while she led them to the school's office and greeted the guys there. Principal and vice-principal, by the sounds of it, one beaming and cheerful and the other harassed and on the cranky side. Good-cop/bad-cop, Daiki figured, sort of amused by it now that he was starting to wake up properly. Well, if it worked for them.

Good cop, Kiyoshi, was the one who finally clapped his hands together and said, "But let me show you where you'll be spending the day!"

"Great," Daiki muttered, and followed the man and Satsuki through the halls of the school—bright with primary colors and children's artwork and lined with classrooms filled with half-sized desks—while Satsuki and Kiyoshi babbled back and forth cheerfully with each other about the heavens only knew what—how splendid an idea this little festival was, by the sounds of it, Satsuki complimenting him on the brilliance of the idea and Kiyoshi demurring, palming off the credit to one of the teaching staff instead.

Daiki listened with half an ear for a name, in case the teacher in question had any kind of outstanding parking tickets or something (Daiki would be the first to admit that he wasn't always above being petty), but it wasn't until Kiyoshi was ushering them back outside that he dropped a name. "As you can see, Kuroko-kun has put a lot of work into preparing for today!"

Daiki tripped on the step and whipped an incredulous look at the guy, who was gesturing with evident pride at the banner floating in the morning breeze, emblazoned with the school's name and the festival title (Donuts with the Departments, what the hell). It waved over the school's athletic field, where there were not only tables already set up with cheerful signs promising "Fingerprinting here!" and "Free donuts!" among other things, but also a fire truck and an ambulance in living color.

"Oh!" Satsuki said, sounding worried. "Should we have brought a police cruiser? I didn't even think of that."

"Satsuki," Daiki hissed, because who cared about a stupid police cruiser when there were more important issues at stake. "Did he just say Kuroko?"

It was still too early in the morning to even think of being stealthy, which was probably why Kiyoshi turned that beaming smile on Daiki and said, "Yes, Kuroko Tetsuya! He's one of my best teachers. Do you know him? Oh, wait, here he is now!"

And indeed, that was definitely Kuroko Tetsuya breaking away from the cluster of firefighters and EMTs and approaching them, still slim and fair-skinned and imperturbable.

"What the fuck," Daiki said, blank with shock, and so the first thing Tetsu said to him after five years was "I'm sorry, but please don't use language like that on school grounds."

Not surprisingly, Daiki's day went downhill from there.

"Don't you ever listen to anything Imayoshi-keishi says?" Satsuki demanded after Kiyoshi had given him a sad-puppy look over Daiki's bad language and Tetsu had politely ushered them over to the table that was going to be their station for the day. "He said where we were going to be working at least ten times! I can't believe you missed that."

"Of course I wasn't listening. That's what you're for," Daiki said, exasperated, keeping one eye on Satsuki and the other on Tetsu, who had drifted over to the little cluster of firefighters and the EMTs, who were all standing around and shooting the shit like they were fucking overjoyed to be here. He looked good, Tetsu. Like he hadn't changed a bit. "Besides, why would knowing the school's name make any difference?"

Satsuki heaved a sigh of mingled pity and despair. "You mean you honestly didn't keep up with Tetsu-kun at all?" she asked, unpacking the box she'd brought along with her efficiently enough despite her sorrow at his personal failings in life. "Oh, Dai-chan."

Daiki watched her lay out inkpads and forms and the cheerful, friendly pamphlets that usually sat forgotten and forlorn at the station's front desk, and the awful truth dawned on him. "You mean you did?" Lucky for him, outrage at this betrayal strangled his voice enough that he didn't shout it. "You knew?"

"Of course I knew," Satsuki said, calmly enough that even in his outrage Daiki could tell that the ice beneath his feet was getting thin. "I assumed you did, too, and that was why you were whining so much." She glanced away from their table to where Tetsu stood talking to one of the firefighters, head tilted back to look up at him, smiling faintly. She bit her lip. "Oh, dear."

Daiki didn't have to know what that meant to know it wasn't good. "What?"

He knew the smile she turned on him then, because he'd seen her deploy it when talking with victims, all gentle sympathy and understanding. "Nothing, never mind. Call the station, would you? Maybe we can get someone out here with a cruiser before the kids show up. We don't want to be outshone!"

"Satsuki." The flatness of it made her wince. "What is it?"

It worked on her just about as well as it did on perps. Satsuki darted her eyes away from his and knotted her hands together. "Not now, Dai-chan," she said. "I'll tell you later, I promise. First we have today's festival to get through." She smiled at him again, bright and fake. "Think of the children!"

