Whew! This past week has been really busy for me, which is why this is getting posted up nearly three days late. Sorries!
Thank you all for the wonderful reviews, and for the love and support you've shown this bit of insanity. You're the reason I convince myself to not end this sometimes.
The next chapter should be up soon-ish, as this week is supposed to be a bit slower, so keep a look out for it!
Anyway, onto the story! Enjoy, and lemme know what you think!
Something was terribly wrong.
Aomine was walking out of his bedroom, mid-way through tugging the plain black shirt over his head when the thought hit him. Glancing at the clock on the wall as he stepped past his kitchenette, he felt a nagging worry nibble at the back of his mind. He had promised Midorima that he would be at the station by twelve-ten, but because he had decided to swing over his place to change into fresh clothes, it was already five minutes past the appointed time. And if there was one thing that Midorima hated more than Aomine, it was Aomine being late.
He stopped in his tracks, standing completely still in the middle of the small expanse he called his living room, and listened hard. Silence.
Frowning, he retraced his steps back to his bedroom, and cast a keen eye over every available surface, trying to find the small cellular device that should be playing that raucous melody that was his ringtone. Nothing. Speedily, he pattered through his small apartment, trying hard to remember if he had tossed the phone somewhere when he had walked in. He thought hard, attempting to recall if he had perchance left it in his car in his hurry to come up and get changed.
No, he knew for a fact that he hadn't left his phone behind in the vehicle, because there hadn't been a phone to leave behind. That would mean that the phone was at the last place he had been. Cursing, he grabbed his coat, keys, and slipped his feet into the shoes that he had bought on his date with Kuroko, not bothering to tie the shoelaces and slammed the door shut behind himself as he dashed as fast as his awkwardly shoed feet would allow him to the elevator.
Midorima was going to kill him.
xx
Ding Dong!
Pale blue eyes blinked, and looked up at the sound of the doorbell. Aomine had only been gone for a little less than half an hour, and he was already getting a lot of visitors. Pressing the button to turn down the volume on the TV, he pushed himself off the sofa and padded to the door. He opened it, and stared confusedly at the tall, tan man that stood in front of him, looking sheepish. Reflexively, Kuroko turned a quick glance behind himself before he opened the door fully for the taller man.
"That was quick." Aomine detected the underlying question, and smiled, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
"I think I left my phone here this morning."
"Oh," It might have been his imagination, but Aomine thought he caught a hint of relief on Kuroko's face. "Wait here a second, I'll go get it."
Just as the bluenette turned away from the door, there was a click somewhere deeper in the apartment, and both heard an irked voice over the sound of the TV.
"Tetsuya, this abomination has been ringing incessantly for the past fifteen minutes. Would you kindly just answer it?"
Into the hallway padded a man, not much taller than Kuroko, and very obviously just out of a shower, as was evident by the towel tossed over his head that reminded Aomine of the Sith Lord from Star Wars. He looks pissed off, was the first thing that ran through Aomine's mind, the second being, Oh shit, that's my phone in his hand. He extended his hand, mouth open to let the guy know that the phone was his, when the other man tossed his head backwards, relocating the towel higher up on his head.
Aomine's voice died and his words got lost in a tangle somewhere in his throat. All he was capable of was staring dumbfoundedly at the gold and red eyes that flashed at them.
"A-Akashi… Seijurou?" He stammered, voice disbelieving. There was a fleeting look of surprise on the redhead's face that was immediately replaced by disdain.
"And who are you, to know my name?"
"I-" he began, still too shocked to process the interrogative look that he was being directed.
"He is the owner of that phone," Aomine started at the sound of Kuroko's voice. He'd almost forgotten that he was there. "And he needs it now, because he has to be somewhere urgently."
"Hm," The redhead began toying with the device that had gone silent in his grasp, tossing it casually into the air and catching it. He cast a critical eye over Aomine, no doubt trying to decipher what the tan man was to the apartment's official resident. After the third toss, he paused. "Aomine Daiki, I presume?"
Hearing his name on the other man's lips snapped him out of his trance, and Aomine's eyes narrowed suspiciously. They had never met in their life. Aomine knew of Akashi Seijurou on account of his profession. There was not a man or woman working in the police force in Japan who did not know his name.
"Akashi-kun," There was a hint of warning in Kuroko's voice. Aomine's gaze locked onto Kuroko. How well did he know one of the most notorious men in the world to be able to speak like that to him? "The phone, please."
"Well, well, you must be Tetsuya's new flame, Aomine-kun." With a sneer, he enunciated the detective's name snidely. "As I would not wish to upset my dear host, I shall let you leave unbothered."
