I have this urge to bump this thing up to M, especially in the next chapter. I don't know yet if my resistance will be futile. Let me know what you think! Maybe something someone says could possess me into writing smut. =P
Yay, subplot! I couldn't stand the cheesiness, even though it was my own creation, so I figured that I'd kill some unimportant OCs to level it out.
Oh, and Akashi. Oooooh man, Akashi.
... That's really all I can say. He renders me speechless, he does. And I've recently been falling in love with AkaKuro. There's just something about them. Together. ghsdfisdfk.
Anyway, this is my longest chapter by far, but it doesn't have as many scenes as the others, so I hope you don't mind the wordiness!
Enjoy, and thank you all for all the looooove~
A week later, Aomine and Midorima were parked outside an apartment complex, sometime close to midnight. It had been a while since they had gone on a stakeout together. As neither could stand the other's company for very long, their Chief had allocated rookie cops to them for training and to split them up. For once, however, both men were silent, and not in the mood for picking a fight. They stared at a brightly lit balcony on the tenth floor.
"That him?" Aomine asked, eyes fixated on the figure that had appeared. His silhouette showed a slim man of average height. Midorima made a sound of agreement.
"He shouldn't be alone…." Just as the words left his lips, another figure, this one female, walked out onto the balcony. The man turned to speak to her, and both leaned casually against the railing, presumably talking.
"What's she doing here?" The navy haired man reached behind his seat and fumbled for a pair of binoculars. He tried focusing on the couple, but with their backs turned to the light, their faces were shrouded in darkness. They didn't need visual confirmation, though. Both knew who the two on the balcony were.
"If I knew I wouldn't be here," Midorima snapped. Aomine turned to him with a frown. His partner had been on edge ever since they parked their car. "Don't you think you're taking this too far?"
Midorima shot him a measured look. "He could be planning something that would compromise you and Kuroko."
Aomine's eyes narrowed. "He wouldn't."
"He's been getting more persistent asking about info about your man," Midorima shrugged. Aomine knew that he was enjoying this. "You remember your twenty-first birthday?"
Aomine froze. It had been horrible. The gaudy decorations, loud, thumping trash commonly described as music, and half the people, he had never seen in his life. His place had been completely trashed that night. And the party hat. He felt a shiver run down his spine. His soul was scarred.
He returned to his surveillance job with renewed vigour. "This can't be good."
Grabbing the binoculars from him, Midorima watched them in silence for a while. Slowly lowering the device, Aomine could tell in the crappy streetlight that his partner was extremely pale.
"He's making a list." The horror in his voice made Aomine want to pat his back comfortingly. There were few things scarier than having the two people up on the tenth floor work together on a project. The sound of a phone ringing made both of them jump. Cursing slightly, Midorima fumbled for the device, letting more expletives slip when he saw the caller I.D.
Aomine didn't need to be a detective to figure out who it was. Hitting the button to answer and turning on the speaker, Midorima held the phone out between them. "Hello?"
"Shin-chan!" the chirpy voice of his boyfriend over the speakers made both of them cringe.
"Ah, Takao. What is it?" Aomine had to hand it to him, the frog was good at feigning disinterest. He'd gotten very good at it ever since he started dating the man.
"Are you still out with Aomine-kun?" Midorima cocked an eyebrow at him. Takao still sounded carefree, but the two men in the car have known him long enough to not fall for that guise.
"Yes. We're walking into the club right now."
"Eh~ That's strange, cause I think I'm looking at Aomine-kun's car right now."
Aomine's head whipped around and watched in mounting dismay as first Takao then Satsuki waved from the balcony on the tenth floor. He drew a line with his finger across his throat, signaling for Midorima to kill the call, or that they were dead, he wasn't sure himself.
"Yeah, we were picked up by a friend." Thank goodness his voice was still steady.
"Oh? I thought it was just the two of you. Who was it who picked you up?" Aomine stared at Midorima. Four years stuck in dire situations together gave him insight into what his partner was going to say. Without thinking, he lunged for the phone, which Midorima pulled away in the nick of time.
In the silent scuffle that ensued, they heard Takao's voice over the line, sounding slightly worried. When the phone dropped into Midorima's lap face up, quick as lightning, Aomine reached out and slammed his finger into the button, ending the call.
Breathing heavily, both men stared at each other.
"What the hell?!" Midorima burst out. "He's going to slit my throat!"
