Pairing: Byakuya Kuchiki x Ichigo Kurosaki
Music: Suicide is Painless, by Johnny Mandel
Word count: ~ 4400
Rating: M
Prompt 38: Half-Life
"One million."
Byakuya turns away from the window and looks at the woman seated in front of his desk. She arches one dark brow, and he raises one in return.
"I rather think you misunderstand the meaning of 'retired'," he says evenly. "Shihoin, I no longer play this game, so you are wasting your time."
Yoruichi simply smiles at him, sly and mysterious, and crosses her legs. Her short skirt rides up, revealing a flash of dark skin that would have made a straight man drool. Byakuya simply raises his brow higher, and she laughs at him.
"Oh, Byakuya-kun," she purrs, "I've missed you. But this is nonnegotiable. Sosuke Aizen has a problem, and I need you to solve it."
Byakuya thinks about sighing, thinks about protesting or repeating his "retired" claim. But this is Yoruichi Shihoin, and she won't be fooled by a veneer of contentment and respectability, by the walls he's spent the last five years establishing. Yoruichi knows him well enough to see through all of that, to the bored, restless thief buried under the respectable lawyer he's styled himself as.
That's the biggest irony, really. The biggest tell.
He's not out of the game. Not yet.
Not ever.
Yoruichi grins, looking a little too much like a shark for his peace of mind. Sensing the capitulation like that same shark would sense blood, she pulls a thin folder out of her handbag—infamous, that handbag: he's heard that she once fit a body in it, and somehow he finds that a little hard to doubt—and sets it dead center in the middle of his desk. "The job," she says, and it's all business now. They're done being friends, being mentor and student. Yoruichi is a professional, through and through.
Byakuya turns fully from his panoramic view of the city and picks it up, flips it open. Standard, really, except for one thing.
"A team?" he asks, eyes narrowing. "Who picked them? Who are they?"
For a moment, it looks like Yoruichi has swallowed a lemon. Her grin fades, and she pulls a face. "Aizen chose them specially. He'll hand over the files when you meet him, but he says they're the best. I'm willing to believe him, since he asked for you personally. You'll be coordinator and leader. No orders from anyone but Aizen, and then only when you're face to face." Her sharp eyes flit over his face, taking in the tiny shifts in expression that only one other person in the entire world can read. "Will you do it?"
He's not sure why she's asking—she already knows the answer. Instead of replying, he closes the folder and slides it into his briefcase, then collects his jacket and makes to leave. In the doorway, he pauses and looks back.
"Show yourself out," he tells her evenly. "I have a plane to catch."
Her grin is the last thing he sees before the door swings shut behind him.
Aizen is a slimeball, but no worse than Byakuya was expecting, really. He's also got a faint trace of desperation buried under all of that smiling calm, and Byakuya can all but feel the anticipation rolling off of him in waves as he slides a stack of papers across the table in the airport restaurant.
"The team," he says, and he's trying a little too hard to be bland, behind those rectangular glasses that Byakuya's certain are just plain glass. "They're the best in the world. Being as you are, I'm sure you've crossed paths a time or two. You'll be working with them to recover my artifact."
Byakuya glances down at the sheets. They are familiar—hitter, hacker, grifter. Almost enough to get the job done. Just enough, maybe, if he pushes them to their limits. He's never met them, but he's heard of them, heard what they can do, and his mind is already spinning with plans. It's easy, in a way he had forgotten.
Breaking the law is simple, for him; it's obeying it that's hard.
"No fifth?" he asks, because he's used to a full team when someone else is footing the bill—especially when that someone is as rich as Aizen is. They've got four sides of the pentagon—hitter, hacker, planner, grifter, and now all that's missing is the thief.
He used to have a thief, a long time ago.
Aizen attempts to look regretful, though it falls a few miles short. "Ah, yes. There was a bit of a problem there. The one I wanted was out of reach, couldn't be brought on board in time. Can you adjust?"
Byakuya doesn't bother answering, because there's no one in the world that can adjust like he can. Ich—someone once said that Byakuya had a plan for every letter of the alphabet, and then a few backups just in case. That's true, more or less. Byakuya's never been caught without a way out, or a way to invent a way out. That's what makes him the best.
