Title: Taking Time
Author/pseudonym: NemKess
Fandom: GetBackers
Pairing: Ban/Ginji, Shido/Raitei
Rating: PG-13
Status: one-side, complete

Notes: A completely sucky title, I'm sorry.

Summary: Raitei takes a little time for himself.
Warnings: Shonen ai.

The lanky redhead poured a generous cup of coffee and offered it to a customer at one end of the bar. The blonde bombshell and her much less endowed friend were sitting at a booth speaking to each other in low hushed tones.

The silent man sitting next to the register managed to crack a smile of cynical humor as the eyes of all three would dart towards him nervously before jerking away again. He'd barely made it in the door before the reactions of startlement and wariness had settled in.

He couldn't really blame them.

He wasn't sure how long it had been, time was a funny thing for him, but these people had spent a while building up a friendship with a man they thought they knew inside and out. A man who was more like a child too simple to be anything other than what they were used to except during battle.

They were used to dealing with Amano Ginji. A happy, bumbling idiot who had managed to endear himself to all of them.

But the man sitting at the bar only bore the same skin as 'Ginji-kun'. He was not their friend, and while he could feel a little sad at that, he refused to dwell on it. Dwelling would bring Ginji back early, and he had people he wanted to see before that happened.

To that end, he'd eased some of the tension when his first act upon settling onto his barstool had been to pay up the long-running GetBackers tab.

He had access to cash that Ginji could only dream of and the ruthlessness and competence to keep it. He saw no harm in smoothing things over by settling a debt that was, lawfully, partially his own even if it was technically Ginji's.

Glancing at his watch, the man sighed and sipped his coffee. There was a quiver of excitement running through him that couldn't be denied and he didn't really want to do so. It had been far too long.

He'd let Ginji have his time. Wasted time, in his opinion, but they had differing points of view. Ginji wanted a new life with a man who not only let him be as silly and incompetent as he'd never been allowed as a child, but actually encouraged it. In Midou Ban, Ginji had found someone who wanted him to be the possibility that had been lost the moment Teshimine-san began pushing him to embrace his inner lightening. Someone who wanted Ginji alone without the man who currently sat at the bar.

His old friends couldn't offer that.

All those who'd known him in Mugenjou still looked for their Emperor in Ginji's innocent eyes. Raitei was the one they'd come to know and depend on and, in one case at least, to love. They'd trusted him to return that.

They could trust Ginji to try his best, but that was about it.

Ginji would always choose Ban over them and they knew it. They couldn't hate him for it, but it left gaps and strains in their relationships that were felt by all.

Midou Ban, on the other hand, was infinitely easy to blame and hate.

The bells above the door jangled and the thoughtful man didn't have to turn to know who'd just walked in. He looked up at his own reflection and smirked.

Speak of the devil.

Ban knew the second he'd walked into the building that things were wrong. Out of place. In a glance, he'd taken in the entire room and the situation.

His hands clenched into fists inside his pocket and he had to take a calming breath. He sauntered over to the bar and dropped down beside the abnormally quiet blonde.

"Raitei."

"Midou-sama," The polite delivery in no way hid the mocking irreverence in the tone.

This time he didn't bother to hide his annoyance as he growled and grabbed the man's shirt. A very familiar blue shirt that Ban hadn't seen in a long time. "Go back to wherever the hell you popped up from. You're not wanted here."

There was no trace of the Ginji he knew in the chocolate eyes. No touch of adoration, no easy friendship, no cheerful childlike innocence. There was only Raitei and his complete lack of emotion.

To Raitei, he'd only ever been a challenge and a barely acceptable guardian for Ginji. The Emperor hadn't cared about Midou Ban in any other capacity. Ban liked to think that his words towards the end of that last battle had given Ginji the extra push he'd needed to break free of this creature, but in his more honest moments, he suspected Raitei had merely welcomed the mental rest that came with giving Ginji control.

As calm as if he were merely flicking dust off his shoulder, Raitei reached up and removed the hands from his shirt. "I'm not here to fight with you."

Before Ban could retort, Paul appeared with a cup of steaming coffee. The retrieval specialist eyed it suspiciously. Paul never served him so promptly or without a long drawn out lecture about paying debts.

"What'd you do, spit in it?"

Paul looked affronted and Natsumi finally got up the courage to approach the familiar stranger with a smile. "Ah.. Ginji-san caught the tab up."