Mockingly, he bowed slightly, and moved his arm so fast that Aomine only realized that he was clutching his mobile phone when he registered his hand hovering in front of his face, having caught the device reflexively. The devil's sneer widened, and he looked borderline maniacal. Aomine wasn't sure if it was a good idea to leave Kuroko alone with him. As though reading his mind, sky blue eyes caught his gaze, and he smiled apologetically.
"You should get going," he said softly. "I'll be waiting for your call."
Feeling reassured, because he really didn't know what to make of the situation, Aomine nodded curtly and left.
In his car, he sat with his hands on the steering wheel, staring at nothing. He jumped when his ringtone started up, and answered the phone with a terse, "What?"
"You're nearly an hour late." Midorima's irritated voice over the phone calmed his nerves slightly. He needed something normal right now. "At this rate we'll waste the whole day away. I'll send you the address and meet you there."
Not waiting for a reply – not that Aomine had one ready – he hung up, and seconds later, his phone buzzed, the address of the latest crime scene in his inbox.
Grateful for the diversion, Aomine put his car into gear and drove off.
xx
"Did you really have to do that?" Akashi didn't look up from the novel that he was reading while propped up against the headboard of Kuroko's bed.
"I merely greeted him," he replied indifferently. He flipped the page but halted at the sound of clinking chinaware. Glancing at Kuroko who sat at the foot of the bed, he noted the tray loaded with a steaming mug and a bowl of porridge.
"A simple 'hi' generally does the job," Kuroko retorted primly. "You did that on purpose."
"And what if I did?" His eyes shone with annoyance even as his voice was unaffected. "You know you cannot trust this man."
Kuroko watched Akashi silently for a while, then finally stood up. He pulled the book out of Akashi's compliant hands and settled the tray onto his lap. He ran a hand gently through Akashi's hair, smiling inwardly as the other leaned almost imperceptibly into the touch.
"Make sure you rest up," he whispered, as he planted a light kiss on Akashi's temple and left the room to return to his TV show.
Alone, Akashi twiddled with the spoon in the porridge for a while, lost in thought. With a sigh that relaxed his tense shoulders and whispering a thank you for the meal, he began eating.
xx
"I know you said it was bad news," Aomine began. They stood in the middle of the living room of the penthouse belonging to a famous model. "But this is really bad news."
Midorima merely replied with a grunt. The green-eyed man had smacked him hard on the head the moment he walked into the apartment, reprimanding him for his tardiness and essentially being a mom. That comment had earned him another smack.
Midorima led the way past the torn curtains, upturned sofas, and bits of electrical hardware from what was once the TV and stereo system into one of the adjourning rooms. The second both entered, they reeled back, blanching.
"How long have they been here?" Aomine wheezed, taking several steps back and covering his nose with his hand.
"Long enough," came the grim reply, muffled by the handkerchief that Midorima had pulled out. "The owner just came back today, which is why this only just got reported."
"He was being awfully quiet for a while." Aomine accepted a face mask held out to him by one of the CSIs with a nod of thanks and put it on. "Just them?"
Midorima nodded. Both partners stood at the doorway, looking around the room. Through their four years together, they had gotten used to gruesome murders and bloody scenes, but while neither would admit to it, the sight they beheld made their stomachs queasy.
Two female bodies lay stretched out alongside each other on the king-sized bed, arms and feet secured to the ends of the bed, stab wounds littering every available surface of their naked bodies.
Aomine turned around, the stench and the sight making him feel a headache come on.
"What about the model?" He asked, referring to the owner of the penthouse who had been overseas for the past two weeks. From her statement, they had gathered that the two murder victims were friends of hers who had been house-sitting.
"Shaken, as expected. She'll obviously not be of any use to us." Midorima, too, turned away from the scene, choosing to walk around the living room and look for anything that might be of relevance.
"She can't tell if anything's missing yet, since the place is in such a mess. Once we're done cleaning up, though, besides telling us if something is gone – " he shrugged to end the sentence.
The pair of detectives stood in the middle of the chaos that was the living room, both wondering what kind of fight two young women must have put up for the place to be so absolutely trashed. Aomine turned a questioning look to his companion.
"This doesn't look like something that would happen just from a struggle," Midorima observed, taking the words right out of his mouth.
With a nod, Aomine said, "It seems like he did that to them then stuck around to mess up the place."
"He's getting cocky," The bespectacled man said with a grimace. "This isn't good."
xx
Aomine sat in his car, staring off into space. It was a habit that he seemed to have developed ever since he started this whirlwind of a relationship with Kuroko. It was dark outside, and somewhat chilly. Autumn was close, he thought distractedly as his roving gaze locked onto the bright, gaudy light from a nearby streetlight. It had been, what? Two months since he met Kuroko? In those few weeks, he'd found himself falling steadily deeper into the sinkhole that was a combination of emotions, unexpected discoveries, and even more shady secrets. Every revelation led to a boat-load of questions, and every question left him dreading the answers.
