Title: Little Things
Author: Celeste
Universe: Weiss Kreuz
Feedback:
Theme: N/A
Rating: PG-13 (mentions of yaoi)
Pairing: RanxKen
Spoilers: Nope
Word Count: 1,931
Time: 2:34 (minor edits)
Summary: The universe hangs in precious balance. Yohji listens.
Dedication: HeatherR and Crimson1 over at because they constantly remind me why this is like, my OTP of all time.
A/N: I kind of thought I'd never write more for this little arc that I had planned, but a string of good RanxKen fic reading sort of put me in the mood for them again, and so here I am. I'm out of practice, really, especially since all I've really been writing lately has been Bleach crack yaoi, but getting this out of my system was a must. Hopefully it makes sense because today I am sick and the queen of run on sentences (yes, both simultaneously!). As much as I love this pairing I usually don't write it because they're so precious to me the mere thought of any miss-stepping on my part in the way they're portrayed is just painful to think about because I love them that much. ;; It's sort of paradoxical, but rather than do them harm I think I'm just one of the types that would rather not write them at all. Usually I only write them when I've got a concrete, I know what I want to do idea for them, and this is actually the first time I've written them where I haven't had that. I'm a little apprehensive, but for some reason I just found myself randomly writing and Ran and Ken happened to be the two I ensnared in my spontaneous weekend fic writing this week.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.

Two: Silence

When Ran and Ken fight, Yohji thinks it feels like the end of the world.

Not because of the explosions and flashes of light. Not because their home is left shaking from the stomping feet and slamming doors and rattling windows. Those are the sorts of things that Ran and Ken just come with, whether they're fighting or doing anything else.

They drive each other crazy and take the environment with them. They are two opposing forces of nature that are drawn together regardless of their varying dispositions and as a result, cause havoc in the world around them.

Their love, as apocalyptic as it is, is Yohji's sign that the universe is still whole. The fact that despite how different they are, despite the lives they have chosen, despite the crimes they commit, that the two of them can still love so purely tells Yohji that there is still hope to live in this world despite its chaotic, insecure nature.

Always, they are full of love and life, passion and anger, and thus the noise, the messes they cause are simply a reminder of what it is like to be alive.

But when they fight, Yohji has to pause his vicarious living-through them and hold his breath, because that carefully balanced cosmos they have created becomes tipped on the knife's edge at those moments, teetering precariously between Eden and Armageddon.

They are fighting again tonight, coming in late from their closing shift at the shop.

Ken is angry, indignant. He is loud about it, shouting at the top of his lungs and not caring that both Yohji and Omi can hear every word he is saying.

On the other side, Ran is quiet, but his silence in the face of Ken's tirades is of a dangerous sort, and Yohji can hear by the way the floorboards creak under Ran's weight that he is walking stiffly, just as angry as his younger lover. However, it is his way to be tightlipped about it, to glower and freeze the air around him with his seemingly cold indifference. The occasional chilly word comes from him, and after only minutes, Yohji can sense the numbness beginning to settle in as Ken's speech becomes more and more strained. The soccer player sounds tired after a little while, and eventually there is silence from both sides. Quieter footsteps then, and the blonde can hear Ken retreating to his room without another word or glance in Ran's direction. The sound of a door clicking shut signals the brunette's final departure.

Moments later Ran sighs, not that Yohji can hear it, but because he knows them both well enough to say without doubt that Ran sighs. And then the redhead will close his eyes and turn stubbornly on his heel before heading back to his room sullenly, convincing himself that it would be foolish to pursue any sort of reason with his hot-headed love.

The sound of Ran's door closing behind him is the last sound of the argument.

In the end, it is not the explosions or the flashes of light. It isn't the shaking floorboards or slamming doors or rattling windows that make Yohji feel like the world is ending.

When Ran and Ken fight, it is the silence that Yohji fears the most. It is the sudden quiet that makes him wonder if all the stars will start falling from the sky at any moment and smother them all.

It is always the same-- after the shouting drops off that ominous silence settles in the air around them all. It is a kind of eerily contemplative quiet that shrouds their entire living space, blocking out all signs of lovely, chaotic life. Yohji thinks that it is this kind of silence that is the most dangerous for assassins in particular because it is one where they can think and reflect and perhaps tip the precious balance that their sanity rests on in the wrong direction once and for all.

In the end, it's not the things that occur in a fit of anger that set Yohji on edge. Those are little things, things that tell him that everything is still okay because when you want to make noise, when you want to make a big deal out of the little things, then everything is okay. It means that you still care enough to make a fuss and thus, those are the things that tell the former detective that the universe is still chaotic, still whole.

