Author's Note: Umm... this is... this is a fanfic about two male characters in a semi-romantic situation. It's not something I'm very used to writing at all, but I truly love this pairing, and so I have written it anyway. I don't have anything against yaoi pairs but it's been about six years since the last time I wrote one with anything more than fluffiness to it, so... please bear with me. Do let me know what you think of it, okay?

Warnings: Shirtless seme Kaku and barefoot uke Lucci anyone? Otherwise, nothing to worry about. Kind of suggestive, but not dirty at all--I don't have the nerve for that yet!

Recovery

Everyone has to let their guard down sometimes--no matter who they are. Some revel in times like those, completely unfocused and oblivious to surroundings; others, however, find such a state of mind to be intimidating at best. And yet there are those so caught up in everything else that they simply do not want to find the time to relax even for one moment. Rob Lucci was one of those.

He sighed inaudibly as he stood in the doorway. The appearance of the world outside seemed not to have changed very much, but his outlook had certainly been damaged, among other things; he still winced inwardly with every other step, still woke up in a cold sweat from nightmares involving his own demise. Of course he would never let his guard down enough to show this to anyone else. He was just one of those people.

With a frown he glowered at the little pond a short distance from the doorway in which he stood. There were a few chairs scattered here and there surrounding it, and birds fluttered to its edge, piquing his interest momentarily. The sunlight, so warm on the pallid skin that had been so long indoors, glinted from the surface of the pond, and he retreated a few steps back inside, wishing to avoid it.

He recalled the creation of that little pond; he had, when he was about seventeen years old, been one of those recruited to help dig it out. "Just what this place needs... more water," he had grumbled, but did his job anyway, pausing only to scowl at the preteen who watched him from beneath his oversized baseball cap at every break from his training.

Now the same boy, grown and much more powerful than he had appeared as a child, was running laps around the building, periodically pausing at the lake to practice a smooth transition to his lanky animal form and kneel, arching the graceful neck for a long drink from the cool water, completely oblivious to the man just inside who watched him with mild intrigue.

He had been timing Kaku's sprints around the building--he was certain Kaku was still dealing with his own injuries, because it took him much longer to run than it used to--and he figured that he had about ten minutes of privacy at the edge of the pond before he'd have to explain what he was doing outside. So he waited until Kaku galloped away, shifting back to human form as he ran, and then exited the building, stepping into the sunlight for the first time since he had been defeated by pirates some weeks prior.

He really had no memory of the time after that battle; he recalled waking up with his mind reeling and telling a nurse that he felt as though a building had fallen on him. (He remembered that she didn't laugh at this.) Then the nurse had rattled of his list of injuries, starting with the broken leg and ending with the bruised lungs, and he had sighed and told her to leave him alone. He still resented whoever had taken him to that nurse, for allowing anyone to see him so weakened.

He had shared the room with Jyabura and endured his incessant rudeness easily enough, but was mortified when one night he awoke to find his arms being pinned to the bed and Jyabura's face swimming in and out of focus above him. He wanted to growl low in his throat or at least lash out with a kick, but his mind was so foggy that he could not even understand what the wolf was saying for some time, although it did seem somewhat urgent. When finally he heard the nurse approach, shouting something, he figured he must have been saved from whatever Jyabura was trying to do to him. He could hear whimpering--he hoped with all his cold, black heart it wasn't coming from him--but as he felt the nurse's hands replace Jyabura's he drifted into nothingness and did not awaken again for many days.

And then, when he had finally been able to open his eyes again, he had done so at the most inopportune moment and had gotten a rather blatant glimpse of Kalifa's breasts as she leaned over him to say something to the nurse, who sat on his other side. The nurse was a split-second quicker than Kalifa, who had raised her fist, but was stopped by the nurse, who then asked him plenty of annoying questions before leaving him with Kalifa frowning at him and Jyabura, sitting in the other bed, staring at him.

"You scared the crap out of me!" Jyabura exclaimed. "Started shaking like crazy, shouting all kinds of crap! Woke me up in the middle of the night! Don't ever do that again!"

Kalifa intervened before Lucci could retort, saying simply, "You had a seizure. Unfortuately, it was quite lucky that Jyabura was here, although I wish I did not have to admit that."

Shortly after, they had all relocated to the very out-of-the-way building on the outskirts of Water 7, which was owned by the World Government but for some bizarre reason had never been used. So it had been designated as housing for the recovering CP9 agents--Blueno had commented idly that even the government didn't know what to do with them now.

Lucci had taken the longest to recover, not because he was the most injured or--heaven forbid--the weakest, but because he had no desire to return to the world outside. Where Kaku could hardly wait for his broken ribs and stab wounds to heal and even Kumadori started complaining about how he needed to see the outdoors again, Lucci sat alone, content to stare out the window and brood by himself. It was Kalifa who first approached him about it, not even bothering to knock before leaning on the door frame and crossing her arms, telling him that he might ought to know that things were happening out there, and he was missing it all.

"I hardly care," had been the short reply.

"Of course you don't," she had retorted. "But you might like to know that you missed the memorial."

He turned to her with a scowl. "Memorial for what?" he asked, obviously not interested at all.

"Who, not what. Nero and Fukurou. You didn't even know they were dead, did you?"

He blinked twice, then replied, simply, "No."

"Did you know about Hattori?"

She could hardly hide her smirk of triumph when his eyes finally, involuntarily, shot up to meet hers. "What about Hattori?"

Waiting until the smirk was gone (she tried to be tactful, after all), she said calmly, "He's gone too. They found him right next to you--faithful, wasn't he?"