"Very well, Mr. Aizen," he says coolly, holding out his hand. "You will have your item by the deadline. You may count on it."
Aizen accepts the hand and shakes it, just once, smiling. When he pulls away, Byakuya tries not to grimace. The businessman is so slimy it's a surprise he's not dripping all over the floor. But Byakuya's poker face has never failed him in front of a client, and this time is no different. Aizen keeps smiling, unaware of his thoughts as he murmurs, "Mr. Kuchiki, it's an honor doing business with you. Until next time, then."
He's gone a moment later, striding off to catch his flight back to whatever swamp he crawled out of, and Byakuya turns his attention back to his new team with only the thought of "good riddance" as acknowledgment.
The team needs all of his attention, anyway.
Hitter first, as always. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, lots of blue hair, lots of muscles, lots of attitude. He looks dumb and a bit thick, like the team's muscle is supposed to, but if he's the best then there has to be more to him than just that. Byakuya hasn't met him, but he's seen the aftermath. Grimmjow is intelligent, good at strategy, even better at retrieval. That's his specialty. Time in war zones, temporary contracts with a dozen heavy-hitting private firms, half again as many with individuals looking to reclaim stolen property—or get a little revenge. But he's a hitter, and straightforward enough. Byakuya can handle him.
Then there's the hacker, Shuuhei Hisagi. Byakuya knows of him, too. It's said there isn't a system he can't crack, nothing he can't get into or find if he has half a notion to do so. He's a genius, certifiably, and has a problem with authority. He's also, if one is to go by the rumors, about ten leagues of crazy on a very short track. At one point, Byakuya thinks, someone must have forgotten the volatile nature of that combination and given him a computer, and now…
Byakuya sighs and rubs a hand over his eyes. It's also said that if something has an operating system, he can hack it. Nothing is safe, and while that's comforting in an ally, Hisagi isn't an ally. Not completely. He's not an enemy, either, but Byakuya isn't going to blindly trust the hacker—or the hitter, or the grifter—at his back.
Not when his thief isn't there to watch it for him.
At least the grifter is somewhat sane. Byakuya has crossed paths with Nelliel before, and she's good. Great. Incredible, even. He's never seen anyone read a person like Nel can, or manipulate others as smoothly as she's able to. Most grifters are simple, straightforward conmen. Nel takes the most basic con and elevates it to an art form. A change in accent, a switch of clothing, a different hairstyle, and she becomes an entirely different person.
Byakuya looks over their files one more time, then pulls the (illegally gotten) schematics of the building up on his tablet and studies them closely. He doesn't even know the extent of the security on the building, and he's already got ideas for the first seven plans, maybe eight if Hisagi can be persuaded to participate in the more physical aspects of the game.
Sitting in the middle of a busy airport, surrounded by papers, doing a job he swore he had abandoned, Byakuya feels the faintest stirrings of life in his chest after all these years.
He's coming alive again, and this job is starting to look just a little bit easier.
"There." Shuuhei narrows his eyes at the screen of his computer, fingers flying over the keyboard. "I've rerouted the security cameras and fed the monitors a seven-minute loop. That leaves the roof and top three floors clear until exactly three-thirty, when the shift changes."
"Good." Byakuya slips the earpiece into place and waits out the brief burst of static. "Nel, you must get into the curator's office and find the papers. Grimmjow, the restoration room will be moving the piece upstairs in twelve minutes. Take care of the guard who is supposed to be on security and make sure it doesn't reach its destination. Understood?"
There is a murmur of consent from both parties. On the screen—the live feed from the security cameras—Byakuya watches as Nel, dressed as the visiting curator she's been impersonating, strides towards the head curator's office as though she owns the entire building. On another screen, Grimmjow tugs his security cap lower on his blue hair and stalks into the building, carrying a duffle bag.
As soon as the doors swing shit behind him, Byakuya nods at the hacker seated beside him. "We need the information from the curator's hard drive. Can you access it remotely?"
"Hah! Who do you think you're talking to?" Shuuhei shifts the licorice stick he's chewing on to the other side of his mouth and types faster, though Byakuya would have thought that impossible. "Wipe it and spike it?"