It's the quiet that means something is wrong. Because for an assassin, it is in the noiseless prison of your own thoughts where you can lose everything, all of the big things that make the world go round. The solitude of your own guilty conscience is a constant strain that they as killers must battle with daily. It gives them a choice between trying to stay a part of a harmonious, noise-filled universe or of letting go, stepping outside of the world in order to lose the pain of guilt though at the same time, everything that makes you human. In the quiet, these choices become so much more pronounced.

Ran and Ken make each other so much more human than they might have otherwise been, and it is on nights like these when they fight that Yohji thinks the world is ending. The possibility of apocalypse draws dangerously near when they leave him stuck in that ominous quiet and hide behind their closed doors. All he can do is sit, tense and uncertain, waiting for either balance to be restored or for the world to crack into a thousand pieces and fall away forever.

He smokes cigarettes one after another as he waits, laying in bed and staring at the ceiling, listening for any sort of motion, of sound, that will tell him the Earth hasn't stopped spinning.

He quietly prays for another day of life.

He has always been a romantic at heart after all, and the thought that those two can defeat the odds, can overcome their own pasts and look to a future that is while perhaps not bright with hope, but at least gives the possibility of it, makes him long, inexplicably, for the closest to a happy ending that sinners such as they might be allowed.

Unwittingly, he has given Ran and Ken the power to shape his dreams. But he is okay with that because he feels he is too old for his own dreams any more, and it is easier to center the universe on them, those with the potential for youthful regeneration, who can step out of the spiritual stagnation that assassins are faced with and create a new world for themselves.

Because if anyone can do it, they can. And he so wants them to, perhaps selfishly, because their successes will mean some sort of validation of all of their lives. Proof that there is some hope leftover under all of that blood.

Without knowing it, Yohji has given all of his dreams to them because he wants to believe that there is a future in which those that love can love and be loved in return despite their sins. Imbued with his support and all the possibility he can give them, Yohji Kudou watches over the younger two like a gardener who is waiting for the first sprouts to break through the earth they have been buried under- a sign of new hope. All of his positive dreams and desires have been put into Ran and Ken and the chaotic, life-filled love that they share.

Without knowing it, he has given them the power to destroy the universe.

Tonight they threaten the heavens once more. They are fighting again, and Yohji waits, tense on his bed, one arm draped over his eyes while his remaining hand braces the cigarette he isn't really concentrating on in his mouth.

He wonders if Ken is thinking that it isn't worth it any more, if the former soccer player is sitting on his bed staring out the window with those big sad eyes of his, secretly longing for the bed he has grown accustomed to sharing with Ran and at the same time, being angry with himself for wanting that. Yohji can see the younger boy in his mind's eye, pictures his anger as it slowly but surely melts into uncertainty, his insecurity warring with his remaining sense of pride. He undoubtedly feels Ran is wrong, but there is a strange dearth of self-confidence that constantly troubles the athlete ever since he discovered that his life's betrayal was at the hands of a former lover, and he is thus unable to completely trust his own judgment. He wonders if perhaps Ran was right all along, and his thoughts will undoubtedly spiral into questions of his own right to make demands of someone else, his right to believe in himself, his right to love, his deserving to be loved, and finally, the thought that plagues them all on quiet nights like this—whether or not they can ever be forgiven. He will think that Ran, intelligent, confident and beautiful, deserves someone equally as wonderful.

Ran's thoughts will take the opposite form, statement rather than inquiry. Yohji can imagine the redhead leaning against the door he has just shut behind him, eyes closed and frowning as he tells himself that he was right in the beginning, that as assassins, they can be nothing but. He will think that his hands are forever stained no matter how much he might try to ignore the fact. Having been unable to protect everything that was precious to him before, Ran's thoughts run through threads of fearful inadequacy. To him, his failures in the past mean that he does not deserve to love in the present, that he has no right to love, or to expect something of another human being when he has long since given up his humanity. He will think that Ken, lively, bright and passionate, deserves better than he can provide.

It is in the silence that they are tormented with these thoughts, forced into their own solitude and subsequently, full awareness of their pasts as well as a fearful longing for a future they aren't sure they deserve.

Ken will stare at his window, on the brink of deciding that he isn't worth any of this, right on the edge of remaining as just Ken or falling over the precipice, into the role of not Ken, but just a murderer.

Ran will rest his forehead against his door, hand still clutching the knob, and make himself choose between the consequences of his inadequacy once more, the possibility that life will rip away his most precious thing away again warring with the simple solution of not letting himself have anything important to rip away in the first place.

For the fate of the world, these two men have to make a decision.

And Yohji waits, smoking away in the dark of his room while the very cosmos are poised on the brink of complete annihilation.

Moments later, the silence is shattered when he hears the sound of two doors being opened.

Smiling to himself, the blonde puts out his cigarette and turns on his side, muttering about how dramatic they both are, threatening the future of the universe at a time when he needs his beauty rest.

Eventually, Yohji drifts off to dream in the comfort of sleep, glad that the world is whole again.

He lets himself look forward to morning, whatever it may bring.

END