"Oh, fuck," Daiki said, but quietly, since they were on school grounds and all.

"The cruiser," she said, which was obviously a distraction from whatever the fuck it is she didn't want to tell him. Daiki took it anyway, digging his phone out of his pocket and turning his back on the whole cluster of them while he dialed the station. Admittedly, Satsuki did know him pretty well—having something concrete to do, even if all it was consisted of yelling at Sakurai until he agreed to send someone over post-haste, settled him down again. So the mastermind behind this infernal school festival was Tetsu. So what? Wasn't like it meant anything now. Five years was a lot of time, and everything from back then was over and done with. Yeah. Over and done. Ancient history.

He was just exhaling and squaring himself for the day and the trials it promised when Tetsu said, right at his elbow, "Excuse me, Aomine-kun, but we're going to go over the day's agenda now." As Daiki yelped—fuck's sake, how had he forgotten the way Tetsu could move like a cat?—Tetsu blinked up at him, completely straight-faced (which had always used to mean he was cracking up inside) and raised the white bakery box he held. "Donut?"

"Tetsu," Daiki started, only to find that he didn't know what he wanted to say. He stared at Tetsu, and finally plucked a donut out of the box and said, "Yeah, sure. Thanks."

Tetsu nodded and turned. "Over here," he said and led him back over to the gathered cluster of people—the meeting, Daiki guessed, munching on his donut and trying not to get too many crumbs on himself. There were more teacher-looking types now, and he recognized some of the faces of the firefighters and EMTs, even if he couldn't put names to them all—he'd seen them on emergency calls, probably, though it was maybe a little strange seeing them all looking relaxed and cheerful instead of—well. That figured.

Tetsu handed around sheets of paper and nametags printed in round, friendly type. Daiki started to protest that he didn't need a nametag, not when his uniform had his name on it, but Satsuki drove her elbow into his side with the precision honed of years' experience, so he sulkily peeled the damn thing off its backing and applied it to his shirt while Tetsu launched into a little speech. "Thank you all for volunteering your time and effort today," he said, eyes wide and earnest as he swept them around the loose ring of them. (Volunteered, hah!) "We absolutely could not do this without you."

Daiki dropped his eyes from Tetsu's face and studied the agenda instead, and got another nasty shock for his pains. There was damn near a full day's activities scheduled—well, he'd already known about that—but the agenda had him and Satsuki split up for the day, which he hadn't counted on at all. But there it was, in plain terms: Fingerprinting booth, Aomine Daiki + volunteer. Who was "volunteer" and more importantly, why wasn't it Satsuki? But she was down on the schedule for the "Why Police Officers Are Your Friends" talk at three different points over the course of the day, which suggested that whoever had put the schedule together had never seen her in riot gear or tearing up a partner in the dojo. (Or that whoever had put the schedule together had a subtly evil sense of humor—stop it, Daiki.)

"As you can see, we'll have the children coming through in several waves by age groups, and our parent volunteers will be on hand to assist you in any way they can," Tetsu was telling them when Daiki tuned back in. "We'll have a break at noon for lunch, and we'll also buy dinner for the survivors at the end of the day." He paused delicately and added, "Within reason, of course."

The firefighters snickered; one of them nudged another. "Hey, Kagami, I think he's talking about you."

But the guy in question—tall, red-haired, the same one Tetsu had been talking to before—was frowning. "Oi, what do you mean, the survivors?"

Oh, Daiki knew what that faintly embarrassed aura of apology meant when Tetsu adopted it; seeing it now sent a shiver down his spine. "Well," he said, "working with young children can be a bit tiring if you're not used to it."

"Oh my god, we're all going to die," Daiki told Satsuki, who merely swatted his shoulder and told him to stop whining. But Daiki looked at the way Tetsu was carefully not smiling and knew he was absolutely right.

Four hours later, Daiki watched the last meter-tall hellion wander away with its keepers, looked around to be sure none of its companions had lingered behind, and then put his head down on the table in front of him and moaned quietly in despair. He'd been wrong: death would have been a mercy.

Also, there was something sticky underneath his forehead. He thought about that, but decided that he neither wanted to know what it was he had planted his face in nor cared that that it was probably getting all over him.

"I think that went rather well, don't you?" his volunteer parent chirped next to him. "You're really wonderful with children, aren't you? Do you have any of your own?"

"Not that I'm aware of," he said, not lifting his head, and wondered whether their medical plan covered vasectomies. He'd have to ask Satsuki; she would know.

"Well, not to worry, dear, I'm sure you'll have them someday." She patted his shoulder. "How's your hand feeling?"