She regretted having said anything at all when he leapt to his feet and rushed at her, shoving her against the wall and snarling for her to get out before he really lost his temper. She took the advice and left, and wondered for days if he had ever shed a tear for the lost pet.

And now, after many weeks of silent recovery, he was finally sitting at the edge of the small pond, taking off his hat to let the wind blow through his hair. Peering at the water, he was startled to see his own face, colorless except for the slitted yellow eyes, frowning back at him. He had not bothered to don shoes or socks for the outing, and was glad of it when he had been ouside for a couple of minutes; the air was warm and slightly humid, and he rolled up the sleeves of the dark button-up he wore before laying down to stare up at the clouds above.

The warm sun and the floating clouds were enough to make him very sleepy, so he stretched luxuriously in the grass, and it was at that precise moment Rob Lucci, for the first time in many years, let his guard down. In fact he made himself quite comfortble, sprawled catlike in the sun, and dozed off, telling himself that he would nap for a solid five minutes and be back inside before Kaku could be back around to the pond.

Twenty minutes later, however, he jolted awake and glanced around furiously, his gaze landing on Kaku, sitting there cross-legged and grinning at him as if he knew the best secret on the playground.

"Have a nice nap?"

"Shut up, or I'll find out exactly how a giraffe sandwich tastes."

Kaku laughed good-naturedly and untied his shoes, putting his feet in the water. "Nice and cool," he said, ignoring Lucci's comment completely. "You should put your feet in, too."

"I don't care for water," was the irritable reply. He opened his mouth to tell Kaku to go inside if he was that overheated, but his voice caught in his throat as Kaku unzipped his jacket and pulled it off fluidly. The stab wounds that dotted his chest were still an angry red, some with a greenish twinge, but they didn't seem to bother him as he laid back onto the ground. Lucci raised an eyebrow at him, then laid back himself, not wanting to relax but finding it very hard to fight off his drowsiness a second time.

Kaku's voice was soft as he murmured, "Nice day, huh?"

Lucci nodded. His eyes darted to follow a bird that flew past, and he felt a swoop of something--was it sadness?

"Glad to see you've rejoined the rest of us again," Kaku's voice was saying. "We almost missed you."

With a snort, Lucci replied, "I doubt that."

Kaku turned his head to face Lucci. "Well, I was worried about you," he said slowly. "I... hm. I was. I think the others were too," he added.

"Why?"

The sincerity with which Lucci uttered that one word took Kaku by surprise. He had to think before he could answer. "Because... you're one of us, you know? We're a team."

Lucci sighed. "We're a team of assassins, Kaku. It's hardly a friendly job."

"So? Doesn't mean we didn't all cry a little for Fukurou and Nero." He sat up and looked at Lucci. "Didn't you?"

Something about the younger man's eyes made Lucci want to lie, right there, and say that of course he had cried. But his silence seemed to tell Kaku all he needed to know, and then the eyes turned away and the spell was broken, and Lucci was silently irritated once again.

A long moment passed between the two before Kaku looked at him again, and this time, there was a hint of mischievousness in his eyes. Lucci liked that look, but was still wary.

"You got hurt pretty bad, right?"

Obviously Kaku's tact was not as honed as Kalifa's, Lucci thought, as he replied, "...Yes."

"So... you think I could beat you now?"

There was nothing about the relaxing day that made Lucci want to get up and fight with Kaku, and some little voice inside of him wondered if maybe the younger man could in fact get the better of him in battle while he was still recovering, but he offered a very small smirk and said, "No."

However, it was clear that Kaku had something completely different on his mind, as before Lucci could even heave himself to his feet, Kaku had scrambled to him and pinned him to the ground by the shoulders. He grinned down his long nose at Lucci, who looked just as bewildered as Kaku had hoped.

"Gonna fight back?" Kaku asked tauntingly.

But Lucci was simply blinking repeatedly at him, still so taken aback by the man who had just straddled his waist that he could think of absolutely nothing to say or do. He might've grabbed Kaku by the collar and thrown him off, had he not been devoid of a collar--or, in fact, of any semblance of a shirt at all.

But Kaku seemed to be waiting for a reply of some type, so Lucci pulled himself together enough to press his hands firmly against Kaku's shoulders in an attempt to shove him away. Kaku sat there and laughed, and Lucci realized how weak his arms had become from lack of training. And it was then that he looked up at Kaku with, for the first time in his life, a look of fear in his eyes.

Convinced that Kaku was about to pummel him with all the vengence that only years of pent-up anger could bring, Lucci sighed, shut his eyes, and steeled himself for the attack, muttering "Tekkai" under his breath. And so, he was even more startled than he might have otherwise been when Kaku shifted his weight and bent over him, pressing rough, warm lips against his for a very brief moment.

Very brief, because Lucci was suddenly filled with a great deal of strength and took Kaku by the shoulders, planted a foot in his stomach, and half-threw, half-kicked him away, causing him to narrowly miss falling in the pond--and Kaku was quite sure that after that stunt, Lucci would not have fetched Blueno to come and save him. Still, he sat up and laughed, adjusting the cap on his head with an air of haughty victory before standing up and stretching.

Lucci watched the disgusting scene of Kaku's silent gloating with one of the worst scowls he had ever mustered. But then Kaku turned to him and gave him a look that stopped him mid-glower, and said, "Don't worry, I won't ever tell a soul." He winked before starting on another sprint around the building, leaving Lucci sitting in the grass fighting an inward battle with himself.

He finaly rested on the belief that Kaku did, in fact, understand more than he let on. But, as Lucci reminded himself, Kaku was not the strongest, no matter what might've happened. He simply paid too much attention--knew the weaknesses and all that.

He'd have to keep a closer eye on that giraffe from now on.

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