"You were going to tell him Kuroko picked us up!" Aomine accused. The flash of guilt on Midorima's face confirmed his suspicion.
"Don't feed me bullshit about your boyfriend compromising my guy when you were about to do it, too!"
"If I hadn't, we'd have been found out," Midorima snapped, green eyes flashing. "Do you realize how deep we'd be?"
"If you had told him that Kuroko was with us it would have been worse." Aomine retorted.
Making a disgusted noise, Midorima pocketed his phone. "It doesn't matter now, at any rate. At least all the banging about would make my excuse sound more acceptable."
"What excuse?" Aomine was suspicious now. He had a right to be.
"That I was walking through the dance floor and someone knocked my phone out of my hand."
Relaxing slightly, Aomine asked, sounding less hostile. "What about that friend?"
Midorima looked at Aomine thoughtfully, as he contemplated a plausible excuse.
"We'll just use the name of one of the rookies," he decided. "They rotate often, so Takao hardly ever meets them."
With that, they resumed their surveillance until the two figures had disappeared into the apartment. Waiting for a few minutes more but seeing no sign of them returning to the balcony, Aomine started the car and drove back to the station.
xx
There came a point in everyone's life, Aomine decided, when they wondered if their chosen profession was really the right option for them. Ever since he joined the police force as a detective, Aomine had seen his fair share of gruesome murders, and sometimes found himself thinking that everyone on the whole damn planet was either corrupted or a psychopath out to get you. He wondered sometimes, about the goodness in humans.
The latest serial killer they had been tracking was especially hard to find. He was careful not to leave traces, and all his victims, albeit related in physical description and choice of hobby, had never crossed paths in their lives.
He had all their hairdresser, spa and shopping purchases to prove it.
Groaning, he let his head fall against the back of his chair. Even his partner was looking haggard, and at Aomine's groan had removed his glasses and was massaging his eyes.
"Nothing on my side," Aomine said, eyes directed towards the ceiling. "Any luck?"
"None. There are hundreds of black Audis in this city alone, and none of the witnesses can give us a number plate. Not even a partial." Midorima replied, sounding frustrated.
"What about the guy?" Aomine asked, referring to the boyfriend of the intended fourth victim who had survived.
"He's still in ICU. The doctors aren't sure when he'll wake up."
"And the girl?"
"Was too agitated to remember much. She gave us whatever she remembered, but besides the fact that he was tall and definitely Japanese, we've got nothing else to work with."
Aomine craned his neck to the side to glance at the clock on the wall. Seven p.m. He'd be damned if he was spending Friday night looking through records he was already sure were useless.
"That's it, I'm out of here." He pushed away from his desk and stood up, stretching. There were only two other people in the office with them. And those guys were on their shift.
"You're going home, too," he said, giving Midorima a look that dared him to argue. It didn't happen. Both of them packed up and left the building. Midorima left first, with a nod. In his car, Aomine twiddled with his phone for a while, considering his options.
His bed at home was a tempting vision, but Aomine had been running on a caffeine high for so long that he knew that returning home would just mean that he would end up watching something dumb on TV. It'd been a while since he'd last hung out with girls, or at the pub where he had met Kuroko. As the bluenette crossed his mind, he made his decision. He would see if Kuroko was free, and if he wasn't, he would head over to the bar and find someone to help him relax.
The dial tone seemed to go on forever, and he'd almost concluded that Kuroko had already gone to sleep, when there was a click.
"Aomine-kun!" It startled him for a moment until he realized that Kuroko must have saved his number after the last call.
"Hey," he greeted. "Sorry I haven't called in a while. Work's been busy."
"So I heard." Aomine blinked. He wasn't supposed to tell anyone about the investigation. As though sensing his surprise, Kuroko continued, "On the news, I mean. I saw you in the background of one of the shots."
"Oh. So, um, I was wondering if you were free right now?" He sounded awkward. 'Um'? Really? What happened to suave, Daiki?
There was a pause on the other side of the line, and Aomine registered the sound of voices and faint music in the background. Was he at a party?
"That depends." Kuroko said after a long silence.
"On what?" If he was going to say no to sex, that was totally fine, Aomine decided. He could do that. If it was Kuroko.
"On whether you expect me to leave the bar." Aomine grinned. That was like killing two birds with one stone. They were meant for each other, they had to be.
