-twiddles thumbs- My head is full of moth-seraphs. -deadpan- ^______^
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Youji kicked the bathroom door open, cool air rushing in like a punishing breath of winter, raising goose bumps on his still-damp skin. He jumped back from the dark figure coming at him, dropping Aya onto his ass in the process.
"Took you long enough." It snapped, breezing past and slamming the door shut.
"There won't be much hot water left, you know." Youji told the wooden panel, not to warn Fate out of the kindness of his heart, but mostly as a form of gloating. Spiteful bitch. "I'll get you to our room and drop you off there. I'll see if Omi's up to some impromptu doctoring." He leaned down to help the befuddled redhead up, readjusting the towel they had wrapped around the blood leaking leg. "If not, you're stuck with what I can vaguely recall from any number of bad detective novels I've read involving the treating of injuries."
Aya didn't even grimace, another sign indicating how badly off he was. It didn't occur to Youji to feel guilty this time. Hey, even Youji Kudou could be a frigid bitch when the situation called for it. That was another cultivated talent.
The two wobbled down the hallway, headed towards a welcome relief for their shaky legs. Aya drooped down into a boneless pile on the bed, eyes closing to shut out unwanted vertigo.
"I'll be back." Youji told him, pulling on clean clothing, and his other pair of boots.
He wasn't. Aya lay in an exhausted daze as a fuzzy eyed Omi came to poke and prod at him, later joined by a smiling woman he felt he should know from somewhere. He was certain the names she kept referring to him as were meant to be derogatory, but he couldn't bring himself to care. His eyes closed when he could no longer keep them fixed and unblinking on the ceiling.
"Let him sleep." Omi whispered softly to Fate, backing towards the door. She smiled benevolently and patted him gently on his sore head, following suit.
"So, how long have you been following Ko-ishi?" Omi asked out in the hallway.
"Through a million lives." She smiled sagely, willing to leave it at that.
"So, how long would this lifetime be, then?" Omi tilted his head to the side.
Fate paused, hemming and hawing over the internal decision to answer. "A decade of this life. I'm not THAT old." She fluffed up the ends of her hair with a coy expression, still failing to look younger than her late thirties.
"Only a decade?"
"I traveled over the goddamned world to hunt him down." She spat, angry again. " You think it's easy to integrate yourself into any given nations crime world and then just extricate yourself the moment you feel you're wasting your time? It was hard, unpleasant work, but someone has to keep at it." A deep sigh, a pause while she waited for praise and received none. She huffed for a moment or two before relenting. "So, you and brown-head stupid-boy fuck?"
Omi sucked in a surprised breath and choked on his own spit. "What would -hack- make you think that?" He nervously combed his fingers through his bangs, awaiting an explanation.
Fate snorted. "I thought so. Why don't you find yourself someone with at least a handful of working brain cells left? I have heard few who can speak so many words and still say so little." She laughed at Ken, ignoring Omi's frowning.
"I have more than a handful of working brain cells." Ken politely informed her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. "And I still haven't gotten a single goddamned useful word out of you. Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?"
Fate smiled pityingly at Omi and smoothed down the shirt she'd borrowed without authorization from Youji's wardrobe. "Kudou dresses like a woman." She informed them, pointing to the carefully tailored lines of the button down top. "Does he fuck with you too?"
While Ken spit out his mouthful of coffee in truly inspired coughing fit, she slipped back into her shoes and left through the kitchen window, humming under her breath. "Don't wait up for me." She waved one hand at them, standing knee deep in shrubbery.
"Omi. We're all going crazy and something horrible is going to happen." Ken flopped down on an unforgiving wooden chair, hand to his head. "How much do you want to bet she didn't even exist, whoever the fuck she was? We're all having a group hallucination."
"She calls herself 'Fate', and as far as I've been able to gather from her, she's been hunting Ko-ishi down from day one. He's supposedly some sort of evil, immortal being bent on 'wreaking havoc on all he surveys'." Omi mocked her accent for the last few words, then immediately became shamefaced. "She's probably a little, well, a lot crazy, but she means well."
