Title: Man Proposes, God Disposes 1/2
Pairing: Komui/Bak
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: This part is just humor, semi-romance and Komui being a manipulative ass. Angst and drama in the next part. Spoilers for Chapters 159-164, you know, the one with the zombies and the Komuvitan-D virus.
Note: I wanted to write about the aftermath of the Komuvitan-D incident, because the abrupt ending in the manga really stumped me...this bit is really fluffy/sort-of-funny but the next bit gets darker.

Later on, Bak, who'd come to help with the move, created a new vaccine for the Komuvitan-D after many hardships. - pg 15, Chapter 164

Why do I even bother? Bak thought, sitting heavily on the couch to open one of the standard first aid kits he had found in the medicine cupboard. 'Wong, make sure everyone who has been administered a standard dose helps find any remaining stragglers once they're feeling up to it. The last thing we need is another delay.'

'Of course Bak-sama!' The old man bowed once, deeply, and with a discretely exasperated glance back, left the Science Department with a group of scientists, a few finders and one or two doctors in tow. Bak didn't blame him. This wasn't so much a delay as it was a disaster, one of draconian proportions. He had only needed to see the eerie, short-circuiting corpse of a weird looking robot in the hall for everything to fall into place and it had taken an ungodly amount of willpower not to usher his team back into the Ark and return to China, where he could be a continent away from the mess he would, by proxy, have to sort out. Again.

It hadn't been easy. In fact it had been quite horrifying and he was sure the experience would haunt him the rest of his natural born life. Bak sighed and fished around for swabs of cotton wool and a bottle of antiseptic. 'Honestly,' he grumbled, twisting the cap open. The paperwork for this was going to be enormous. 'I leave for two seconds and everything goes to hell. I swear you go out of your way to make my life difficult. Sit up.'

Komui made a pathetic sound and raised himself up from the floor. He pressed his cheek against Bak's knee and groaned, no doubt looking for a sympathy party. He was pale, ashen and dishevelled and looked like he hadn't slept in a month. 'I told you,' he whined, rubbing his forehead against the fabric like it would dull the ache. 'It wasn't my fault!'

A chorus of jeers, 'yeah right's and the occasional 'stupid Head Officer' spread throughout the Science Department like instant wildfire. Dark looks were shot in their direction.

Bak rolled his eyes. 'No, of course not, it was...what did you say again? Oh yes, a ghost girl gave a virus to one of the exorcists, who then in turn spread it throughout the Order and turned everyone else into zombies.' He paused to raise an eyebrow. 'Did you really expect me to believe that nonsense?'

Komui pouted. His glasses were twisted, broken frames dangling over his nose, hair sticking in odd curls, his beret nowhere to be found. 'But it's true – ow!' Bak grabbed his chin in a surprisingly firm hand and pressed the swab against the cut on his right cheek. He held it there for a few seconds and then started dabbing the blood away.

Naturally it stung like a bitch.

'Owowowow!' The other man whimpered as the antiseptic was bathed over all the grazes and bruises from his neck up. 'Bak-chan, you have no bedside manner to speak of – OW!' Bak pressed the swab down hard against a bite mark.

'Do you know how much work this damage report is going to cost me?' he said in a dangerously low voice. 'You destroyed over half of the Black Order HQ for no apparent reason, and don't even bother trying to deny it,' he warned the moment Komui opened his mouth to protest. 'The Vatican is going to throw a fit and somehow I'm going to end up covering your ass, again,' he emphasized the words heavily, 'because I believe that young man over there isn't exactly singing your praises right now.'

He gestured at Link with his eyes. The Inspector was scribbling away hastily in a large book (brand new) in the corner of the room, no doubt making up for the one that Komurin EX had destroyed by writing in greater detail, and probably suggesting Komui's punishment be increased tenfold while he was at it.

'And if you don't hold still and let me do my job,' Bak went on, pulling Komui's ruined Head Officer overcoat down over his shoulders and rolling the sleeves of his white cotton turtleneck back over his arms, 'I'm going to come to my senses and tell that devil woman on you.'

The Matron of the Order was a nightmare. Bak considered writing in a complaint because whoever that ghastly woman was, she was no Florence Nightingale. He hoped he was never injured at HQ ever again. If he said he was fine, he was fine dammit! Morphine had been completely unnecessary.