"I'll be right there." He said, and hung up.
xx
Swinging by his place, he took a quick shower and then went over, feeling refreshed after what felt like a week in the office. When he walked into the bar, he immediately spotted Kuroko perched on a stool in the same corner that he had seen him in the first night. As he made his way over, he was greeted by several girls whom he had hung around with, and had had to stop a few times as he got pulled into a conversation. By the time he reached the blue-haired man, Aomine felt like he'd swam uphill against a river current. He sat on the vacant stool next to Kuroko, eyeing the half empty glass in his hands.
"Isn't it a bit early to be drinking?"
As though in defiance, Kuroko lifted the glass and took a big gulp of the liquid before he answered. "Last I checked, I wasn't dating my mother."
Something fluttered in his chest at the word 'dating'. They were dating. He didn't pause to consider just how strange it was that he was happy over the thought of dating someone. "Just looking out for your well-being."
The pale man snorted, tossing him a look. "That's a pretty good disguise, mom."
"Okay, okay, I'll shut up." Aomine backed off. The smaller man seemed to be more snarkish than usual.
"Oh hey, look what the cat dragged in." Dark eyes looked up into the bartender's smirking face. "Found a new toy, have you?"
Aomine blinked. The words had been directed at Kuroko, who in reply, only took another sip of his drink.
"What can I get you?" This time Kagami's words were intended for Aomine.
"The usual." With a nod, Kagami turned away. Aomine shifted his attention to Kuroko.
"Do you come here often?" Kuroko shrugged.
"Kagami-kun's a friend, so I come over to keep him company sometimes. I'm here mostly on Monday nights, though."
That explained why he had never seen Kuroko before. The station was busiest during the first half of the week as most crimes committed during weekends were reported only once office hours started again.
"Aomine-kun!" The said man turned to find a group of girls floating close by, tossing narrowed glances between the pair of them. "It's been so long since you last came, it's mean of you to just come and sit in the corner here."
He threw a desperate glance at Kuroko. The man didn't seem the least bit bothered. Catching his eye, Kuroko waved dismissively.
"Go, go," he shooed. "I'm fascinated by your Don Juan moves. Great study material."
Aomine shot Kuroko a betrayed look, fishing for an excuse when one girl piped up. "You should come join us, too. Aomine-kun's friend is our friend!"
Only if they're that attractive, the dark-haired man thought wryly. Kuroko was dressed in simple garb, skin tight jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt. It was hardly fair that he looked so much better than all the heavily made up girls in the bar. The smile that Kuroko directed at the girls widened the gap a bit more.
"I'm sure you beautiful ladies would like his attention all to yourselves for as long as you can have it," he said pleasantly. "I'll be taking him home later, so you should make use of this opportunity."
The silence that followed that was partly induced by the realization that Kuroko was the reason that Aomine had been absent for so long, and partly by the dazzling smile that seemed to soften the blow of his words. Aomine looked slightly confused as he was carted off by the girls. He was taking him home?
"Is it really okay to let your date be taken away like that?" Kagami appeared with Aomine's drink a bit belatedly. He pushed it over to a waitress that was walking past and signaled for her to send it to Aomine.
Kuroko hummed into his drink. "If he feels guilty, I can get him to do anything I want. Plus, it's nice having the hottest man in here giving off blatant vibes that he'd rather be with me in my corner."
Kagami shook his head at his friend. "You're twisted."
"Aww," Kuroko crooned, "Is Kagami-kun jealous? Don't worry, you're a close second. Did I ever tell you that your hair looks gorgeous in this light?"
"Hitting on me so he'd get jealous?" The redhead raised an eyebrow. He was well used to Kuroko's flirting, and he was only this outrageous when he had imbibed a substantial amount of alcohol.
"I figured that if it didn't work out with him, I'd at least have someone to keep my bed warm. It always helps to have contingency plans." Kuroko said, something close to a smirk playing about his lips.
"Is it alright for him to see you this drunk?" Kagami eyed the glass that was practically empty. He'd refuse him if he asked for another. Kuroko knew that, which was why he drank at Kagami's bar often. It was useful to have a friend who remained sober the whole night. That, and the discount on drinks he got was a huge plus point.
Kuroko laughed, the sound different from his usually soft chuckle. It sounded much too carefree.
"I imagine not. But hey, no great mistake was ever made by a sober man." He raised his glass in mock salute and downed the remains of his drink. "Besides, I'm not that drunk yet. When I get up on the tables, you can toss me in a cold bath."