"Is Aya okay?" Ken decided it simply wasn't worth thinking about. She was gone now, and she obviously didn't mean too much harm, having helped bring Aya back home.
"He would be if we could make him stay in bed for a week or so. Every time he starts to get better, he pushes too hard and takes a huge leap backwards. I'm starting to wonder if he really is trying to cause himself permanent injury. I don't think his leg can take much more before the damage is irrevocable, and then all that crippled-for-life crap he keeps bitching about will become a reality."
"So, get Youji to talk some sense into him. Aya talks a good game, but he does trust Youji. There are three of us. We can all gang up on him and talk him into being a bit more sensible. We three can do all the outside work, trying to locate Ko-ishi, or the person pretending to be him, and Aya can heal up. Tell him we want him to guard the house if that's what it takes to keep him inside."
Omi shrugged apologetically, mouth stretched in an unconscious grimace. "Youji's gone. He said he had some important research to do and that we shouldn't worry. He'd be back when it was all done."
"Sounds bad."
Gnawing on his lower lip in an unconscious gesture of thought, Omi set water on the stove to heat, fluttering from cabinet to cabinet, doing nothing and a bit of everything both at the same time.
"You okay?" Ken walked over, put a calloused palm to Omi's forehead. "You don't feel hot." He frowned pensively.
"Just a bit disoriented." Omi stepped forward, resting his weight against Ken's solid, warm frame. "My head still hurts a bit, too." He admitted, swaying back onto his own feet with a tired sigh. "I'm just going to make some tea and sit back for a few minutes."
"Go sit out on the couch. I'll take care of it." He ushered a perfectly willing, if not slightly guilty, Omi out of the kitchen, straightening up all the implements Omi had aimlessly twitched out of place. He pulled up a chair to watch the water, ignoring the proverb telling him that the water wouldn't boil as long as he sat and watched it. It always did, it just seemed to take longer.
Fate crawled back through the window, scattering leaves all over the counter.
"We have a fucking front door." Ken snapped at her irritably.
"Your home is being watched. It would be a misfortune if they were to discover my involvement."
"Anyone even remotely competent would have spies posted on all sides. I'm willing to bet that they already know you're here, and in fact are probably out there sniggering about your idiotic method if entrance. Use the door next time, and go clean up those leaves." He pointed imperiously, starting to reach that first stepping-stone towards actual anger. He glanced back at the stove, little bubbles surfacing in the stainless steel pot's water. Of course. It WOULD wait until he'd looked away.
"Where is the cute blonde one?"
Ken struggled to keep a snarl out of his voice. "My cute blonde one, thank you very much. Why don't you go back out the fucking window you came in through?" He turned the heat under the burner up, deliberately brushing against Fate as he walked past to get a mug, wanting to intimidate her with his greater height and bulk, trying to mentally project the growing ire into her mind. The world would be so much easier if everyone were telepathic.
"So you do fuck." She nodded, sounding as if she'd just had a childhood suspicion confirmed: there was no Tooth Fairy; small children, no matter how hopeful, cannot fly; and oh, yeah, Ken and Omi fuck.
Ken ground his teeth together and ignored her. He didn't know what shallow gene pool Youji had dragger her out of, but he would be more than grateful if she were suddenly overwhelmed by homesickness and decided to return. The boiling water hissed as he poured it over the tea bag, he overcame fantasies of flinging the scalding pot at Fate only with great difficulty. It was astounding how greatly she got on his nerves simply by being in the room.
Sneaking a quick look at the still closed kitchen door, Ken popped open the empty medicine vile he'd been storing the ground up pain killers he'd been slipping Omi, tipped a few pinches into the translucent golden beverage.
Fate watched blankly as he pushed past her again, elbowing open the swinging door as he carefully steadied the hot ceramic cup. Omi looked up, eyes bleary and leaning more and more towards total incomprehension.
"Tired?" He set the tea down in front of Omi on the end table, leaning over to kiss the top of Omi's head. Omi smiled, helplessly blinking his eyes against pending sleep.
