Disclaimer: Characters belong to Aoki and Ayamine, who would probably never... well, no, Ayamine's odd enough that he might get behind this. :D

Notes: Mostly anime-verse, with a few details from the manga.
Er, which has completely jossed me since I wrote this, regarding the topic of the cross pendant Masaki has in the manga. We now know who gave it to him, and it was not his mother. (At least I certainly hope she isn't.) So I will say that this is officially anime-verse now, and uh, he has a pendant in that universe that we never saw in the anime. Yeah.
Is it shota when it's the young pretty boy seducing the older one? Errr...

Trinity

"It's nice to have you back."

The words sound all wrong to Masaki's ears, though they sound just as he remembered them. The boy sits before him, legs crossed and hands folded in his lap, with a pleasant smile on his face.

MakubeX was twelve years old when Masaki left, so he has grown taller in those two years. His eyes still have a childlike innocence, but it seems to Masaki to be as a cloud that would pass with a breeze. Perhaps the voice is slightly deeper, though it has not yet changed to a man's. Masaki took no notice of these things when first he returned - he dared not.

"It's nice to be back," he replies, seating himself likewise on the floor and offering a pleasant smile of his own, as if nothing has changed. They both know better, but if MakubeX prefers the charade, then Masaki will not deny him. He owes the boy far more than pleasantries. "What is it you require of me?"

The smile falters, just barely. "I require nothing, Masaki-san. I only wanted to talk to you. I missed talking to you, after you left. You went Outside, didn't you? Did you travel far?"

"Not on a regular basis... I was in Europe briefly." ...He owes MakubeX far more than pleasantries. Detailed descriptions of the places he visited are what he shared in years past, when hints of childish chubbiness still lay in the boy's cheeks and limbs. Not in the hands. Never in the hands - they were always the hands of an artist.

Just as before, MakubeX drinks in his recollections of the outside world, though with more subdued mannerisms. He owes the boy so much. It seems like cheating to be talking as they did in the past.

"Do you remember," MakubeX asks, his eyes reflecting the monitors around them, "when you used to tell me stories?"

Masaki nods. He's beginning to feel more at ease when MakubeX calls him to the control room, even leaning casually on one hand rather than sitting so formally before Lower Town's ruler. "Don't tell me that's why you've called me here today..."

"The thought had crossed my mind." MakubeX's smile is an impish one, then it softens. "I remember that many of them came from the Bible. And I remember asking you why you knew them all, and you said your mother was Catholic."

Masaki nods again. That in particular is not something he wants to talk about.

"And I remember that I then asked if you were, and you said you were not." MakubeX looks at him, tilting his head with an appraising curiosity. "Is that still the case?"

Masaki could guess what had led MakubeX to ask. "Yes. This..." His hand closes around the cross pendant which hangs at his neck. "...belonged to my mother."

MakubeX lowers his eyes self-consciously, evidently able to extrapolate data at least as well as Masaki. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. She went to her god, and I went to what passed for mine."

He owes the boy more than honesty, too.

"I had guessed long ago."

The pleasant smile is long gone from MakubeX's face. Now it's just blank, the clouds in his eyes turned to the promise of rain as he lies on his back before Masaki, fingers interlocked to pillow his head.

"I knew you would eventually," Masaki admits. "You're too intelligent not to. I was sure that Ginji's leaving would be a catalyst for many things."

"And that's why you left first."

Masaki is not surprised that he's puzzled that much out, either, and it shames him. He is surprised, however, by MakubeX's next words, even though they answer what he's leaving unsaid.

"I was a coward too."

"Hmm...?"

"I didn't want to confront it either, so I never tested that theory. I never had definite proof until I saw Ren try to leave, because I'd never tried it myself." Which means, if Masaki is understanding what he's trying to say...

"Therefore I wasn't absolutely sure I was virtual until I saw how you'd trapped me."

Masaki had never been sure, and now he heaves a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's all right. I understand." Masaki looks up to him, and MakubeX's eyes are now closed. "Just like in the Bible stories you told me, where God the Father sacrificed his Son to save his people. If not for this sacrifice, the people of Lower Town were to perish."

Masaki remains silent for a moment. "I may once have been called a god, but it was only a figure of speech."

"That's fine," MakubeX acknowledges. "This is only an analogy. Besides, they called Raitei the savior of Lower Town too. He would have been a more pure sacrifice than me." He laughs softly, almost silently, with no real humor. "Even if I did have an immaculate conception of sorts, Christ never would have plotted to detonate a nuclear weapon in the middle of Tokyo."