"You're interesting when you're drunk." Kagami plucked the empty glass out of Kuroko's unresisting hand and replaced it with a full glass of water. "If you get up on the tables, I'll record it and put it on Youtube for you to see when you're sober."
And that, Kuroko thought with a small smile as Kagami walked off, was why they had remained friends for so long.
"Hey," Kuroko didn't look up at the foreign voice. Flatly, he said, "I'm not interested."
"Aw, c'mon. Loosen up a bit."
Kuroko laughed, the sound distinctively derisive. "That's funny, 'cause someone just told me to that I'm too loose."
"Yeah? Then let's have some fun."
It wasn't like he had kept his eye on Kuroko the whole time he was away. He just happened to find the wall behind him extremely fascinating. He saw the way the blue-eyed man laughed with Kagami, and the way they conversed, it was obvious the two were close.
Aomine had perked up when the other man approached Kuroko. If he had been glancing around the bar like he usually did, Aomine would have noted the stranger who had, up until that moment, been seated at the other end of the long bar, watching Kuroko as he had been.
Deciding that he had spent enough time entertaining the mindless chatter and endless stream of questions, Aomine made his excuses and pushed through the crowd towards Kuroko. It was starting to feel like déjà vu. As he got closer to them, he was able to catch their conversation.
"I said I'm not interested." Aomine was impressed when Kuroko gave the man a once over that would have embarrassed even him. "I'll never be interested."
"Why, you –" Still blocked by a few bodies, Aomine could only watch in awe as Kuroko easily caught the hand that was aimed at his face. His eyes were cold, and even though the glare wasn't intended for him, Aomine felt a chill run down his spine. He almost felt sorry for the idiot that was now standing there frozen.
"Getting so worked up over a refusal is extremely unattractive. So is jumping to conclusions. And that annoying persistence of yours will not endear yourself to anyone. As you haven't got any looks to help you along in life, I suggest you work on your personality, because there may be some kind soul out there who would fall for an ugly man with a good heart. If you still insist on this fight, let me first tell you that I have a black belt, and I am not liable for anything that happens to you after this. Oh, and that guy behind you is a cop. A bar brawl isn't something worth getting tossed in a cell for the night for, don't you think?"
There was complete silence in the immediate vicinity around them. The man stared at Kuroko dazedly for a while then yanked his hand away and stormed off. After he walked out, the tense atmosphere dissipated, and the usual chatter started up again. Aomine stood beside Kuroko, trying to process what had just happened. That was more than he'd ever heard from Kuroko in one conversation.
"I feel rather useless right now," he said with an embarrassed laugh. "You handled that fine without me."
"He was an illiterate drunk," Kuroko replied with a shrug. "Talk long and fast enough, they get confused and walk off."
"Really? It wasn't because of your black belt?" Aomine was only half teasing. Kuroko had been surprising him from the get-go. "Was that true?"
"Certainly. In fact, I'm wearing it right now," the bluenette lifted the hem of his shirt. "Gucci. Not exactly to my taste, but it was a gift from a friend."
Aomine burst out in laughter. He never disappointed.
"What about that way you grabbed his hand?" It would have taken most people by surprise. Kuroko took a gulp of his drink, making a face.
"I work in a kindergarten. You tend to find flying projectiles headed towards you."
Aomine had seated himself on the stool, and was watching Kuroko, chin on his fist.
"You're talking an awful lot more than usual," he observed. Not that he was complaining.
"That's because I'm drunk."
Dark eyes looked at him, skeptical. "I thought you didn't get drunk."
"I just let you believe that. That time was just one drink."
"And this is…?"
Kuroko frowned at his glass, his pout adorable.
"This is water, but I think Kagami-kun stopped me after my fifth…?" He trailed off, looking like he was thinking hard. "I don't know, you don't trust a drunk's maths. From experience, I can say it is pretty inaccurate."
"You're fascinating," Extremely fascinating. Aomine could almost literally feel himself falling harder for the man.
"Thank you, I know." The tan man chuckled. He was definitely going to try getting Kuroko drunk again sometime soon.
"Are you planning on a sixth?"
Blue eyes searched his for the longest time. Aomine stared right back. His eyes were sharp and clear. He didn't look the least bit drunk.
"Not unless you're taking me home right now."