"No, I'm not tired. I'll stay up for a while and keep an eye out for intruders while you and Aya get some rest." Omi ruined the brave front by yawning, a huge, jaw-cracking betrayal by his body.
"Drink your tea and go lie down." Ken clenched his fists, wanting to take up as much of Omi's personal space as possible, but unable to in the sudden self-conscious rut brought in by Fate's presence and crude statements. He didn't want her knowing him, making stupid assumptions about things not of her concern.
Every single drop was gone before Omi consented to go upstairs for a lie-down, still adorably adamant about his state of awareness. "I'm not tired at all. I feel fine." He murmured, even as his eyes closed, Ken tucking the blankets up under his chin.
"How cute." Fate pretended to gush as he gently shut their bedroom door behind him.
"Shut up, bitch." He frowned, upset by his having been angered to the point of using language he abhorred, unable to react in any other manner. If this kept up he just might wind up a tried and true misogynist; guilt by association for the women of the world.
"Do you know where Youji might have gone?" He finally asked, unable to think of a better way to fill the sudden silence.
"Any number of places." She helpfully supplied. "There are at least fifteen places he could be. Would you like me to list them all?"
"With a name like Fate, I'd think you were supposed to be some sort of oracle." Scorn.
Fate decided she was through talking with an unbeliever. An impolite unbeliever at that.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Halfway across town, Youji lay unconscious at the bottom of a darkened stairwell, blood staining his hair and the roughly hewn cement beneath his cheek.
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I know I promised you smut, but I'm getting there. With one person from each couple down, intercourse appears to have become a lesser priority. I'm actually, oddly enough, going to try for a Ken/Omi lemon next, depending on how I have things progress, but don't worry, there will still be tons of Youji and Aya. I do like those two better -puts fingers to lips-, but SHHHH, don't tell any of the HUGELY avid Ken and Omi fans, they might lynch me. -laughs- Or not. More to come though. I'll do my best to keep plugging away. Give me feedback! Give me e-mails! I'd greatly appreciate it!!!! darkhunter@ijustdontcare.com or akainobaka@mchsi.com That's me!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Youji kicked the bathroom door open, cool air rushing in like a punishing breath of winter, raising goose bumps on his still-damp skin. He jumped back from the dark figure coming at him, dropping Aya onto his ass in the process.
"Took you long enough." It snapped, breezing past and slamming the door shut.
"There won't be much hot water left, you know." Youji told the wooden panel, not to warn Fate out of the kindness of his heart, but mostly as a form of gloating. Spiteful bitch. "I'll get you to our room and drop you off there. I'll see if Omi's up to some impromptu doctoring." He leaned down to help the befuddled redhead up, readjusting the towel they had wrapped around the blood leaking leg. "If not, you're stuck with what I can vaguely recall from any number of bad detective novels I've read involving the treating of injuries."
Aya didn't even grimace, another sign indicating how badly off he was. It didn't occur to Youji to feel guilty this time. Hey, even Youji Kudou could be a frigid bitch when the situation called for it. That was another cultivated talent.
The two wobbled down the hallway, headed towards a welcome relief for their shaky legs. Aya drooped down into a boneless pile on the bed, eyes closing to shut out unwanted vertigo.
"I'll be back." Youji told him, pulling on clean clothing, and his other pair of boots.
He wasn't. Aya lay in an exhausted daze as a fuzzy eyed Omi came to poke and prod at him, later joined by a smiling woman he felt he should know from somewhere. He was certain the names she kept referring to him as were meant to be derogatory, but he couldn't bring himself to care. His eyes closed when he could no longer keep them fixed and unblinking on the ceiling.
"Let him sleep." Omi whispered softly to Fate, backing towards the door. She smiled benevolently and patted him gently on his sore head, following suit.
"So, how long have you been following Ko-ishi?" Omi asked out in the hallway.
"Through a million lives." She smiled sagely, willing to leave it at that.
"So, how long would this lifetime be, then?" Omi tilted his head to the side.
Fate paused, hemming and hawing over the internal decision to answer. "A decade of this life. I'm not THAT old." She fluffed up the ends of her hair with a coy expression, still failing to look younger than her late thirties.
