Fandom: Getbackers

Summary: A bloodthirsty killer and the Lightning King who fears him so are stuck in a secluded area somewhere in the Mugenjou. It ain't much help that one of them is crazy over the other!

Title: Fear Factor

Author: Hana Rui

Genre: shounen-ai, humor

Pairing: Kuroudo Akabane x Ginji Amano

"Ginji-kun, why do you fear me so?"

Ginji Amano, after just succeeding in his attempt to calm himself and regain focus, suddenly felt disturbed by that single question. He ventured a glance at his companion and nearly gave out an unmanly shriek when he realized the alarming proximity of the jackal doctor. One wrong move and they would brush skins!

"A-Anou…" he stammered, edging away into a corner farthest from the foreboding entity, making sure to press his trembling self as close to the wall as possible so as not to give that creep enough space to draw one of his deadly artworks on his back.

He still could not remember what he had done wrong to deserve such an unbidden company. Just the mere thought of being stuck with this 'murderer' for the rest of the mission was enough to make his guts do a seemingly endless set of cartwheels as little dribs of sweat trickled down his chibi face.

Kuroudo Akabane, if he was in the tiniest bit offended by the reaction he got from the other guy, wasn't at all showing any hint of it. Instead, he let out a small chuckle and crooned, "Interesting…" as he regarded his companion with a look of utter fascination. "And I was beginning to regret why I chose to stay with you." To emphasize his growing excitement, the playful doctor flicked out four mean-looking scalpels in his hand while smiling fondly at his partner.

Now trembling to the very tips of his blond hair, a puddle of thick sweat forming around his feet, Ginji would've given anything just to rid himself of this creep's company. But seeing as his earlier attempts to run away had all ended in vain, and had even brought them inadvertently into the stocky confines of this cell, he knew he didn't stand a chance in hell.

Akabane-san always seemed to be a step ahead of him and had never ceased reappearing just when he thought he had lost him for good.

And even though he may want to lit out again, and if he did have enough strength for it in the first place, being stuck in a room that resisted all kinds of electrical attack offered no chance of escape for his itching feet. He knew he would rather be wishing for a quick and painless death before he wore away all of the jackal doctor's patience.

"Ban-chan," the poor kid whined under his breath as his frightful little brown eyes began sheening with tears of panic and begging. "Ban-chan, tasukete…"

"This is such a perfect place to spend time together, ne, Ginji-kun?" Akabane was saying to which the shivering blond kid was only barely listening. The black-clad zombie held the tip of his hat's brim down, concealing an underhanded sneer of felicity, before continuing with a rather alarming enthusiasm. "Yappari. I knew the walls are resisting my knives for a reason."

Numbing dread instantly cruised through Ginji's tremulant cells. And as though he was not yet wading in fear enough to snap him off his sanity, his blurring vision suddenly caught sight of something glinting cruising along a purposeful path headed in his direction. He felt his heart stop and his blood coagulate like skim milk within his nerves as he awaited his doom.

"Oops," Akabane said in mock surprise as his scalpel rammed with a jeering thud into the wall just an inch away from Ginji's ear. "It slipped."

Ginji Amano didn't know what to think anymore. Not to mention that his brain had just turned into one big puddle of goo and was currently leaving his head through the cascade of frightful tears gushing from his eyes.

Another scalpel easily found its way beside his left ear, no doubt in exact alignment from the first one. The poor blond kid would've fainted right then and there, but even that part of his brain that took care of such a reaction seemed to have gone away, making him feel more incapacitated than a dying man.

"You seem a little too stiff, Ginji-kun," Akabane remarked, sending yet another scalpel barely missing his partner's pale neck. "You haven't yet answered my question." Another mean sharpie drilled into the wall, opposite from its predecessor. Many others followed suit in the most dizzyingly rapid succession, making the utterly horrified youth blanch. His jaws went slacking all the way down to the ground with each sharp, taunting chuckle the immensely enthused doctor sent his way.

"Ban-chan!" his mind cried out in agony.

"Maa, you're not much fun to be with." There was a hint of a whine in Akabane's voice. "Relax, I'm not gonna hurt you." As though to punctuate this promise, he sent another spirited scalpel latching unto the wall just above the hyperventilating kid's head.

Ginji's numbing legs would've already given way and turned him into a pathetic heap of trembling flesh on the ground, had he not realized with a start that his impish partner had just literally pinned him to the wall! With the scalpels now firmly holding him by his oversized vest and shorts without much chance of escape, the poor blond kid felt his trepidation escalate into an almost intolerable level. He closed his eyes tight and blindly resigned himself to his inevitable fate.

The jackal doctor may have saved his ass earlier today, but it's already been hours since and he felt so sure he had just stretched his partner's patience a little too far. Ever since they set out on their quest for IL together, Akabane-san had been giving him nothing but the feeling of someone who was about to call it quits with his life.

Every few seconds, a clear image of a bloody "J" being imprinted on his back would jeeringly slip into his mind, making him lose an unhealthy amount of body fluids in profuse sweat, a great deal of his guts along with it.

Then, the ever-so-merciless Akabane-san just had to aggravate his agony by asking him that imposing question in the midst of his mental and physical disarray.

Why did he fear Kuroudo Akabane anyway?

Because the cursed man's very name spelled death and hell in a portmanteau of doom, that's why.

Because the very sight of his oversized hat was enough to whittle out any bit of courage and dignity Ginji always prided himself with in any other less horrifying situation.

Because his knavish smile alone looked morbid enough to make any sane kid want to wither to his knees and beg for salvation.

But Raitei Ginji Amano couldn't possibly tell Kuroudo Akabane all that, could he? Aside from sounding pathetic, it might strike all the wrong chords in his partner's fickle temper, and he would be dead before he could even be aware of it.