"That's true..." Hypocrite that he may be, Masaki hates seeing the boy still punishing himself for a mistake made in frustrated confusion. "But Ginji's not perfect either."

Sky-blue eyes crack open, and peer at Masaki for a moment. Then MakubeX laughs softly again, and this time it sounds honest. "...Thank you, Masaki-san."

Masaki isn't sure what he's being thanked for. He's only telling the truth - and he owes MakubeX more than just truth.

"I brought you something."

There's a teasing little smile in MakubeX's eyes that Masaki doesn't understand, and he hesitates. He's curious, but it might be impolite to ask outright - as if he expects presents.

"Assuming, of course, that you want it." MakubeX reaches into the shadows between the closest monitor and tower. "Do you still drink whiskey?"

Masaki nods slowly, looking in mild surprise at the bottle and glass that MakubeX has retrieved. It's even his brand. "...I don't recall drinking around you."

"No - you didn't want to be a bad influence," MakubeX agreed, opening the bottle. "Even when everyone else was drinking, you were sober, so the two of us could make sure everyone else was all right - or rather, you pretended to be sober." Another small teasing smile. "I could smell it on you, though."

Masaki grimaces slightly. If any of his various covers had been blown, though, that was a relatively minor one. "Where did you get this?"

"At a liquor store."

Not what he meant. "You're fourteen."

"I'm the ruler of Lower Town." The tiny smirk, proud of his unlawful acquisition, seems more at home on the face of a fourteen year old than the ruler of Lower Town. MakubeX hands him the glass, filled halfway.

"Thank you." Masaki takes a sip, and puzzles as MakubeX simply sits and waits. "...Did you want to have some?" He feels mildly bad suggesting it, but it seems rude not to do so.

MakubeX shakes his head. "I prefer to have my thoughts all together, and my judgment intact. You, however, have been too tense when you come to talk with me. Is talking to me really so difficult?"

That's one way to make him tense up again. But Masaki can tell, the boy is only wishing for him to be comfortable around each other, just like they used to be. Masaki shakes his head. "It's easier than it should be, and that's the problem."

"I already told you I understand, Masaki-san. I'm just glad to have you back."

His expression is earnest, and Masaki looks down into his glass instead, hoping to change the subject. "...How did you know what I prefer to drink?"

"Ginji-san told me," MakubeX explains, settling back into a more comfortable position. "He said you and Teshimine-san used to drink together - but you kept quiet about that with him too, and would send him off to a friend's house for the night."

That hadn't been the primary reason Ginji had been spending nights at friends' houses, but Masaki isn't going to correct him. Besides, when he looks up from taking a longer drink, he has the distinct feeling MakubeX already knows.

He's correct. "Have you... been seeing Teshimine-san since you both came back?"

"That... depends what you mean by 'seeing'." No point in being coy about it - MakubeX doesn't seem to object to the idea. "We've visited each other a few times."

"But you're not together."

"Not technically."

"Mmm..." MakubeX looks like he's thinking, but he doesn't say more for a long time. "Even if you might as well be, you don't want to rush into things... you want to at least take your time and feel out whether or not something's still there before you say so. Am I right?"

Though Masaki's surprised by his candor, he can't very well deny it. "Yes..."

"I'm sorry," MakubeX says abruptly. "I know it's none of my business."

"It's fine," Masaki assures him, and he takes another drink. "It's second-nature to both of us to be curious. And cautious."

Suddenly Masaki knows, but he doesn't allow his surprised realization to show in his expression. If MakubeX won't say it outright, neither will he force it into the open.

And MakubeX doesn't seem to be about to say it; he's only refilling Masaki's glass. "You seem much more relaxed after a drink," he observes. "It almost feels like old times."

Masaki doesn't think it feels at all like old times at the moment - he owes MakubeX more than he thought he did.

Masaki is the one who happens to see the digital cry for help first. Upon arriving, he finds the boy semi-conscious, delirious, holding a note that starts out as a simple, neat list and trails off into handwriting that doesn't resemble MakubeX's at all before becoming completely illegible. He doesn't read it right away; the bottle MakubeX holds in the other hand is more important.

It's Masaki who administers the emetic; it's Masaki who holds his head as the poison is painfully purged from his body. He stays, cradling MakubeX in his arms, until the ragged breathing evens and eyes open into feverish aqua slits. "Please don't tell anyone," MakubeX whispers. "I won't do it again."

