WeissKreuz – Field Trial

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Warnings: male/male affection and references to sex.
Rating: M for the above reasons.
Summary: Yohji needs distance, but the harigane is an intimate weapon. Aya becomes his test bunny for something new and is not best pleased…

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I only meant to call to remind him that our shift was due to start in a few minutes.

It annoys me that I am now caught up staring at him from the door that I have opened just a crack. Why would I do this? Why don't I just barge in, tell him what I have to say, and leave? He is perching on the windowsill, no, slouching is a better term, for he has allowed himself to sag against the frame, one long leg drawn up against his chest, the other one dangling to the floor, heel on the ground, toes wriggling with the beat of the music.

Music, of course. He always has some noise blaring from the speakers of his ghettoblaster, though usually not as loud as Omi. And usually it's some tacky pop stuff, or a lazy reggae tune. It suits him, with his careless attitude and lack of interest in anything a little more demanding than the latest pop charts, some hot chick, as he puts it, or the newest discovery of another seedy club by the chibis.

His room is sweltering in the summer heat, and I have to tug loose the collar of my sweater. The chibis tend to poke fun at me, echoing the comments of some of the girls that come to our shop to purchase flowers and gape at us. I know Omi doesn't mean it, and Ken is just backing him up when they tease the hell out of me or Kudoh, but he never joins in. Just smiles and shoots me carefully blank glances. I have learned to ignore them. I like my sweater; it was a gift from my sister, and it keeps me nice 'n covered against all those greedy glances.

His eyes are green. A strange, shifting colour, just like his honey-brown hair that the sun laces with golden strands, or that he bleaches into a wild mix of darker and lighter shades of amber, to match his lightly tanned hide. When the sun shines into his eyes, they shimmer like water, a river in summer, a promise… and just as treacherous.

No, I will not go there again. He will not do this to me anymore. I am damn well capable of controlling my impulses.

As usual, he wears next to nothing – the scrap of black cotton he calls briefs does not qualify, in my opinion, as a decent cover for his bareness. So he sits in the window, the wooden blinds rattled all the way up, the glass panes open and dirty because he rarely takes the time cleaning them, and shamelessly displays his nudity. He is vain. Not that he is sore on the eye, but there is no need to be naked to the world. In fact, it could get him into trouble one day…

Well, perhaps not. He does attract quite a few gazes and glares, and meets both with his smile and winks – gods, those excruciating, idiotic winks, how I hate them – even exchanges some light banter with a few of the girls that pass by, or a charming word or two with the older women. He is inveterate, and they always, always buy it. How can they like this kind of… nonsense? I have watched him – he will bestow his compliments on the ugliest people in a way that makes them believe him, and instead of complaining about his nakedness, they smile back at him and wander off, a little more buoyed than before, a little happier perhaps, a bit lighter and cheerier too.

Yet the happiness he creates is fake because it is built on lies.

For even if he tells comfort lies, he still does not speak the truth.

When I admonished him for it, he shook his head and gave me one of those cautious, shuttered, slightly incredulous looks, along with a small smile – you really don't get it, do you, Ayan? I did not, and I do not want to understand it, either. But I hate it when he makes me feel like this, somehow… inadequate.

He does it all the time.

The late afternoon sun slants bright copper beams into his room. Specks of dust ride on shafts of light that pour a mellow light over his messy place and his long, muscular body. His hair is shaggy, dark and wet – he would have washed it before I came to collect him. It clings to his long, smooth neck and hangs untidily into his face. Sweat is beading on his upper lip and in the dimple in the middle of his collarbone, and the muscles of his arms and chest are shifting quickly as he works to the rhythm of the reggae that is pouring from the speakers. He may be almost bare, but his hands are sheathed in soft black leather gloves in spite of the simmering summer heat.