Komui's eyes went wide behind his ruined spectacles. They ended up slipping off his face and clattering to the floor. The look he gave Bak was one that spoke of deep wounds and intense betrayal.

Then he twisted his upper body around and extended his hands dramatically. 'Section Chief Reever, save me!' he wailed.

'No way Curly!'

'Reever, how could you?! After all we've been through!' he exclaimed, aghast.

Bak sighed again, grabbed Komui's collar in his fist and returned to his task.

Halfway across the rubble strewn department Li Kei sighed in contentment. 'I love it when Director Bak starts berating someone else for a change.'

'I'm surprised Head Officer Komui didn't try to head him off,' Shifu replied somewhat absently, crouched down near a set of packing boxes. He peered at his checklist. 'Nothing short of a good kick by Miss Fou will stop the Director now and she's not here. He was working himself up into a state and now he'll be going on for hours.'

'Let them be,' Reever said, appearing with a stack of books under his arm. He dumped them unceremoniously into one of the boxes and straightened to stretch the kink in his back. 'It's been a while since the Chief got such a tongue-lashing from Director Bak. It'll be good for him.' He sighed wistfully. 'Man, it's a real shame that Bak is leading the Asia Branch now, he used to watch Komui like a hawk while he was here and we never ended up dealing with this...' he gestured openly at the ruined room. '...well, you know.'

'Mr. Bak can control Komui...?' Allen whistled lowly. 'Well count me impressed.' Reever laughed a little at that.

'Well I wouldn't say he can control him, exactly...' he said, trailing off to watch the pair in question.

'What happened to TLC?' Komui whimpered, and though Reever couldn't see it he knew the Chief was doing his impersonation of a kicked puppy.

'If they didn't teach it in the labs I never learnt it,' Bak replied impatiently and dipped another swab in the antiseptic. 'Stop acting up. I'm not going to kill you.'

Yet, Reever thought ominously, shivering at the sight of the tight smile that cut across the Branch Director's face.

Evidently Komui had seen the threat too. 'Lenalee!' he shrieked to the girl as she passed by to pick up some loose papers, flinging his arms out to her like an actor in a Greek tragedy. 'Lenalee, my sweet Lenalee, tell this monster to stop picking on me! He's absolutely heartless!'

Lenalee hesitated. 'Brother...' She smiled a little. 'Please don't give Mr. Bak any more trouble than you already have okay?'

Komui looked horror-stricken. Bak smiled benevolently at her. 'You are a dear, Miss Lenalee,' he said in his sweetest voice and Allen was surprised to find that he was not stuttering or making an idiot out of himself. He really was worked up. 'Could you pass me the rubbing alcohol please? Thank you.'

'What...? What is that? Oh god what are you...?!' They heard Komui exclaim with increasing dread as Lenalee exchanged a few more niceties with Bak and strolled over to their side of the room. A strangled scream of agony echoed in her wake.

'I wouldn't say either of them can control the other,' Reever began again. 'Because the Chief has done some pretty embarrassing things to Director Bak in the past...' He eyed the telltale bottle of familiar hair tonic lying inconspicuously on its side and quickly tossed it in with all the other junk. 'But Bak Chan is fully capable of dishing it out too, and when he does he really shows no mercy.'

'I wonder where he learnt that from...' Allen muttered, instantly reminded of a guardian spirit with the artificial body of a little girl and the very real temper of an angry bull.

'Oh Miss Fou teases our Director a lot, for sure,' Shifu said with a shrug. 'But she claims that she taught him everything worth knowing in life.'

'Like how to beat someone up if they piss you off without really trying?' Lavi piped up, appearing suddenly at Allen's shoulder. He bent over and began rummaging through the boxes with interest.

'Like how to make a grown man cry like a little girl?' Li Kei added, looking back nervously towards the couch when Komui started making odd noises, like he was going to die if Bak came near him with the rubbing alcohol again.

'Komui already cries like a little girl,' Kanda said flatly, somewhere to the left. Lavi ducked his head to snicker away the wicked grin on his face. Li Kei didn't even try and laughed outright.

Reever resisted the urge. 'Yeah well...' he coughed into his fist to hide his grin.