"Shh. Rest."

Amazingly, the boy obeys, and only then Masaki takes the time to read the note. Nothing he hadn't expected, and he throws it away.

He won't tell anyone. If it was anyone but MakubeX, he would tell some sort of authority figure, so that they could keep an eye on him. What authority could one go to, when the person in question is the ruler of Lower Town? But if anyone asks about that desperate post that MakubeX made, or the note he found in his hand, he won't tell.

Strangely enough, no one does ask, and so finally Masaki asks a question of his own. "Why?"

MakubeX has been acting eerily normal ever since, as if it never happened. Even now he doesn't blink; it's as if it never did happen. "I was upset," he says simply. "I wasn't thinking."

"What got you so upset?"

"Many things. But I was only being selfish - and what better culmination for selfishness than the ultimate selfish act?"

"People need you. People care about you."

"I know..." MakubeX smiles slightly. "If I was a selfish enough person to finish the job, they wouldn't care about me so much. Because it would be extremely selfish."

Masaki closes his eyes, bows his head, as the words seem to cut into him. More than once the weight of Brain Trust and his responsibilities had seemed unbearable. "...You're far from the only one who's had such thoughts."

MakubeX nods slowly. "I suspected as much. That was why I expected you to come when I changed my mind."

"Anyone else would have come, seeing that post asking for help."

"Perhaps, but we'll never know." MakubeX lifts his head, his eyes watching and measuring Masaki's reaction. "That post was locked only to you."

Masaki said nothing, but MakubeX answered regardless. "...I knew you would come."

It's been long enough now that Masaki has started to let his guard down around the boy again. True enough that the truly suicidal won't let on, and it's primarily the ones who just want attention who will talk about it, but the aura of melancholy that hovers around MakubeX seems to be no more than it is.

Masaki relaxes, and takes another brief drink from the bottle. He gave up on wasting a glass long ago, seeing as no one ever drinks with him, aside from Teshimine. He's alone with MakubeX now, and he hasn't ventured the reluctant offer of sharing for some time, since MakubeX has never accepted.

Something makes him ask today, however. Perhaps it's because Ginji visited the day before, turning even MakubeX to sunshine, and now the rain has returned.

Amazingly, MakubeX accepts the offer with a nod Masaki can barely see, holding out his hand. Masaki hands it to him after a surprised moment, and wonders what the two boys talked about. MakubeX doesn't offer insight; he merely grimaces at the taste and then hands the bottle back after barely a sip.

"You don't like it," Masaki observes, pondering.

MakubeX shakes his head. "It tastes exactly like what it is. Or maybe that's just because of how I am." Regardless, he holds out his hand again a few minutes later, and Masaki silently obliges.

It doesn't take long before MakubeX starts talking.

"I was thinking," he begins, in a completely unsurprising fashion. "If you were the father and I was the son, then Ginji-san would have to be the ghost. He's still here with us - all we have to do is look around. It took me a long time to realize that, but now I do."

Masaki nods slowly. MakubeX isn't even remotely drunk, as far as he can tell; Masaki's closer, though not by much.

"But if the ghost remains, the son should be gone already."

"Stop that," Masaki orders him immediately, moving closer just in case MakubeX is planning something. His behavior has been strange enough that Masaki wouldn't put it past him.

"So I decided that maybe Ginji is the son after all," MakubeX continues, as if he hadn't heard. "It's more fitting. He left, I stayed behind to guide the people, who frequently get it wrong." He breathes something that's almost a chuckle. "And how many bad jokes could Emishi make about a ghost in the machine?"

"He wouldn't."

"No..." MakubeX agrees, staring at the floor. "He wouldn't. But he could."

Masaki is starting to reevaluate his estimation of how drunk MakubeX might be after only a few sips of hard liquor - and when the boy stretches a hand out towards him once more, he keeps the bottle where it is. After a moment, MakubeX lets the hand fall, but something seems... off.

"I would have made a poor martyr anyhow," he murmurs. "A false sacrifice. Removing something that doesn't even really exist into non-existence is pointless."

"I told you to stop that," Masaki reminds him firmly. "How do we know that anything in this world is any more real than you are? The only information we can gather firsthand about anything at all comes from what our senses tell us - and as you know perfectly well, our senses can be made to lie to us."

"Maybe you're not real either."