Thus reminded, it began to throb again where the one brat—"I don't want my fingerprints taken," he'd said, adamant, and then "I'm going to bite you now"—had tried to take a chunk out of him. Daiki grimaced against the table and rubbed it. "It'll be fine," he said, even though last time he'd looked there had been a perfect circle of teeth-shaped bruises purpling up there.

She practically cooed. "So good with them! But come along, dear, I think they have our lunches ready for us."

Heaven only knew that he'd need all the strength he could muster to survive the afternoon onslaught without attempting to murder a small child. Daiki permitted himself another moment of resting his head in whatever-it-was and then peeled himself away from the table.

Looked like jam from one of the donuts that another of the rugrats had dropped during his fingerprinting. Daiki grimaced at it and reached for the wet wipes they were using to clean the brats up after they'd been printed and did what he could to scrub it off his forehead, then rose and went over to where Kiyoshi and his grumpy vice-principal were handing out boxed lunches to the adults.

Satsuki looked just as fresh now as she had earlier that morning and was deep in conversation with one of the EMTs—his nametag said Izuki. She broke off whatever it was when Daiki joined her, but that was because she was laughing at him. "You look like you've been through the wars."

"I hate children," Daiki told her, sullen. "Hate them so much."

Satsuki didn't actually seem to believe him and merely dimpled at him. "You'll feel better when you've had something to eat." She then turned her dimples on Izuki, who reeled back from them like a man stunned, and told him, "We'll have to talk more later!" as she steered Daiki in the direction of food.

"Are you seriously trying to pick up dudes at an elementary school festival?" Daiki demanded of her once they were out of Izuki's earshot.

Satsuki tossed her head. "I refuse to let myself be judged by someone who has made as many poor life decisions as I know you have." Which was, Daiki noted, not a denial, and was the real problem with working with his childhood best friend. She knew where all his bodies were buried (usually because she had been the one to help him bury them).

"I'm still judging you," Daiki informed her as they joined the scrum for their lunches and a pair of bottled sodas.

"And I'm ignoring you," she said airily, hooking her arm in his and holding on like a lamprey. "Oh, look! There's Tetsu-kun. I promised him I'd eat lunch with him. Come on."

"What? No!" Daiki protested, but all that got him was Satsuki's nails digging into his arm while she dragged him over to where Tetsu had claimed a shady spot beneath a tree and was surveying his festival with placid eyes. He had some of his fellow teacher types with him, plus a couple of the firefighters, who were lolling on the grass and evidently relieved to be able to strip out of the outer layer of their gear for a little while.

Not that Daiki felt particularly in charity with them at the moment. They'd been demonstrating their truck's siren and lights at regular intervals all morning. The headache from all that racket was still pinching his temples.

There was still plenty of room under the tree for both of them, unfortunately, so Satsuki plopped herself down next to Tetsu and Daiki had no choice but to follow her of his own volition or risk being pulled down willy-nilly. He gave the others a vague nod of greeting and turned his attention to his lunch to save himself having to interact with—anyone. Yeah. Anyway, Satsuki could be counted on to do the talking. She was already introducing herself to the people sitting around Tetsu she hadn't already met, which was pretty much a couple of the teachers and the firefighters. Kagami and Mitobe, the latter of whom was apparently the quiet type.

Daiki approved. The world could always use more people in it who knew how to keep their mouths shut. Not that there wasn't some virtue in Satsuki's ability to make conversation with a rock—she had barely gotten comfortable before she was off and running, chattering with the teachers and then Kiyoshi when he joined their little luncheon—all about the festival and the school. Really was a frou-frou kind of a place, Daiki gathered, listening to them—the kind of place that had real money behind it, clear in the way everything was nice and shiny-new, not to mention the fact that every parent volunteer was wearing far nicer clothes than Daiki would have chosen for a day of working with packs of grubby knee-biters.

Just beyond Satsuki, Tetsu sat and ate his lunch quietly, picking through it and choosing the bits that he wanted—no change there, either. Tetsu never had eaten enough to keep a bird alive. Daiki couldn't remember the number of times Tetsu had left half the food on his plate and said, when challenged on it, "But I'm not hungry any more. You can have the rest if you want it."

Daiki would have sworn that sometimes Tetsu had deliberately ordered more than he'd cared to eat, just to be able to push his plate across the table and let Daiki have the rest. It was the kind of thing Tetsu tended to do, all without raising any fuss over it.

Damn. He was gonna have to get Satsuki for springing this on him, seriously. There was no call at all to drop a man into the kind of situation that called up ancient history without warning him first.