Softly, I open the door a little wider to see… a few loops of wire dangling from his long, strong fingers, a few more coils lying near his foot on the not so clean brown floorboards, along with a scattered handful of assorted corks, pieces of wood such as broken picture frames, bamboo cutlery handles, and plastic bottle stoppers. And I know what he is doing before I can see him loop a piece of wire around a fingerlong bamboo stick, wind the wire around a few times before twisting it firmly into place. He drops the wire into his lap and fumbles around… slips his hand into the back of his briefs, damn him, he really is utterly unabashed, then around to his front, oh gods… cigarettes, of course, he was after cigarettes and finds them in the front of his underwear, a crumpled, almost empty pack with a lighter.

I know exactly how that pack smells now, and I hate how the heat is making me dizzy.

He lights up, stuffs the rest of the packet back to where it came from, and picks up his work again. To repeat the entire job with the other end of the wire, while he clouds his face with smoke and even tries to whistle along with the tune from his music box. Canned music, canned sunshine, canned charm… so why am I still standing here, staring at him?

Because…

He is busy, at least, doing something useful. He is making his working tools, disposables without fingerprints or trace, murderous wholes from innocuous, mundane parts. Discards, waste recycled… just like us. Our DNA is not on any database and never will be if Kritker have their way, except of course on theirs.

Omi once said Yohji was the most economical worker – his tools come at no cost, require no maintenance, and hardly any training beyond overcoming any natural reluctance to garrotte a man pressed close against your body. The harigane is a dirty, intimate weapon, designed to work on the sly, out of an ambush, and commanded by brutal strength. No elegance, no sophistication, not even the semblance of gloss and glamour I get with my katana, or Omi with his darts. In that, perhaps, lies an odd kind of honesty – working with the wire requires the acknowledgement of murder and the willingness to commit it. Yohji picked the harigane, Omi told me, because he blamed himself for the death of his partner. She got shot, he failed to shield her, so he swore never to touch a gun again. It doesn't make sense, but he seems oddly calm about it now…

How stupid.

Downstairs, the bell above the shop door announces new customers. I am about to step into his room to rant at him because anything else is likely to fall on deaf ears now that he's so comfortably settled with his task, but then I hear Omi chatter with Ken who's keeping the shop, and talks back happily. Omi had school this morning. They natter on, and without looking, Yohji says, "You gonna take root on my threshold then?"

So I blush, as always when I realise he's caught me out, watching me observing him. I hate it when he does that. It has something sneaky, sly, and very underhand… but then, he's been a snoop, and it is my own fault for trusting… what? Him? Ridiculous. While on some job, perhaps. He is solid when working. Cool, calculating, utterly reliable. Anywhere else, no. I can't. I mustn't. He does not give me time to gather myself enough for a scorching response though – I'm never quick enough for him; he knows it and plays his advantage without qualms.

"Care to have a look?" He lifts his right arm and lets the finished wire loop drop to the floor where it chimes briefly as it lands amid the others. I can see that he is wearing something bulky strapped to his wrist. A strong, smooth wrist, like everything about him. Tough. Silky. Tempting… no, don't go there. I step into his room but stay by the door. I only meant to call him for our shift, after all. The thing, black and cumbersome, looks like some kind of watch.

"So?" I say tersely. "It didn't help you to remember our shift."

"Oh…" He exhales a puff of smoke through his nostrils and has the good grace to look embarrassed, at least for the flutter of a heartbeat, before his smile wins out again. Not the bed-me one he wastes on everyone who takes his fancy, or the broad, lazy one he wears after… well, THAT sort of thing, but the cool, astute version that complements his working face. "Well, it actually doesn't really show the time yet…"

"You wear a broken watch?"

And now he laughs, dangling the cigarette from the corner of his mouth, his eyes glittering at me. "It's not finished yet, but…" Before I know what happens, he flicks his wrist, thrusting his arm forward sharply, and something bright and shiny hisses out of that thing towards me. At a mere few armlengths, it is quicker than my reaction of trying to jerk away. It's weighted tip snarls around my ankles, cutting sharply into the thick denim of my jeans and snagging firmly around the tops of my working boots. I cannot make a step without falling or crawling. I am caught.

"Kudoh!" I hiss at him. He smiles, rises and walks across to kneel beside me.