'Tough love is the only way to get him to behave,' Lenalee said, shaking her head, two parts exasperation and three parts affection. She templed her fingers together in front of her face and smiled slyly behind them. 'That's why Brother's always saying that Mr. Bak is the reason why he'll never get married.'

There was a brief pause in which Allen tried to pick apart this gibberish that had just been spoken to him.

'Don't let Two-Spot hear you say that Lenalee,' Lavi sounded amused. 'He's already trying to land your brother in court.'

'Well they might as well be,' she told him, clasping her hands behind her back and shrugging easily. 'It's been ten years you know.'

Wait...

'Don't listen to your brother's stories Lenalee,' Reever said. 'He's a romantic at heart. That's just how long they've known each other and Director Bak would surely tell you otherwise.'

'Seven years then.'

'On and off like crazy though.'

She scrunched up her nose a little. 'What does it matter? They certainly act like an old married couple.'

'One that's constantly on the edge of divorce maybe,' Kanda muttered. He pointedly looked away when she whirled to glare at him.

'They remind me of old man Lim and the dragon lady,' Lavi piped up. 'You know, the couple running that laundry service in downtown London. The ones who are always flinging all sort of insults at each other in Cantonese...?'

'Dragon lady?'

'That's his wife, Lavi,' Lenalee said patiently.

...What?

'No kidding,' Li Kei thought this over. He was grinning. 'That would explain why Director Bak's constantly on the phone to HQ though.'

Reever rolled his eyes. 'Not his fault, believe me. I can tell you right now that the Chief wastes a lot of time and money on making international calls to China at least twice a day just to bug the hell out of the Branch Director. And he always slips the latest news somewhere into the conversation so Bak has no choice but to listen to him.'

Shifu seemed impressed. 'Amazing. To be able to con the Director like that...Head Officer Komui must really be something.' Lenalee and Reever shared a look between them.

'Oh he's something all right,' Reever said with a tired shake of his head. Lenalee hid a giggle behind her hand.

Lavi smirked. 'And here I thought he was just calling because he wanted to engage Director Bak in phone se –'

'Keep your fantasies to yourself,' Kanda said darkly.

'Hmph,' Lavi made a sweeping motion with his hand as if to brush that statement aside, 'Well if you ask me Komui's acting like one of those henpecked husbands whose wives always work away from home. He gets into a shitload of trouble while Bak's away but now that he's back he's all but ready to roll over and wag his tail and beg for treats.'

'Are you telling me that the Director has Head Officer Komui whipped?'

'No, he just has grudge-bearing abilities the size of China.'

'The Chan family is renowned for its poisons,' Reever whispered, leaning in conspiratorially. 'I hear Director Bak is especially good at them. It's thanks to him that the Chief is so snobby about coffee.'

All eyebrows in the group shot up. 'Are you serious?'

Reever shrugged. 'Apparently it's because Director Bak developed a penchant for spiking his tea whenever the Chief pissed him off.'

'Are you sure that's why?' Lavi said seriously. 'For all we know he was trying to drug Komui so he could get the jump on him when they f –'

This time Kanda didn't waste words and just hit him upside the head.

'Wait, wait, wait,' Allen shook his hands, willing his ears to catch up with his brain before the conversation went beyond his realm of understanding. 'Are you telling me that Komui and Mr. Bak are...' he pointed between them in disbelief.

'Oh Allen,' Lavi drawled and swung a companionable arm around his shoulder, 'still such a child. Don't worry; you'll understand when you get older and have a pretty little wife of your own, one that'll make you feel like a man's man...'

'You're not exactly one to talk, Lavi...'

Komui's practiced whine drifted over from the other side of them room, 'You're doing that on purpose!' Bak took his wrist and began to clean off stray bits of gravel, rubbing the antiseptic in harder than necessary.

'You're catching on,' he said, smiling unpleasantly. Komui shot a pleading look over his shoulder. Everyone quickly pretended to go about their business. It was quite clear that no one was going to forgive him for this particular incident any time soon.

Allen frowned. 'You call that marriage?'

Lavi sighed dramatically and 'tsk'ed. 'That is domestic bliss, Allen,' he said with a perfectly straight face.