Byakuya smiles, just faintly. He'd forgotten just how much fun it is to take something that doesn't belong to him. "Yes," he agrees. "Let's leave them a little something to remember us by."
With a sharp grin, Shuuhei nods, and Byakuya turns back to the window. "You all understand the plan?" he asks. He's on hand, just in case, but he shouldn't need to step in. That kind of interference doesn't come until Plan H, and he's hoping that they don't make it that far down the alphabet. Not when Ich—the thief isn't here to rein him in and back his up.
"Yeah, Mom," Grimmjow grunts over the comm in his ear. "And I washed behind my fucking ears and everything, too."
It takes far too much restraint for Byakuya not to roll his eyes. "Remember," he orders instead, "this is a team project. No solo acts. Follow my lead and we'll retrieve the item." They're professionals, and he shouldn't have to remind them, but they're all used to working alone. Team playing is something new to all of them, and they've all got unique personalities.
Byakuya hates people with unique personalities. One never appreciates a hive mind more than when one is working with a group of arguably insane thieves who each have their own specialties and their own ideas of how the job should be run.
But he's used to it already—the old team was even worse, though he thinks this one is catching up rather quickly—so he blocks out whatever fantasies he might have of beating Shuuhei's head into the table, or Grimmjow's, or even Nel's, and focuses.
There's no way this job can go wrong.
The job, predictably, goes horribly, terribly wrong.
Byakuya can't help but think that if he hadn't spent the last five years out of the game, he would have seen the double-cross coming. That if he had paid just a little more attention, been a little sharper, they would have escaped the rendezvous with only the clothes on their backs and the cops on their heels. But he has, he didn't, he wasn't, and they did, and there's nothing he can do about it now. Aizen has the money, the papers, and the artifact, and they're holed up in a tiny, smelly bolthole that Byakuya had all but forgotten about until they were getting shot at. It's not a great one, having only one way out—the heavy steel blast door that is now securely bolted shut. There are still construction materials in here from his last visit seven years ago, and the whole place smells like mildew and old metal.
It's quite possibly the worst ending to a con he's ever experienced.
And that includes the Bangladesh fiasco seven years ago, which had boosted him and his Ich—his crew from anonymity straight to a place as one of the top hundred most wanted on Interpol's list. That time, at least, they'd had a plan.
Right now? Byakuya is grasping for calm, let alone a plan.
"What do we know?" he asks finally, when they're all huddled around the sawhorse-and-plywood table they liberated from the construction material.
Shuuhei gives him a look that is one hair shy of disbelieving. "Really? You're asking that now? When—ouch!"
Nel withdraws her elbow from his ribs and smiles sweetly. "Not much," she admits. "Aizen just hired us to steal back the item and papers that had been stolen from him—in and out, simple. Just a grab and drop. Half a million for each of us on delivery."
Byakuya frowns, connections forming and falling apart in his mind as he tries to tie it all together. There's one thing that doesn't fit. "The papers," he murmurs. "When have you ever seen a stolen item being documented?"
"They weren't those kinds of documents, though," Grimmjow puts in, speaking gingerly. There's a lovely dark bruise blooming where one of Aizen's men clocked him in the jaw, he's holding one arm around his ribs in a way the indicates they're probably broken, and Byakuya wishes absently for ice. Not that he's trying to mother his team, or anything.
But…they're just that.
His team.
He hasn't had one in a long time, but it's still the closest feeling to true family he'll probably ever come.
Byakuya pushes down the thought and glances at Grimmjow, lifting one brow in silent query. Grimmjow answers quickly. "I got a glimpse in the car. It was a bill of sale for something completely different. Some King's Key. And it had Aizen's name on it to begin with."
They're all looking at the blue-haired man. Staring. Slowly, Nel arches one finely plucked eyebrow. "You got all of that off the papers?" she asks carefully. "The papers we were supposed to put in a sealed envelope and not look at? The papers you saw for maybe all of seven seconds while I was dealing with them?"
Grimmjow's grin is lazy, like a cat that's not only eaten the canary, but found a way to frame the dog and then washed it down with a quart of cream. He raps his knuckles against his skull. "What can I say? I've just got a good memory."