Looks up briefly, checking my reaction, a little wary, smile a little to cool, showing the glint of white teeth… before his hands lightly touch my bound ankles and he turns his attention to what looks like loops of gleaming wire confining me thus.

I hate it. I dig my hands into his caramel-brown locks and tear at them. Hard. He shivers, winces and keeps prodding and fiddling with the wire. Taking what he deserves… "Ouch," he hisses as he begins to pry off loop after loop, unknotting them patiently where they have crossed and tangled. I tear some more, feeling strands of hair give and come off his scalp.

"You…" I snarl.

"Ow... man – ah – Ayan, I'm nearly – ouch, hell that hurt – nearly done – ow!" The wire snaps loose, he tumbles back onto his bum and catches the fall by bracing his hands on the floor, his long legs sprawled out to either side of my feet. "That…" - he gingerly runs one hand through his mane and combs out some loose ends that he crumbles onto the ground – "could give me ideas…"

"You're hopeless!"

He rubs one foot over my calf, and laughs as I jerk away. "Yeah? C'mon, Mr Prissy, wouldn't you just love to get tied down like that and-"

"No!" I kick his foot away, and he rises in one smooth, powerful motion, while scooping up his shooting wire at the same time.

He lets it slide through his gloved hands, his eyes firmly on me. He is still smiling, and that makes me rather jumpy now. The wire slowly slides back into the watch with a sharp, hissing sound and a light clack when its end hits the casing. "I'll be down at the shop in a moment," he says nonchalantly, flipping away some ash from the cigarette that is almost finished. The ash crumbles onto the floor unheeded. As picky as he is with personal cleanliness, he can be grubby about his room that he only tidies when he cannot find condoms or lube anymore. Or his cigarettes. "I'll just get dressed."

"Yes, you do that." And then professional curiosity gets the better of me, and I gesture at that thing on his wrist. "You made this?"

He shrugs. "For a bit of distance."

He dislikes killing. Especially when the blood and gore splash all over him, and remind him an entire evening of what he has done. So he found a way to stick to his stupid vow of not using firearms and still gain some space.

He pulls the end of the wire out and shows it to me. "Here," he strokes a scarred thumb pad over the thumbnail-sized lead ball at the end. "That's weighting it, to give it momentum and spin. The rest is just some spring-powered retraction – I actually modified one of those DIY measuring tapes to start with, casing, spring, strap 'n all. Plus lots of copper wire on a bobbin. It's softer than steel and still tough enough to work. I've tried teflon wire, that works even better, and I think I'll do away with the copper and use that instead, or glass fibre. Teflon snags less though." He lets the thing snap back and turns his wrist back and forth, staring at the thing uneasily.

He is not proud of his accomplishment.

"Well, it works," I comment dryly.

"Gonna try it on tonight's job." He lets his arm drop and chews on the smouldering cigarette filter. It stinks; he ignores the fact that he should put the thing out now. So I do it for him – take it from between his lips, toss it into the empty rice bowl by his futon that already is half-full with cigarette butts, bottle tops and small, square cellophane wrappers. At least he has the decency to dispose of their contents elsewhere, in the bathroom bin for example.

"What if it jams?" I ask, my back turned to him as I scoop up his comforter and fold it back so that his dank sheets can air out somewhat.

I feel his hand on the small of my back. I freeze, but he just lets his touch linger, his fingers resting across my spine. "It won't," he says quietly. Then dares to rub a little, just gently, soothing little circles. I let him. Now why would I do that?

He leans down, half draping himself over me, his lips touching my ear, his breath stirring my hair. "Is okay, Ayan. I'll be down there in a sec. Just need to get dressed, right?"

I straighten and feel his hand slide down over my bum, then fall away as he stands close, warm, sweaty, his hair disheveled, his eyes blank. He does not smile now, and I feel better for it.

"I'll work with you tonight," I tell him curtly. "It wouldn't be right for Omi or Ken to bear the brunt of it if your little field trial goes wrong."

As I turn away from him without waiting for an argument, an excuse or whatever he might come up with, I catch the tiny glimpse of something in those green depths.

And when I snick the door shut behind me, I know that this time, I had seen his real smile.

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The End