'Looks more like domestic torture if you ask me,' Allen replied, turning back when Komui looked about ready to moan and drown himself in self-pity again. Bak raised an eyebrow. Komui smiled meekly and didn't resist when his other arm was lifted for inspection.

Allen stared at them, a little disturbed by Komui's sudden submissive side. 'I almost feel sorry for him,' he admitted, rubbing his own arms in sympathy.

'Don't be,' Reever said quickly. A few surrounding scientists hastily nodded their agreement.

'"Almost" being the operative word,' Lavi joked, lifting something out of the junk pile and hefting what looked like a broken telescope between his hands.

Bak was silent and scowling. Komui shifted uncomfortably. 'Are you mad at me...?' he finally asked. He kept his voice low.

Please say no. It's been ages since you were angry enough to attempt slipping poison into my food and I'm so out of practice I don't think I can remember how to tell the difference.

Bak frowned at the man sitting cross-legged in front of his knees. His grey eyes were like ice. 'Mad?' he scoffed, and ran his finger over the wet rim of the bottle. 'Why on earth would I be mad? What can I do if you decide to waste your time with useless experiments that somehow, inevitably, come back to bite you in the ass? I just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time, that's all. Don't move.' He bent over at the waist and daubed antiseptic over the tear in Komui's lower lip with his fingertip. It itched. Komui squirmed.

'I mean it's not my fault,' Bak went on. 'I don't know why I'm even thinking about pleading your case to that Inspector over there. Ugh, I can only imagine what Leverrier will say.' He self-consciously rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. 'I'll be having a few words with Reever after this. He's obviously letting you idle too long. Honestly, someone in your position shouldn't even have the time to scratch an itch, let alone make all this useless junk.'

He turned his nose up at the unidentifiable mound of failed experiments on the other side of the room and made a face.

Komui sighed dejectedly. 'You are mad.' He cringed when Bak picked up the rubbing alcohol again. The Branch Director rolled his eyes and put the bottle back in the first aid kit.

'Oh stop that,' he said brusquely and put the antiseptic away as well, 'I'm done with you anyway.' He started fiddling with bandages. Komui visibly unwound, his shoulders slumping. He leaned back on his hands and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Bak didn't miss it. 'Don't be dramatic,' he said. 'You're lucky you're just banged up and not in need of real stitches or any kind of crap like that.'

Komui laughed. 'Just because you're useless with a needle and thread, Bak-chan...' he teased, flinching when Bak slapped a bandaid over the prominent cut on the side of his face.

'I have a few things to say to you too,' he threatened, unrolling the gauze and dressing the cuts along Komui's wrist with a quick, almost detached efficiency. He huffed, blowing blonde bangs out of his eyes. 'Like this talent for troublemaking. I don't know why I still think you'll grow out of it.'

'I like to believe we were all born on this earth for some reason or another,' Komui replied philosophically with an impish grin. Bak scoffed.

'Idiot. Why, why, why do you insist on being difficult?'

Komui wiggled his fingers, flexing them around the bandage. He feigned a thoughtful expression. 'I don't know Bak-chan,' he lilted in a sing-song hum. 'Why are you being so nice to me today?'

'Why are you trying to feed me a cock-and-bull story about a ghost?' Bak shot back.

Komui made a show of pouting. 'You can't answer my question with a question,' he accused. 'That topic is totally irrelevant to this flow of conversation.'

'You damn well owe me, Komui Lee.'

A surprisingly soft smile appeared on the Head Officer's face. 'Just like old times, huh?' he said reminiscently.

'You'll forgive me if I don't join you on your trip down memory lane,' Bak replied monotonously, 'but I have no desire to repeat illicit affairs in a storage room if it's all the same.'

'Killjoy,' Komui sighed, pretending to look supremely injured. 'Well I suppose if you really want to know the who and what of it...' He cast a deliberate glance around the premises, smiled slyly and leaned in, propping his arms up on Bak's knees. '...I had fantasies about you, my office and that couch,' he purred, abruptly switching to Mandarin.

He wondered if it would be prudent to admit that he had made a game out of seeing how fast he could make Bak's entire face turn red. Bonus points if he could do it without having the poor man break out in hives. And as Bak lunged forward, leaning down on the couch to grab his collar, Komui grinned inwardly and silently tallied his score.