As Daiki munched steadily through his own meal and Satsuki chattered away with Kiyoshi (really, they were expecting more kids in the afternoon? Damn), Tetsu picked one last bite out of his lunch, eyed it thoughtfully before consuming it, and set his chopsticks down, clearly finished. Daiki snorted softly, tempted to say something about unchanged habits—no, that was a terrible idea. Not that an idea's being terrible had ever stopped him before.

He was just opening his mouth to say something when Tetsu passed what remained of his lunch to Kagami without ceremony, and Kagami—already done with his own lunch—grinned and began demolishing the remainder of Tetsu's lunch with all the zest in the world.

What the fucking fuck, Daiki thought and—barely—did not say out loud. What the fuck was that?

There was a buzzing in his ears, loud enough to drown out Satsuki's conversation, and the food in his mouth suddenly tasted like concrete. He swallowed it mechanically, worrying it down out of habit as he watched Tetsu watch Kagami, seeing all the pieces of evidence laid out in front of him, all but labeled for his convenience, and not wanting to fit them together to see the pattern they made. They were wrong, they had to be wrong, didn't they?

He was staring too hard; Tetsu felt it. (Tetsu had said, once, without a breath of laughter in his voice, "I always know when you're looking at me.") He glanced at Daiki and raised one eyebrow slightly, Tetsu-speak for Was there something? When Daiki continued to stare, he glanced away again, like it didn't matter. Like it didn't matter at all.

Daiki belatedly realized that he was squeezing his fingers around his chopsticks too hard when one of them snapped in half and drove a splinter right into the ball of his thumb. He swore, dropping them and his lunch, and Satsuki broke off what she was saying to look at him in surprise—Kiyoshi, too, again with the disappointed puppy look—fuck being on school grounds, Daiki thought savagely, sucking on his injured thumb, unaccountably furious with everything. Fuck school grounds and fuck not swearing and fuck little kids who bit like piranhas and most of all, fuck this day.

"Are you all right?" Satsuki asked while everyone, even Tetsu, stared at him like he was some kind of bizarre sideshow brought here for their amusement. "What happened? Let me see."

"It's nothing, it's fine," Daiki growled. Not that doing so stopped her from grabbing his hand and peering at it. "Seriously, Satsuki, it's fine—"

"It's not fine," she said, unshakable. "I think you have half a tree stuck in here—good grief, what's this?" She'd noticed the bite marks.

"One of the little—" He barely stopped himself before the word bastards crossed his lips, thought about substituting brats, and decided discretion was the better part of valor. "—kids bit me."

"Kyouya," Tetsu sighed, full of resignation. "He's going through a biting phase."

"Obviously." Satsuki set her own lunch down. "Come on, Dai-chan, you need to get this looked at."

Daiki would have argued with that, normally—really he would have—but at that point, it was a clear-cut reason to get up and away from Tetsu and Kagami, who had continued to stuff his face with Tetsu's leftovers during the dramatics. So why the hell not let Satsuki drag him off and dragoon the EMT guy, whatsisname, Izuki, into digging the splinter back out of his thumb and peering at the bite marks with a critical eye. At least Izuki didn't laugh at him (out loud) and he had a bottle of aspirin and was willing to share, which at least helped with Daiki's headache.

Satsuki glanced at him, sidelong, when he headed for his booth instead of the circle of people sitting under that damned tree, and probably had no trouble seeing that he was avoiding looking at Tetsu and his—friend. She was almost subdued. "So—"

"So I'm trying to figure how—how many of the brats I've taken prints of this morning are gonna show up in juvvy in a few more years?" Daiki said, because there was nothing he wanted to talk about with just then. Nothing. "I figure smart money's on the brat with the teeth for sure. Kid's gonna be a menace to society, just wait and see."

Satsuki sighed and tucked a wisp of stray hair behind her ear. "Have it your way, then." She fixed a look on him. "For now. This really isn't the right time anyway."

"There is never going to be a right time," Daiki assured her. "Never ever." He shooed a hand at her. "Go away, let me get this crap cleaned up before the next wave of little monsters comes out." He even began shuffling piles of papers, clean forms still awaiting knee-biter prints and discarded ones covered in smudges and the neat ones that had been discarded by their disinterested owners. The jam was still drying in the sun, so he grabbed another wipe and began scrubbing at it.

Satsuki watched him in silence, judging him, and finally just shook her head. "These coping skills you have are what make you such a prize, you know. It amazes me that no one has snapped you up yet."