"Only a decade?"
"I traveled over the goddamned world to hunt him down." She spat, angry again. " You think it's easy to integrate yourself into any given nations crime world and then just extricate yourself the moment you feel you're wasting your time? It was hard, unpleasant work, but someone has to keep at it." A deep sigh, a pause while she waited for praise and received none. She huffed for a moment or two before relenting. "So, you and brown-head stupid-boy fuck?"
Omi sucked in a surprised breath and choked on his own spit. "What would -hack- make you think that?" He nervously combed his fingers through his bangs, awaiting an explanation.
Fate snorted. "I thought so. Why don't you find yourself someone with at least a handful of working brain cells left? I have heard few who can speak so many words and still say so little." She laughed at Ken, ignoring Omi's frowning.
"I have more than a handful of working brain cells." Ken politely informed her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. "And I still haven't gotten a single goddamned useful word out of you. Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?"
Fate smiled pityingly at Omi and smoothed down the shirt she'd borrowed without authorization from Youji's wardrobe. "Kudou dresses like a woman." She informed them, pointing to the carefully tailored lines of the button down top. "Does he fuck with you too?"
While Ken spit out his mouthful of coffee in truly inspired coughing fit, she slipped back into her shoes and left through the kitchen window, humming under her breath. "Don't wait up for me." She waved one hand at them, standing knee deep in shrubbery.
"Omi. We're all going crazy and something horrible is going to happen." Ken flopped down on an unforgiving wooden chair, hand to his head. "How much do you want to bet she didn't even exist, whoever the fuck she was? We're all having a group hallucination."
"She calls herself 'Fate', and as far as I've been able to gather from her, she's been hunting Ko-ishi down from day one. He's supposedly some sort of evil, immortal being bent on 'wreaking havoc on all he surveys'." Omi mocked her accent for the last few words, then immediately became shamefaced. "She's probably a little, well, a lot crazy, but she means well."
"Is Aya okay?" Ken decided it simply wasn't worth thinking about. She was gone now, and she obviously didn't mean too much harm, having helped bring Aya back home.
"He would be if we could make him stay in bed for a week or so. Every time he starts to get better, he pushes too hard and takes a huge leap backwards. I'm starting to wonder if he really is trying to cause himself permanent injury. I don't think his leg can take much more before the damage is irrevocable, and then all that crippled-for-life crap he keeps bitching about will become a reality."
"So, get Youji to talk some sense into him. Aya talks a good game, but he does trust Youji. There are three of us. We can all gang up on him and talk him into being a bit more sensible. We three can do all the outside work, trying to locate Ko-ishi, or the person pretending to be him, and Aya can heal up. Tell him we want him to guard the house if that's what it takes to keep him inside."
Omi shrugged apologetically, mouth stretched in an unconscious grimace. "Youji's gone. He said he had some important research to do and that we shouldn't worry. He'd be back when it was all done."
"Sounds bad."
Gnawing on his lower lip in an unconscious gesture of thought, Omi set water on the stove to heat, fluttering from cabinet to cabinet, doing nothing and a bit of everything both at the same time.
"You okay?" Ken walked over, put a calloused palm to Omi's forehead. "You don't feel hot." He frowned pensively.
"Just a bit disoriented." Omi stepped forward, resting his weight against Ken's solid, warm frame. "My head still hurts a bit, too." He admitted, swaying back onto his own feet with a tired sigh. "I'm just going to make some tea and sit back for a few minutes."
"Go sit out on the couch. I'll take care of it." He ushered a perfectly willing, if not slightly guilty, Omi out of the kitchen, straightening up all the implements Omi had aimlessly twitched out of place. He pulled up a chair to watch the water, ignoring the proverb telling him that the water wouldn't boil as long as he sat and watched it. It always did, it just seemed to take longer.
Fate crawled back through the window, scattering leaves all over the counter.
"We have a fucking front door." Ken snapped at her irritably.
"Your home is being watched. It would be a misfortune if they were to discover my involvement."