Not that refusing to answer the question was making things any different for him!

"Ban-chan," the practically trembling chap mumbled weakly, regretfully, as though he was completely giving up any hopes of ever seeing his partner again and was just about ready to reconcile himself to the very truth of it.

The coltish doctor, on the other hand, found so much bliss in seeing his victim all spooked up that he thought of enhancing the sight by getting a little more closer. In a fleeting second, he was standing right before the writhing Ginji, casually leaning into the blond kid's personal space until the tip of their noses touched and they could actually feel the warmth of human breath on each other's face.

And it was at that very moment when, perhaps for the first time in years, Akabane-san found himself up a stump. He was suddenly reeling from and drowning in an emotion he had never thought could affect him in a million light years. There was a slight thumping on his chest, which escalated into a roar the moment those honey-colored eyes flicked open and filled up with frightful imploration.

"O-Onegai… Onegai shimasu, Akabane-san!" The words, as well as the small, childlike voice with which they were delivered, stung him with a feeling of empathy mixed with heightened pleasure that almost made him shudder to the marrow.

"Kawaii…" he whispered unconsciously as though in a trance as he gradually gave into the urge of leaning in further to finally close the distance between him and those desirable lips.

"Maa…" he cooed, barely an inch away from completely losing himself to the overriding desire paddling through his glacial nerves. If earlier he had only meant to tease the overly, and downright amusingly high-strung youth, now it looked like he might end up raping him for all he and all the rest of them cared.

"Akabane-san…" So went another plea, which conveniently enough, woke some senses back into the dissipated doctor. The next moment, he was gradually taking backward steps away from the corpsely pale kid.

Careless, that's what he was. Careless for teasing the blond kid for kicks. Careless for letting all that burst of kawaii-ness get to him. Swallowing it all to the very last spark as though he had never ever seen anything so magnificent and august and remarkable and—

Okay, so maybe he hadn't.

The boy may be literally and otherwise electrifying, but he couldn't just go and bare himself to this human eel, could he?

Who knows, he might need to kill him for his next job. And it would be awfully hard for both of them if he was crazy for the kid to begin with.

But had he not been crazy about him ever since they fought and he got his first unexpected defeat?

Now, it sure felt like he was getting close to his second downfall. Not to mention that it would be to the very same guy who did him in the first time.

Isn't he just… amusing? Was the thought that went slithering through his head. Scary as it may have sounded, even to himself, Akabane-san's outer mien didn't show a single hint of his inner turmoil.

"Oya oya," he muttered in that throaty voice of his that had always made Ginji want to scamper into the woods and leave civilization forever.

And he would've done just that, if only he wasn't too stunned to move nor speak as he watched the glowing scalpels pinning him to the wall un-pin themselves and dart back to their owner, deftly re-joining many others that were hidden within his anomalous system.

Ginji had seen those sharpies leave the doctor's body before. He didn't know, though, that they could be summoned back to it as well.

Sugoi, he thought in juvenile delight, despite himself. He slumped wearily onto the floor in his little tare form as the last of the scalpels released him.

Whether he really couldn't understand or was just too freaked to even think about what had just happened, he sure was glad it's all over.

NOT!

"Why do you fear me so, Ginji-kun?"

Shimata! Can he not drop the matter already? "Anou…"

"Maa, we're back to square one," Akabane-san remarked with an amused grin. He clucked his tongue in mock disappointment before adding, much to the blond kid's horror, "Be careful now or I might end up kissing you for real the next time." He saw little Chibi Ginji blanch and shudder at his words, extreme cute-ness personified.

The slightly perplexed doctor got himself on check the moment he realized this useless conversation was leading him once again down the road he had just successfully veered out of.

He really should end this stupidity soon, or he might finally lose control of himself and do something that would completely ruin his chances with the blond kid.

Ruin his chances with everything else.

Ruin him, period.

He had never felt so uncertain and… somewhat terrified, prior to the foregoing moment. He had only meant to make fun of the kid. Who knew he would end up feeling so… un-him?

With a final sigh of cathartic redemption, Kuroudo Akabane turned his back on the kid and flicked out one of his razor-sharp scalpels.

Ginji stared on in shock and disbelief as the wall he had initially thought—or Akabane-san had made him think—was indestructible, crumbled into a pile of rubble at the chuckling doctor's feet. "N-Nani?"

Akabane turned to him as the mean weapon disappeared into his hand. "Saa, ikou." He watched in recurring fascination as the kid slowly stood up and eyed him with the fiercest frown anyone had ever been able to muster in front of him. "What's wrong? I just wanted to spend some time with you, Ginjii-kun… Was that so bad?"

Currents of electricity sparked from Raitei Ginji Amano's body as he purposefully strode toward his prey.

But because he wasn't up to fighting the boy right now and seeing as the look of defiance wasn't pacified in the least bit, the casually grinning doctor decided to tease his partner once again. "You should really stop staring at me like that, Ginji-kun. You're… making me… want you… more." He said it so seductively, too, that poor Ginji was once again transformed into his chibi self, scampering like the scared, helpless little cub that he was into a corner farthest from the snickering doctor.

"You're really amusing," Akabane-san said raptly before turning around and pulling the brim of his hat down to hide the slight, almost indiscernible blush that finally made it to his cheeks.

Some other time, perhaps, he thought with anticipation as he began to walk away, a still very scandalized Chibi Ginji shakily plodding at his heels.

Tasukete kudasai, Ban-chan!

-end-

Note: This is supposed to have happened somewhere in the IL Mission. Of course, it didn't really happen-I just would like to think it happened.

Thanks for reading! :)