"No, a good memory is remembering where you put your car keys," Shuuhei puts in incredulously. "That's bordering on eidetic memory, there. Why the hell are you a hitter if you can do that?"
Grimmjow raises his eyebrows at the group in return. "What? You thought I was just a pretty face?"
Byakuya snorts softly at that—but then, he's used to teams surprising him. With his old one, it was always something new, something that added an extra dimension to the play. By now, it's standard.
"The papers were the target, then, and not the artifact," he says, turning their attention back to the matter at hand—namely, getting out of this without Aizen coming gunning for them, and hopefully getting a bit of revenge at the same time. His gut is telling him this is the right track. "If I recall the exhibit placard correctly, the King's Key was donated by Gin Ichimaru several years ago—and our trace on Aizen turned up an old connection between them, from when they were in business together. It's a hidden record, as Aizen was a silent partner, and it's more than likely no one else would discover it. I would guess that Aizen passed on the Key, and then Gin had it insured, donated, and left in one of the museum vaults." Insured it for quite a large amount, if Byakuya recalls correctly—the King's Key is an ancient piece, and worth a pretty penny.
But there's something more important at hand than money. He shakes himself and taps lean fingers against the tabletop. "We know that last week, Aizen visited the museum, and while he was inspecting the vault with Curator Tousen, another secret old friend, there was a momentary security blackout. The museum claimed faulty wiring, and because Aizen was with the curator the entire time, they never looked twice at him."
He doesn't have to spell out what that means, not for this group. Old cronies, insurance fraud, and convenient blackouts can only lead to one thing.
"That damned bastard," Grimmjow growled, eyes narrowing with fury. "He's setting us up. When they find out about the break in we did yesterday, they'll immediately assume that we're the ones who took the Key."
"Fuck," Nel says succinctly, trading glances with Shuuhei. "I'm guessing the bill of sale was from Aizen to Ichimaru?"
When Grimmjow nods, Shuuhei grimaces. "And with those papers gone, there's no way of tracing the Key back to Aizen. Gin funnels the insurance money back to him through some sort of business venture, and he'll be above suspicion and filthy rich. It's brilliant."
They all turn and look at Byakuya, waiting for his plan.
Closing his eyes, Byakuya can't help but wonder just how many gods he offended, because divine intervention is the only way everything could be going so awfully, appallingly wrong.
"You're going straight." Ichigo's voice was flat and empty, emotionless. "You."
Byakuya shifted, half-turning away from him to stare out over the harbor. "Yes," he affirmed. "I am tired of this. I want to be able to visit my sister without bringing Interpol down on them, or walk the street without a dozen IDs in my pocket on the off chance an officer or security guard will recognize me." He looked at Ichigo, and knew what he had to say to cut all ties—even if it struck him to the core.
"There is nothing to keep me here," he said, and his voice was just as flat and bland as Ichigo's.
It took a moment for Ichigo to make the connection, but he said nothing, simply clenched his fists and took one step away.
"Nothing?" he repeated, and finally, emotion was leaking through into his words, sharpening them, underscoring them. He had a sharp, hot temper, once it was roused. "Nothing? Byakuya, you know I can't just stop this. This is my life. I'm a thief, and that's not going to change. I can't just—just give it up and walk away with you!"
Byakuya turned away, and gave voice to the most damning words to ever cross his lips.
"I know."
Byakuya comes awake to the sound of hissing and sizzling, to see his team grouped around him with grim faces. The heavy door is trembling.
"Aizen's men," Nel says unnecessarily, wrapping her arms around her raised knees. Her sea-green hair falls in waves around her, making her look far younger and more vulnerable than she really is. "They started about fifteen minutes ago."
It takes a moment, but Byakuya's brain is already helpfully processing just how much equipment they'd have been able to fit in the narrow alley, and how long the door will last against said equipment. It's not heartening. He glances over at Grimmjow, who's sitting in a slight slump against the wall to his right. The hitter sees the look and grimaces.
"Not gonna be a lot of help," he warns, one hand touching lightly to his side. "I can probably take four or five, but there's no saying how many they have out there."