Ban glared at Raitei who offered a small, self-satisfied smile and a mocking salute with his own cup of coffee.

He didn't like this being. He never had, not from the first moment he'd set foot in Mugenjou to the last time he'd seen a hint of him in Ginji's raging features. Even though he'd held his own in their battles, he'd always got the feeling that Raitei could have beaten him.

More over, he often looked at the life Ginji had once led through this man and the life they had now and he couldn't help but feel he fell short in comparison. Mugenjou was hell, no one could deny that. But there, Raitei had ruled supreme with only Babylon above him. With Ban, Ginji lived in a car barely big enough for the pair of them and starved more nights than not.

It made him wonder if Ginji ever regretted his choice. If Ginji ever regretted him.

Midou Ban-sama did not like that well of self-doubt one little bit and it made him hate the one who caused it.

"You take over Ginji's body, stroll in here and pay our tab, and say you're not looking for a fight. Fine. What are you looking for?"

Calm brown eyes gazed at him in consideration, before the infuriating blonde shrugged. "It's our body which I'm borrowing, technically it's my tab as well, and it's not really any of your business."

There was no chance to reply to any of that as the door jangled once again and Raitei's face softened with genuine happiness. Even as Ban turned to see who had caused the reaction, the blonde was up and heading towards the newcomers.

Fuuchouin Kazuki and Fuyuki Shido stopped barely inside the coffee shop, matching looks of surprise marking their expressions.

The monkey tamer's hushed 'Raitei' reached Ban's ears about the same time as the man in question reached the monkey tamer.

"Hello, Shi."

Threadspool's face threatened to break under the size of his grin and it was Ban's turn to be surprised as one of Shido's big hands came up to gently stroke the side of Raitei's face. His voice was as close to being choked up as Ban had ever heard it except when Madoka had been in danger. "I thought you weren't coming back. Ginji said-"

"I'm not back for good... Just for the day. Maybe two if I can get through them without losing it."

There was a definite slump in the Beastmaster's shoulders, but even as Ban watched, the big man pulled the smaller into a tight embrace. "A day's better than nothing. Mugenjou? Or would you rather stay on the outside?"

A million and one suspicions were crowding his mind, and he liked each one less than the one that came before. There was simply no way... Not Ginji and Shido..

But this wasn't Ginji and it would certainly account for the sheer animosity Fuyuki tended to send in his direction. Ban was used to being hated, but few took it to the same level as Fuyuki Shido without ever actually trying to kill him every time they met.

Whatever relationships Raitei might or might not have had in the past, Ban wasn't about to stand idly by and let that damn monkey tamer take off with his Ginji.

He never even got off the stool before a snapping thread had him sidling backwards.

Kazuki stood between him and the couple at the door, a sweet smile on his face that was belied by the steel in his eyes and the thread bell still in his hand. "Don't even think about it. In a couple of days Ginji will be back and Shido will be alone again. I'm not about to let you disturb what little time they're going to get together."

"If you think-"

"Raitei and Shido were together long before you ever ripped Ginji away from us, Midou. Shido doesn't press out of respect for our friend. You will not take this away from him." The pair had slipped out the door without so much as a goodbye to anyone else and some of Kazuki's tension relaxed. "Look at it this way, a contented Raitei who is convinced Shido has more or less moved on with his life is less likely to try to take over Ginji permanently."

There was some logic to that even if Ban didn't want to admit it.

The thread master settled down for his own cup of coffee. "Besides, much as we all hate to admit it, Ginji has a firm hold and an even firmer attachment to you. If Raitei hasn't tried to stop it before now, he's not going to."

Ban sighed and cast a last annoyed glance at the door, hoping no one would notice how dejected he felt. In an effort to distract himself, he turned his attention back to his current companion and best source of information. "So the monkey tamer, huh? Would've thought Raitei had better taste."

The End.

Author's Notes
I wrote this for this year's yuletide secret santa thingie. My recepient wanted something with Ban in it and I have a very hard time writing the man in a way that doesn't end in bloody gory death for him. I have no idea where the idea came from since I tend to prefer either Shido/Madoka or, if I'm in a yaoi mood, Shido/Kazuki, but I think it turned out okay. It was certainly easier to write than I'd expected. There might end up being a sequel of sorts to this simply because my beta/friend Sel-kaasan took a shining to it and really, really wants more. I'm sure she'll poke at me until I cave. If you've managed to make it this far, Thanks! NemKess