"Who wants that?" Daiki snorted. "Commitment is boring—stop me if I'm quoting you wrong, by the way."

Satsuki scowled at him. "What I may or may not have said after a breakup has nothing to do with you, and you know it." She looked away, searching something out—yeah, she was looking at Tetsu again. Of course. "You know, back then—"

"Oh, would you look at the time," Daiki said loudly. "Excuse me, would you? I got something to take care of before the kids come back." And he beat a hasty retreat to the men's room. (Not that Satsuki was above following him there, but the present circumstances were neither dire nor alcohol-soaked enough for that, and thank fuck for small mercies.) God, women. Why did they always want to talk about things?

That was unfair to Satsuki and he felt vaguely guilty even thinking it, like somewhere Satsuki was balling up her fist to punch him and she didn't even know why, but he shoved that aside. He wasn't going to think about that, either.

At least there was a modicum of peace to be found in the restroom, enough to let him take a deep breath and square his shoulders and remind himself that it didn't matter, none of it mattered, and besides, Tetsu had been the one to leave back then, anyway. So fuck it, nothing had really changed. Not really.

With things thus settled inside his skull, Daiki was therefore in the perfect frame of mind to discover that he'd spent at least the past hour or more walking around with some kid's inky handprint marked out on his chin and no one had said anything about it. He stared at his reflection in disbelief, hissed, "Seriously, fuck today," and did what he could to scrub his face clean before it was time to go back to his booth for the afternoon shift.

He had a different parent volunteer for the afternoon—more like a grandparent volunteer, given the neat coil of iron-grey hair at her nape. Daiki couldn't actually decide whether this was a good thing or not—one the one hand, she seemed to be far less impressed with him than the lady from the morning shift had been. Actually, she put Daiki in mind of a particular dragon of an instructor from his academy days, the one who'd made all their lives a living hell. On the other hand, she didn't seem to be particularly inclined to fawn and coo over the hordes of little brats (not so little now, these were older students, but a brat was a brat was a brat) or let them run wild. When she said, tone stern, "No, we don't grab," and stopped the first hellion who wanted to snatch Daiki's badge with inky fingers and the brat listened to her, Daiki decided he didn't mind being terrified of her as long as the kids were, too.

The one downside of this arrangement was that less screaming chaos at the fingerprinting booth meant that he had more time to watch what was going on around him. Satsuki was delivering talks to rapt audiences of brats, all charm and good cheer while she showed off the cruiser, and the guys giving guided tours of the ambulances were having an apparently awesome time triaging volunteer casualties. There were little kids climbing all over the fire truck and hanging off that red-haired idiot like he was some kind of laughing jungle gym, and no matter what he was doing, Tetsu was always at the heart of a cluster of kids, half-stooping to listen to them and guide them around the little festival with an apparently bottomless supply of patience.

(Every time he caught sight of the red-haired idiot, who acted like an overgrown kid himself, Daiki wanted to grab Tetsu and demand of him That guy? Really? But every time the thought occurred to him, he crushed it ruthlessly. Wasn't his problem. Wasn't his concern.)

Even the most horrifyingly awful of experiences couldn't last forever (thank fuck). Eventually the last of the brats wandered off into the hazy summer afternoon with its parents, and Daiki was finally able to heave a sigh of relief and sag in his seat. "Thanks for helping out this afternoon," he told his assistant, actually meaning it this time.

She accepted his thanks with the perfect assurance of a woman who knew precisely what she was due. "Kuroko-kun did say you were in over your head," she said, serene. "I had thought that he might be exaggerating, but I should have known better." She looked over the rims of her glasses, pursing her lips as she stared at him. "I trust that you are a better police officer than you are a child-care worker."

"I'd almost have to be," Daiki said, too caught off-guard to be anything but honest. Then what she'd said caught up with him. "Wait, Tetsu sent you to help me?"

"Of course he did," she said. "He said that you needed the help."

Daiki had no idea what to do with that. So he didn't try to make anything of it at all—simply nodded his acknowledgment and moved on.

Besides, Satsuki had come over and propped her hip up on the corner of the table to look down at him (one of her great joys in life, though she didn't need the literal benefit of a superior vantage point to do that; the woman had skills). "I see you survived after all," she said, which made his volunteer snort as she collected her handbag and took her leave.

"I am going to drink so much tonight that this entire day will be blotted from my memory forever," Daiki told her. "I mean that."

Satsuki rolled her eyes at him. "No you're not, we have work tomorrow, and I'm not dealing with that and one of your hangovers. I positively refuse to do it."

