Rendezvous
A Get Backers fanfic by Rabid Lola
Disclaimer: Do not own. Hope you knew that. I was writing this until 1:46 AM. That's what happens when you get an idea in the middle of the night. Oh well. Happens right after the Transporter arc.
Ban growled out an annoyed curse as he shifted position in the battered seat of his car. It was near midnight, he couldn't sleep, and he was in a bad mood.
Ginji breathing quietly beside him helped some…Ban always managed to gather a bit of comfort from his partner. He counted himself damn lucky to have met Ginji, although he'd never admit it out loud. But today had been a bad day. Ginji had barely escaped mutilation by that psycho Doctor Jackal (who he really hoped was dead…), they'd successfully done a job but bungled up the payment AGAIN...damn melon.
And he'd met Himiko once more. For the first time in three long, long years.
That wasn't a bad thing, in itself. He had missed the girl…she was one of his first friends, young as she was. What was bad was the guilt it brought, the memory of the pain that accompanied it, and the fact that she hated him.
And that now, upon finally having contact with Himiko, something that he'd been delaying would probably…
"Midou Ban."
He sighed. It was inevitable. There was no mistaking the anger in that ice cold tone...Shoving on his glasses, he opened the car door, stepped out, and looked into a face that hadn't changed in three years.
How could it, when its owner was dead?
"Yamato."
A fist connected solidly with his chin, slamming him backwards. His head hit the car with a crack, and stars of pain shot through his mind. The bad part of having witch blood was that supernatural creatures—like ghosts—could touch you. Harm you, if they chose. Ban heard Ginji stir, inside the car, and he fervently hoped his partner somehow wouldn't wake up.
Yamato's arms were folded across his chest, and he was glaring at Ban with almost Jagan-like intensity. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
Ban let out a groan and touched his chin gingerly, wincing. "Damn it, you bastard, why'd you do that?"
"You deserved it," the ghost replied acidly.
"Why are you here?" It didn't come out demanding, like it should have. He sounded sullen, and guilty.
"Let me refresh your memory." Yamato stepped closer to Ban, and the dakkanya couldn't look him in the eye. "You left her alone, Ban. For three frickin' years."
"And you only gripe about it now?"
If possible, the spirit's glare flashed even angrier. "I've been trying to contact you the whole three years," Himiko's elder brother spat. "Why do you think I haven't been able to?"
The silence that followed was laden with tension. Ban finally broke it. "Sorry," he mumbled softly.
Yamato sighed. "You were blocking me."
Ban nodded.
"Why?"
"I…" Ban trailed off, then shook his head. He didn't know. Guilt, maybe?
"And why did you leave my sister?"
The dakkanya's head snapped up, and he glared at the ghost. "If you'd seen the way she was trying to kill me, right after you…I…" He nearly punched the car in his frustration, but 200kg's propelled by anger would do it no good. "She wouldn't have listened to anything I said, anyway!"
"What bothers me isn't that you left her," Yamato said quietly, and suddenly he was seated on top of the car, looking up at the sky. "It's that you didn't even once, check on her." At Ban's silence, the ghost turned to look at him. "Did you?"
"I only tracked her until she left Japan," Ban admitted softly. "Afterwards…"
"That kid," Yamato was shaking his head now. "Hauling her ass out of the country at the age of fourteen, what was she thinking…"
"You always were overprotective," Ban interrupted him, a moderately bitter smirk etching himself on his face as he leaned against the car.
Yamato had to laugh, at this. He looked thoughtfully at the clouded face of the young man beside him.
"She's thinking about you now, you know."
Ban glanced up, startled. "Eh?"
"She's sitting up in bed." Yamato's distant gaze was now fixed on some faraway point…maybe he really could se his little sister. He continued, voice soft. "She has a picture of us three, when we were a team. She's looking at it now." He quirked an eyebrow at Ban. "The stuff you told her before you knocked her out left her really confused."
"You didn't want me to tell her anything," Ban reminded him.