"Then you're as real as I am." Masaki is nearly offended by the dull tone of MakubeX's voice; it sounds as though he's given up believing in anything. He wonders if the boy's taken more pills, despite a promise which he may have been in no condition to remember. "Maybe more so."

"Sometimes I wonder... But that's rather presumptuous, isn't it?"

He stretches out his hand again, which makes Masaki somewhat angry for some undefined reason. "MakubeX," he begins, "I don't think you need..."

He stops, as MakubeX's fingers wrap around not the bottle, but Masaki's hand. Suddenly he's not sure what to do or say at all.

"If I were the only real thing, and everything and everyone here was false," MakubeX states quietly, "I could do whatever I please, to anyone at all."

"MakubeX." Masaki tries again, only to stop when the boy finally looks up at him, his eyes utterly lacking in innocence. Instead, they seem filled with cold determination. He hadn't been there when MakubeX was building the bomb, but he has the feeling that his eyes must have looked much like this. He has the urge to back away, but even if MakubeX weren't holding his hand, he wouldn't have.

He hadn't been there when he should have been there, and he isn't going to leave this time. Not even if... MakubeX scoots closer. Masaki catches his breath.

"Don't worry," MakubeX tells him, a strange light in his eyes. "That's not really what I believe. It was just something I was thinking about. ...I know I think too much, but I can't help it."

They were right, Masaki thinks - the boy is mad - but he couldn't say so at the moment. The way MakubeX is looking at him now seems less mad than merely... intense... Deep down, he has to admit with a sinking feeling that MakubeX is getting the precise reaction he was trying for; between the two of them, it was always a game of chess, predictions against predictions. Or it would have been, if they'd been working at odds instead of together.

MakubeX seems to be thinking along the same lines. "The Get Backers were right, when they said that those above can't change what people feel. Neither can I."

It's strange - Masaki never noticed before how much MakubeX looks like a younger Teshimine now that he's grown a little. Teshimine Takeru when they'd first met... He abruptly feels old - that was over a decade ago, when MakubeX was no more than a toddler. He shouldn't think things like that, not when...

MakubeX is climbing into his lap suddenly, wrapping arms around Masaki's neck, and Masaki freezes. "If I'm not the son," MakubeX murmurs against his shoulder, "then you're not the father, and none of this has to be wrong."

"...Almost blasphemous," Masaki murmurs back, uncertain of what his reaction should be, or even what it is.

"You're agnostic."

He isn't sure he's ever told the boy about that, even if it's true. He nods, hesitantly, and feels hair against his lips and his chin, smoother and finer than the silver hair he was once used to. Even so, he's missed that feeling, and together with the arms around his neck, he forgets himself enough to breathe in. Which, ironically, is enough to remind him - MakubeX smells like soap and a hint of ozone, and Takeru never smelled quite like that.

Before he's recovered himself enough to draw back, the boy has raised his head to find his lips and kiss them firmly. He's not drunk at all, Masaki decides with certainty, despite the taste of alcohol. He's sober - sober enough that he's gotten Masaki just drunk enough to slow his reaction time. So that he's moving on instinct instead of thinking first.

Which is why Masaki is, for some reason, kissing back. Even when he finds the boy's tongue in his mouth. Especially then.

Before he realizes what's happened, MakubeX has shifted to straddle his lap, wrapping his legs around Masaki's waist - and squeezing. This is not a new experience to Masaki at all, but he isn't thinking of Teshimine anymore regardless. When he moans, when he allows himself to be pushed backwards onto the floor, when he dares to open his eyes and look up in a daze... he isn't startled by the blue eyes. He'd read all the data, followed it up to a point, but never this far. Even so, this could be no one other than MakubeX.

Small but sure fingers slip under his shirt, tugging it up, and then lower to undo his belts. Masaki thinks he should protest.

He does not. He has, after all, owed MakubeX a great deal. If this is what the boy wants...

Later, MakubeX has left Masaki on his blankets with a lingering kiss and returned to his programming. Masaki is vaguely impressed - the resilience of youth, perhaps. He himself would rather rest for a bit longer.

Except, of course, that it lets him think too much. His head stubbornly tells him that if that was what MakubeX wanted, then he owed it to the boy to give it to him.

There is another part of him, however, that watches the boy sitting and typing calmly, and acknowledges that MakubeX has pleased him. He wouldn't mind doing it again. Is his debt discharged, Masaki wonders? Or by allowing this, has he only deepened it?

He thinks of Teshimine, and the hints of progress they'd made since they'd met again. He begins to think that perhaps now MakubeX owes him.