Daiki tried to look put-upon and pathetic, but that only worked on Satsuki when she chose to allow it. Instead she kicked his knee. "Come on, let's get this stuff packed up. The sooner we break this booth down, the sooner we get to eat. Tetsu-kun said so."

"Wait, we're doing manual labor for this festival, too?" Daiki objected, though he did retrieve Satsuki's box from beneath the table, which he cleared by dint of sweeping his arm across the surface and pushing everything into the box.

"I see now why Tetsu-kun chose to go into elementary education," Satsuki said. "Dealing with you must have made kindergarteners look like a step up." She hopped down from her perch while Daiki sputtered in outrage. "Besides, all the other volunteers are helping."

It was true: everyone seemed to be pitching in, all the firefighters like a pack of loud-mouthed, overly good-natured assholes cheerfully helping take down banners and disassemble booths and stack the components under the direction of the school staff. Fine, it was absolutely transparent manipulation on Satsuki's part, sure, but that didn't mean it wasn't effective. No way was Daiki going to let himself be outdone by that red-haired loudmouth.

"Fine," Daiki said, "whatever," because at least manual labor was simple enough and didn't involve dealing with children. The day was already improving. "But this is only because it means we can get the hell out of here that much faster. I want to go home."

"You can't do that yet." Satsuki helped him turn the table on its side and fold the legs down. "There's dinner."

"Fuck dinner," Daiki told her.

It was, of course, at precisely that moment that Tetsu chose to show up out of nowhere and say, chiding, "Language, please." He gazed up at Daiki, wearing an expression Daiki didn't know how to parse, and added, "You're not coming to dinner?"

Daiki neither yelped nor dropped his end of the table on his foot, no matter what Satsuki claimed later. "Damn it, Tetsu, give a man a little warning, would you?"

Tetsu never did anything so unsubtle as frown, but nevertheless Daiki got the distinct impression that he was dissatisfied—it was all in the faint tightening of his lips and the narrowing of his eyes. "Swearing is a bad habit," he said, full of disappointment, and forestalled Daiki's objections by saying, "Even if all the children have gone home."

"Well," Daiki said, lifting his end of the table again, "I'm just a creature of bad habits, aren't I?"

Tetsu elected not to answer that and instead moved down to Satsuki's end of the table. "Why don't you get the chairs?" he suggested, which was practically gallant of him. Satsuki smiled at him fondly and let him have the weight of the table without question even though she was far better equipped for it than Tetsu was. "You're coming to dinner, aren't you?"

"Of course I am." Satsuki folded the chairs and tucked them under her arm and kept pace with them as they began manhandling it over to the pallet of other tables. "So is Dai-chan! He just isn't any good at agreeing to things gracefully. But you already knew that."

"Yes," Tetsu said, thoughtful. "I suppose I did, at that."

What was that supposed to mean?

But there were more important things than that to deal with. "I'm not going to dinner," Daiki said. "I've got drinking to do! Serious drinking!" Nothing they said was going to keep him from it, either, damn it.

Daiki slunk lower in his seat and glared at Satsuki and Tetsu and Kagami mostly impartially. "I'm not hungry," he told the server. "Do you people serve beer? Bring me all the beer."

Satsuki sighed and told the lady, "He'll have the teriyaki beef. And one beer." She glanced at the menu again and added, "Just bring me the gyoza, please." She took no apparent notice of Daiki's scowl but managed to kick him right in the ankle with distressing accuracy.

That could have been enough to occupy him for at least a little while, except that Kagami started ordering, rattling off a list of items from the menu while their server scrambled to keep up and her eyes went round—at least until Tetsu coughed and Kagami stopped, looking a trifle embarrassed. "I'll just share with him," Tetsu told her, nodding at Kagami, who did not object to that plan.

Daiki slouched lower in his seat and thought longingly of his apartment and the bar just down the street from it, of sitting at any other table in the restaurant, of his and Satsuki's phones ringing and it being Imayoshi-keishi demanding they come in to handle an emergency—anything at all to not have to be sitting here, next to Tetsu and watching Kagami eye him as suspiciously as Daiki was eyeing him in return. Subtle the man was not: Daiki had seen the not-at-all surreptitious look Kagami had given him, then Tetsu, eyebrows rocketing up as if to say What, really, Tetsu? As if Kagami had any room to talk; Daiki was not impressed.

"So!" Satsuki said after the uncomfortable silence threatened to keep rolling along, even after the server had come back with their drinks. Daiki left off pondering whether it was better to bolt the beer at once or to make it last against the very real possibility that Satsuki wasn't going to let him order another. "I think today went well, don't you?"