"Anyone even remotely competent would have spies posted on all sides. I'm willing to bet that they already know you're here, and in fact are probably out there sniggering about your idiotic method if entrance. Use the door next time, and go clean up those leaves." He pointed imperiously, starting to reach that first stepping-stone towards actual anger. He glanced back at the stove, little bubbles surfacing in the stainless steel pot's water. Of course. It WOULD wait until he'd looked away.
"Where is the cute blonde one?"
Ken struggled to keep a snarl out of his voice. "My cute blonde one, thank you very much. Why don't you go back out the fucking window you came in through?" He turned the heat under the burner up, deliberately brushing against Fate as he walked past to get a mug, wanting to intimidate her with his greater height and bulk, trying to mentally project the growing ire into her mind. The world would be so much easier if everyone were telepathic.
"So you do fuck." She nodded, sounding as if she'd just had a childhood suspicion confirmed: there was no Tooth Fairy; small children, no matter how hopeful, cannot fly; and oh, yeah, Ken and Omi fuck.
Ken ground his teeth together and ignored her. He didn't know what shallow gene pool Youji had dragger her out of, but he would be more than grateful if she were suddenly overwhelmed by homesickness and decided to return. The boiling water hissed as he poured it over the tea bag, he overcame fantasies of flinging the scalding pot at Fate only with great difficulty. It was astounding how greatly she got on his nerves simply by being in the room.
Sneaking a quick look at the still closed kitchen door, Ken popped open the empty medicine vile he'd been storing the ground up pain killers he'd been slipping Omi, tipped a few pinches into the translucent golden beverage.
Fate watched blankly as he pushed past her again, elbowing open the swinging door as he carefully steadied the hot ceramic cup. Omi looked up, eyes bleary and leaning more and more towards total incomprehension.
"Tired?" He set the tea down in front of Omi on the end table, leaning over to kiss the top of Omi's head. Omi smiled, helplessly blinking his eyes against pending sleep.
"No, I'm not tired. I'll stay up for a while and keep an eye out for intruders while you and Aya get some rest." Omi ruined the brave front by yawning, a huge, jaw-cracking betrayal by his body.
"Drink your tea and go lie down." Ken clenched his fists, wanting to take up as much of Omi's personal space as possible, but unable to in the sudden self-conscious rut brought in by Fate's presence and crude statements. He didn't want her knowing him, making stupid assumptions about things not of her concern.
Every single drop was gone before Omi consented to go upstairs for a lie-down, still adorably adamant about his state of awareness. "I'm not tired at all. I feel fine." He murmured, even as his eyes closed, Ken tucking the blankets up under his chin.
"How cute." Fate pretended to gush as he gently shut their bedroom door behind him.
"Shut up, bitch." He frowned, upset by his having been angered to the point of using language he abhorred, unable to react in any other manner. If this kept up he just might wind up a tried and true misogynist; guilt by association for the women of the world.
"Do you know where Youji might have gone?" He finally asked, unable to think of a better way to fill the sudden silence.
"Any number of places." She helpfully supplied. "There are at least fifteen places he could be. Would you like me to list them all?"
"With a name like Fate, I'd think you were supposed to be some sort of oracle." Scorn.
Fate decided she was through talking with an unbeliever. An impolite unbeliever at that.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Halfway across town, Youji lay unconscious at the bottom of a darkened stairwell, blood staining his hair and the roughly hewn cement beneath his cheek.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I know I promised you smut, but I'm getting there. With one person from each couple down, intercourse appears to have become a lesser priority. I'm actually, oddly enough, going to try for a Ken/Omi lemon next, depending on how I have things progress, but don't worry, there will still be tons of Youji and Aya. I do like those two better -puts fingers to lips-, but SHHHH, don't tell any of the HUGELY avid Ken and Omi fans, they might lynch me. -laughs- Or not. More to come though. I'll do my best to keep plugging away. Give me feedback! Give me e-mails! I'd greatly appreciate it!!!! darkhunter@ijustdontcare.com or akainobaka@mchsi.com That's me!