"I still don't." Yamato's eyes grew hard, visible even in his ghostly self. "That's why I don't want to talk to her. If I appear, and she talks to a ghost, it might set off the witch blood in her."
After a while, he sighed and laid a hand on Ban's shoulder. "Under all the hate she showed you, she was strangely glad to see you. She missed you too, you know."
Ban made no reply.
More silence, and this time the dead party broke it. "What will you do now?"
"What do you mean, what will I do?"
Yamato grinned down at Ban without mirth. "Will you respect a dead man's wishes?"
"Don't do that," Ban snapped sharply.
Yamato looked startled. "Do what?"
Ban looked down, and his next words were tight and rough. "Make fun of being dead."
Yamato's face softened, and once more he touched Ban's shoulder. "Ban. I asked you to."
"That doesn't make a damn difference." The younger man shoved the hand away.
There was an uncomfortable silence. A long one. Ban looked up at the sky, right hand clenched, feeling the dormant snake stirring inquiringly in his arm. Aesclepius could sense the presence of a former victim, and he was a little regretful, too. He'd liked this particular one.
A dead man's wishes. Ban let out a hardly noticeable sigh. To protect Himiko. He'd do that, even if it killed him, even if that wasn't exactly in the contract. Because there were exactly two people living that he valued enough to give up his life for. One was Himiko. The other, of course, was that happy-go-lucky, blonde-headed idiot snoring blissfully in the passenger's seat.
Natsumi was quickly widening that number into three, though. And maybe Paul and even HEVN could come in as a four and five…
It was so different, having people you might be able to call friends.
A chuckle broke into his thoughts. Ban whipped around and saw his ghost-friend at his partner's window. Yamato peered at the long, lanky electric eel. "So this is Ginji."
"You really have been watching," Ban remarked dryly.
Yamato said nothing. The ghost's eyes took in the messy blonde hair, the peace in the man's expression. The faint lines of strain and sadness that you wouldn't see unless you knew how to look, or unless you were gifted with the ability to see more than the normal eye could, as ghosts were. In Ginji were signs of a tried, tested, and unique soul.
The dead man met Ban's gaze again. "He's good for you."
Ban's expression softened, the tiniest bit. "Aa."
"And you're good for him." Yamato shrugged at the other's incredulous expression. "You're a friend worth having, Ban. I should know." The spirit was beside him again, and Ban felt the cold aura around him, an otherworldly, calming coolness.
There was another silence. "You will look after her, won't you?"
Ban nodded sharply, once.
Yamato smiled. "If I didn't ask you to, would you have?"
Ban was silent, then he nodded again. "Aa." She's your sister, after all. My friend.
Yamato slid off the car. "I told you. A friend worth having."
Ban's answering snort was disbelieving, to be cut off by Yamato's waving a hand in front of his face. "I'm going now. You're not going to keep me from seeing you anymore, are you?"
Ban shook his head, a wry smile on his mouth. "No."
"Good." Yamato cuffed Ban on the head, brushing the spikes over his face. Ban growled and swatted at him, and the older man grinned. "I like the hair." He walked backwards, raising his hand in a farewell. "Take care of Himiko. And Ginji. And yourself." A final, small salute. "Ja."
Ban watched as the spirit faded into the gloom. Strangely, his heart felt lighter. Looking in the direction Yamato had been gazing in a while ago, Ban sighed, closed his eyes, and stretched out a gentle wave of mental magic. There; he found Himiko. She was drifting off already, into sleep.
He stayed outside, for a while, then sent a final goodbye to Yamato, worlds and an infinity away. Faintly, he could hear the echoes of a reply.
He clambered back into the car and went to sleep.
..—EnD--..
to kikio-sama: If you read this...well, I recall your review in "Burial". To make a long story short, Ban killed Yamato because the Kudo children are cursed, too, and Yamato's curse was activating. He asked Ban to kill him, and made Ban promise to take care of Himiko from then on. :)