'You lousy, perverted son of a –' he snarled in the same tongue. 'After all the shit you put me through...!'

Komui tilted his head, smiled coyly and managed to shake off his Head Officer's coat. 'Too easy,' he said, framed either side of Bak's face in his bandaged hands and kissed him full on the mouth.

There was a pause. He pulled back a little. 'What the hell are you thinking –' Bak hissed. His eyes were wide and furious, grey thunderclouds.

'Disciple creation experiments...' Komui murmured against his lips. His face was serious. He kissed Bak again. 'Strausser...forced accommodators...' He lipped the corner of his reddening mouth, 'Fallen one...how much do you remember?' and slipped his tongue past his teeth.

The hands on his collar slackened and pushed against his shoulders instead. Their noses slid against each other. Komui let up. 'What...? The year was 1891...mid-summer, absolutely miserable weather...did you really think I would forget?' Bak demanded and started to catch his breath. He stared at the man in front of him, hard and inscrutable, for a long, long minute.

Then he heaved a sigh, as if the whole weight of the world had been dumped on his shoulders. 'Couldn't you have just asked me?' he growled. His Mandarin was short and clipped with familiar use and the sudden nostalgia made Komui grin, all good humour returning on the spot.

'Not as much fun,' he admitted, not sounding the least bit repentant. Bak glared at him. Komui smiled back. 'See if I did that,' he whispered, moving his hands down and snaking his arms around Bak's neck, 'then I wouldn't be able to do this.' He tugged.

Bak jerked forward with a muffled yelp of surprise, his lips crashing against Komui's as he tumbled off the couch, his hands immediately lifting up to brace his fall. Komui let the momentum tilt him backwards. They landed on the floor in a tangled heap.

He pushed the dumbstruck Branch Director back by his shoulders at arm's length and grinned widely. 'Ooh, Bak-chan you're so forceful!' he said delightedly, very loud, and in very clear, enunciated English. Bak's jaw dropped. Komui took the opportunity of his stunned mullet impersonation to tilt his head up, steal a deep kiss and flip them over.

Then he casually started unbuttoning his changshan.

There was a staggered silence. On the other side of the room, a box hit the floor. 'Head Officer!' Reever exclaimed in the exact same tone of exasperation he adopted whenever he caught Komui slacking off.

'Hm...?' He glanced up.

'There is a time –' Reever said tightly, gritting his teeth, 'And a place...for everything. Don't-you-agree...?' Komui blinked. He looked at Bak, who seemed like he was going to knee him in the groin at any given moment. Then he looked around the room. The other occupants all stared back at him with expressions of horrified fascination. Then he grinned.

'You're absolutely right, Section Chief Reever,' he said, braced himself and got to his feet. He pulled Bak after him. The Branch Director glared out at the masses, his face bright red. His hat was knocked askew and he was trying unsuccessfully to pull his ruined changshan over his bare shoulder. Komui patted him on the back and straightened his collar in a very business-like fashion.

'Well then Reever!' he said brusquely and bent over to pick up his discarded coat. 'I'm not going to be back for awhile so please tell everyone I'll be held up for the next few hours or so, okay?' He smiled winningly and dropped his coat over Bak's shoulders. It dragged against the floor. 'Don't worry Bak-chan,' he said gallantly. 'I will shield your nakedness.'

'You – ' Bak spluttered something incoherent and, judging from the glint in his eyes, possibly murderous. Komui placed his hand against the small of his back and steered the other man towards his office. He didn't have to look to know the smug bastard was grinning.

'We need to talk,' he murmured, soft and dark against Bak's ear. He shivered. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

'Head Officer!'

'Section Chief, control yourself!'

'Office sex...! Now why didn't I think of that –?'

WHACK!

'Nobody wants to know, you idiot!'

'Goddammit Curly, have you no shame!?'

'He's not worth it! Come on Chief, don't throw that, it's a priceless antique!'

'This is payback for the rubbing alcohol, isn't it?' Bak muttered, stalking indignantly into the unlocked room when Komui held the door open, bowing like an aged butler welcoming the young master home to the family mansion.

Komui grinned. 'More or less,' he replied, smirked at Bak's outraged expression and closed the door behind them.

The click of the lock was deafening in the immediate silence.