She would think so, of course. That EMT she'd been chatting with and at least a couple of the other firefighters had all clamored for her to sit at their tables and had been very disappointed that she hadn't.

"It did," Tetsu agreed, all quiet satisfaction over it, the kind of genuine warm happiness in his voice that always had made Daiki feel like a heel for complaining around him. Regrettably, it still did, so he took refuge behind his mug of beer to keep himself from saying anything to ruin it for Tetsu. "I would like to make it an annual event."

"Well, you know Alex is on board with it," Kagami said, pulling a face that was the bastard offspring of a smile and grimace. Whoever Alex was.

"Imayoshi-keishi liked it too," Satsuki agreed, then wrinkled her nose. "Though maybe that was because he liked the idea of fingerprinting them early." She shrugged, dismissing that. "But it was a lot of fun! You work with cute kids, Tetsu-kun." She kicked Daiki again before he could editorialize on that.

Tetsu smiled—actually smiled, and not one of the ones where the corners of his eyes just crinkled up a bit, either. "They do have a way about them," he agreed, and reflected for a moment. "Every class does, though. They all leave their marks."

"Especially the biters," Daiki muttered sourly.

"Especially them," Tetsu agreed, all solemn gravity with laughter lurking beneath it. "I've been working with Kyouya and more constructive ways of expressing his feelings, but it's been slow going. He's very stubborn."

"Have you tried a muzzle?" Daiki asked.

"No," Tetsu said, still serious. "I can't imagine that his parents would like that very much." He took a sip of his tea and added, measured, "But the idea has crossed my mind once or twice."

"More often than that," Kagami said. "Wasn't it just last week you were talking about putting the kid on a leash if he didn't learn some manners soon?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tetsu said, prim and proper but for the laughter in his eyes.

Kagami just snorted. "Yeah, sure, must have been some other kindergarten teacher I was talking to."

"Must have been," Tetsu said, bland.

Daiki retreated into his beer again rather than look at Tetsu and Kagami smiling at each other, all cozy and intimate. Wasn't anything he cared to see, wasn't any of his damn business, except that Satsuki had to go and say, "So, how did the two of you meet, Tetsu-kun? I've been wondering."

Fuck it, Daiki decided, draining his beer. He signaled the server for another despite the fact that he was going to be limping out of the restaurant if Satsuki kept kicking him like that. Satsuki would have to be way more ruthless with him than she generally cared to be in public if she expected him to sit through this without a beer or three to cushion the experience.

He caught Kagami giving him and Satsuki both a startled, wary sort of look and rolled his eyes. What, did the guy really think they were that stupid? Though he knew better than to ask that out loud with Tetsu sitting at the table; Tetsu's answers to silly questions were so rarely flattering.

"We live in the same apartment complex," Tetsu said, calm. "We often ran into each other when we were running in the mornings." He lifted a casual shoulder. "We struck up a conversation one morning."

"Mostly because I couldn't believe what a slow runner this guy was, even for a beginner," Kagami said. He made a face and laughed. "Only it turned out that he wasn't actually a beginner."

"Sometimes it's better to have endurance instead of speed," Daiki said before it clicked for him that Kagami was laughing more at himself than at Tetsu.

Kagami bristled at him, maybe reflexively for all Daiki knew or cared, not that it mattered. Daiki glared back in lieu of being embarrassed and Satsuki rolled her eyes to the heavens, clearly praying for patience. But Tetsu, who looked obscurely pleased about something, simply changed the subject. "Do you hear much from Akashi these days?"

Daiki left off glaring at Kagami, but that was because he was surprised by the question and also because the server had brought him his new beer. (He had to seize it and hold it protectively before Satsuki could poach it away from him.) "What, that guy? No, I don't think I've spoken with him since graduation." That was when they'd all taken their diplomas and scattered to the four winds, more or less.

Tetsu made a dissatisfied sound. "I thought that might be the case. I don't think he keeps in touch with anybody."

"Well. Akashi." Sum-up and explanation all in one tidy word. It wasn't like Akashi Seijuurou had ever walked on the same earth as the rest of them except by choice.

Satsuki made another try for his beer; he held it out of her reach and took a healthy drink, just to make sure he got to enjoy some of it. She huffed at him and folded her arms on the table in front of her. "He's been busy building his career, of course," she said. "It's not like being a professional shougi player is easy, you know. Even when you're as good as he is."

"He might have at least tried," Tetsu said, unmoved. "It's not that difficult to keep in touch."

Guilt made Daiki cringe in spite of himself. "Please," he scoffed, moving on briskly. "It's not like I've heard from Midorima or Murasakibara in ages, either."