Byakuya's never been one to give a situation up as hopeless without exhausting Plan Z and then some, but this…
This isn't looking like something they're going to be walking away from with their skins intact.
And then, without warning, there's a sharp click from somewhere in the vicinity of the ceiling, and Byakuya jerks to his feet. There's a moment of silence, and then one of the silver ceiling panels drops down like a trapdoor, and a slim form dressed all in black slithers out with snakelike grace and lands easily in the center of their makeshift table. The stranger is wearing no mask, and there's no mistaking his face or his bright hair, even though it's been five years, one month, and seventeen days since Byakuya last set eyes on him.
"Ichigo," he breathes.
The world's most accomplished thief—his thief, at one time—looks up at him and smiles, just slightly.
"Byakuya," he says, and there's a warmth in his eyes that Byakuya had thought lost long ago. But there's no way it can be that easy. He wants to protest, but Ichigo is already moving, offering a hand up to Nel and then to Shuuhei. He casts another glance at Byakuya, and says quietly, "Urahara sent me. He and Yoruichi caught the double cross, and I got the artifacts back while you were distracting him for me. The Key's back in the vault, and the police got an anonymous tip about what Aizen was doing."
Grimmjow snorts and levers himself upright. "Thanks," he huffs, "but the bastard's still gonna get what's coming to him." He grudgingly allows Ichigo to help him up onto the table, but pulls himself into the opening in the ceiling under his own power. Nel is after him, and then Shuuhei.
"Go," Ichigo tells them, casting another glance at the door. "Follow the tunnel until you reach a ladder, and then wait for us there."
"Aye-aye, Captain," Shuuhei salutes cheerfully, good mood obviously restored by the thought of a rescue, and they crawl out of sight.
"A new addition?" Byakuya asks, once they're alone.
Ichigo grins at him, the same fierce, free expression he would always get after a job gone right. "Well, some of us hate to use the door. I figured it was convenient." Then the smile fades slightly, and his eyes flicker away. "So you're back in the game now?"
Byakuya remembers days planning jobs or simply enjoying one another's company, nights spent in each other's arms or lifting valuables from those rich enough to afford it. He also remembers the horrible, creeping stagnation of the past five years, one month, and seventeen days. He had wanted a normal life, away from the heady rush of danger and attraction that had sent him tumbling into love with this strong, beautiful man. Byakuya had built his life on the premise of control. It was everything, but Ichigo managed to strip all of his hard-won control with a simple smile.
That had scared Byakuya, more than he would ever admit. And now…
"Hey." A calloused finger on his lips jerks him out of that train of thought, and he blinks at Ichigo, who is suddenly close enough to kiss. He smiles again, just slightly, and his brown eyes are nearly chocolate-honey golden in the half-light. "Stop thinking so hard. It's not complicated unless you make it that way."
"But I left," Byakuya says slowly, trying to puzzle out this reaction, which is exactly the opposite of what he would have expected. But then, Ichigo has always been infinitely forgiving when it comes to those close to his heart. "You—"
Ichigo simply shakes his head and shrugs. "I understand why, though. I might not have at first, but five years is a long time to think. I'd rather hold on to you than any sort of pride."
The simple bravery of that statement takes Byakuya's breath away, and a moment later he's cupping Ichigo's face in both hands, devouring his mouth with every ounce of suppressed passion that resulted from over five years of separation. Ichigo still tastes like adrenaline and danger, like the caramels he loves and the coffee he all but takes intravenously. And that, right there, is all Byakuya need to know that no matter how much things have changed, everything is still the same where it matters.
When they finally part for breath, Ichigo grins at him. "Good?"
Byakuya doesn't deign that with a response. Instead, he casts a speculative glance up at the tunnel. "The old team?"
"Scattered." Ichigo leaps up, snags the edge of the trapdoor, and slides smoothly over the edge, then leans down to offer a hand to the planner. "But I'm liking the look of your new one. Think we can convince them to stay on for a bit?"
Byakuya looks up into his open, handsome face, and feels a slight smile touch his own lips. Somehow, even standing here, in the middle of a rank bolthole in the worst part of the city, the future's possibilities seem endless.
"We'll think of something, I'm sure," he says, and takes Ichigo's hand.