Turning around, he pulled a plain brown folder from the top of a pile in the backseat of his car towards himself, eyes focused unseeingly on the front of it as he propped it against his steering wheel and continued to drown in the silence of his thoughts. Slowly, hesitantly, because he wasn't sure if he wanted to read what was inside, he opened the folder, immediately zooming in on the picture of a smirking face, looking the other direction when the picture was taken. He saw the shock of red hair, and the corner of the gold eye, but he knew that the other eye would be a bright, scorching red.
It didn't feel right. It felt like an invasion of privacy, even though the file only detailed Akashi Seijurou. But it seemed like the incursion somehow leaked over into the shadowy crooks of Kuroko, and he was stealing glances into that world without an inkling of what he was doing there.
Making his decision, because he was a cop, and stood for integrity and all that jazz, he tossed the file over his shoulder onto the pile behind his seat, and with a few taps pulled up a number on his phone.
xx
Ding Dong!
This time when the bell rang, Kuroko knew who it was. And he was prepared. He unlocked it, ushering the tall man in wordlessly. He wasn't really surprised when the other threw a nervously hesitant glance around his apartment before stepping in. He couldn't fault him. One meeting with Akashi would put anyone on high alert.
"He's gone home," he offers to explain the silence. Turning, he leads the way into his kitchen and sits down, gesturing for his companion to take the seat opposite him. When he does so, he pushes a mug of coffee across the table. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"
"I'm sure you know," Aomine replies with a wry quirk of his lips. "How is it a kindergarten teacher knows a man like Akashi Seijurou?"
Kuroko gives him a thoughtful look, as though gauging out how much he could be trusted with. "Akashi-kun is my brother."
"Your brother?" He squeaks as midnight eyes widened and Aomine was only able to process the thought that he was glad that he hadn't taken a sip of the drink.
Nodding, Kuroko says, "Step-brother. My mother married his father when we were very young."
"Step-brother." Aomine repeated numbly. It was horrifyingly hilarious. Midorima and Satsuki would enjoy this, the sardonic part of his brain said. He had been prepared to view Akashi as a nemesis for Kuroko's attention, because that was easier than thinking of them as just friends. But, brothers.
"Brothers," he echoed out loud, burying his face in his hands. "Your brother is the country's most feared and respected crime lord."
Kuroko looked at him apprehensively when his shoulders started shaking from mirth. He threw his head back, the laughter coming off of him in rolling waves as he clutched his aching side. When he calmed down enough to pry his eyes open, Kuroko's concerned face swam in his vision. The urge to laugh left him suddenly, and he abruptly stopped as something dawned on him.
"He looked me up," he said, part question and part revelation. "He hates me, doesn't he?"
"He does," Kuroko's expression was a mixture of relief that Aomine had gone back to normal and ruefulness. "But if it makes you feel any better, he hates all cops."
With a satirical chuckle, Aomine wiped away a wayward tear. "I do suppose that makes me feel better."
"So," The dark-haired detective wasn't sure what to make of the pale man's hesitation. Please let there be no more revelations for the day, he prayed. There was only so much he could handle. "Would you like to stay tonight?"
Aomine pursed his lips, not expecting the question. Would he like to? Most certainly. If he could, he would want to spend all of his waking hours with the man sitting across the table, looking adorably earnest. But there was a whole new twist to their story, and he wasn't sure what to make of it yet. Complications would undoubtedly come up, especially if the most dangerous man in Japan was tossed into the mix.
"I'd better not," he returns with an apologetic smile. "This right now, along with everything else, I just –"
Kuroko's lips curved with an understanding smile as he retracted the finger he had placed over Aomine's lips to stop him. Bent over the table, he ran the back of his fingers lightly down the side of Aomine's face, looking so contrite that he almost changed his mind right then. He may have fallen in deep, but even after this revelation he wasn't sure he wanted a way out.
Placing a hand over Kuroko's, he pressed a tender kiss into his palm, and looked deep into the beautifully fragmented skies that were Kuroko's eyes.
"I'll call you," he says, a bit of assurance, and a lot of promise. It would take more than this to keep him away from Kuroko. "Don't write me off just yet."
With a smile, Kuroko whispers, voice saturated in respite, "Thank you."
*cue dramatic music* Akashi makes another appearance! I think my AkaKuro infatuation is starting to leak into this story. Which is not good, because... incest is generally not accepted by society. Generally.
Also, because one good turn deserves another, do check out LycheeLove's fic, Invisible! It's a fun, GoMxKuroko, Modeling!AU fic, and if you're as fickle as I am at deciding OTPs (and/or you just want to imagine hot, shirtless men), it's perfect for you. Warning, though, you'll be incredibly frustrated by the lack of a clear pairing. Murdering above mentioned author is strongly advised against.
Once again, loves!