Tetsu glanced up at him, solemn and definitely a little bit judgmental there. "Midorima finished up med school a couple years ago and is working at Shuutoku." Yes, definitely getting judgey. "We have coffee every month, usually at Murasakibara's bakery."

"…oh," Daiki said, choosing the route of meekness. "I didn't know that."

"Obviously." Tetsu sipped his tea and glanced at him. "You do keep up with Kise, though?"

Daiki leapt for the refuge of safer topics. "You can't get rid of Kise. Guy's like a bad rash, he just keeps coming back."

Kagami snorted. When Tetsu glanced at him, he shrugged. "What? He's not wrong."

"There will be no making fun of Ki-chan at this table," Satsuki declared in tones the promised dire consequences if she were disobeyed. "I will not have him insulted."

"And yet you still won't sleep with him," Daiki muttered.

Satsuki tossed her head. "Our love is too pure and transcendent for those kinds of goings on." She considered it. "Not that you would have any idea what that means, of course."

"Wouldn't want to," Daiki said. "It sounds pretty goddamn boring." It wasn't until after the words were out of his mouth and Tetsu had gone stiff and still next to him and Kagami had gone back to glaring at him that it occurred to him that maybe that hadn't been the right thing to say. Well, fuck it, it did sound boring. Or something. Definitely not his style at any rate.

Daiki toasted all three of them with his beer, defiant, and drank to that.

Some time later, Daiki became drowsily aware of the presence of someone's shoulder beneath his chin and the peculiar jolting rhythm that came of being carried and conversation going on around him. "A lot heavier than he looks, isn't he?"

"I'm sorry." Tetsu's voice, not sounding very sorry at all. "That's why we had to ask you to carry him."

"If you weren't here, we'd have to drag him." Satsuki, not actually joking.

Hey, Satsuki and Tetsu were both here. That was great! Daiki smiled without bothering to open his eyes, since if the two of them were around, everything was just fine.

(But that wasn't quite right, said the voice of his common sense, but it was immediately shouted down by too many beers and the warm, fuzzy feelings of Daiki's contentment.)

"At least it's not very much further." The third voice, the one right in Daiki's ear, was one he didn't quite recognize. Whoever it was sounded more resigned than anything else, which was too bad. It was too good a night to be unhappy.

They jolted along in silence for a little while longer, the guy's steady tread nearly lulling Daiki back to sleep, before he said, "Don't take this the wrong way, Tetsuya, but…this guy? Really?"

Daiki had heard that one before, more times than he cared to remember. He wrinkled his nose, ready to deliver a withering retort just as soon as he could figure out how to string one together. Tetsu beat him to it while he was piecing the words into the right sequence. "You're not seeing him at his best." He sounded sad, which was absolutely, positively all kinds of wrong.

"This is definitely his worst," Satsuki agreed. "You don't think I'd put up with him if he was like this all the time, do you?"

"I'd hope not," the guy, whoever it was, said. "Hey, is this it? Awesome." He hitched Daiki up a little higher—Daiki left off puzzling over Tetsu and Satsuki's comments to be rather impressed with how casually he did that—and the jolting rhythm changed—oh, right. Steps. Walk-up apartment. Yeah.

The guy was only a little out of breath by the time his gait evened out again, which, yeah. Daiki could admit when he was impressed.

"Hang on, I've got a key around here somewhere," Satsuki said. "Just let me—there it is." The jingle of a ring of keys followed, and the rattle of a doorknob. "Okay, just help me get him inside here—"

The world spun, turning gold with the glow of the overhead light when Daiki opened his eyes, and there were two or maybe three sets of hands on him, easing him down onto his bed, and hey, there was Tetsu—long-suffering Tetsu. Daiki laughed and caught his hand and held onto it.

(Don't let go, his common sense yelled, don't let go of him again, you idiot. Whatever that meant.)

"Tetsu," Daiki said, smiling at him.

Tetsu sighed. "Go back to sleep, Daiki," he said, and he looked—tired. Yeah. Tired.

"If you say so," Daiki said, still holding onto him, because whatever it was that was making Tetsu look that sad and tired, he could figure it out and fix it in the morning. There'd be plenty of time in the morning.

He closed his eyes again. The last thing he heard before he fell back asleep was whatsisname, the red-headed guy who'd just manhandled him into bed, that guy, saying, "I hope you're sure about this," and Tetsu's quiet murmur, cool as his fingers against Daiki's, saying, "Yes, I think I am."

So that was all right, Daiki thought, and slept.