Sho knew that they were going to win, he wasn't nervous, he was just…making sure to have fun before they won, that was all.

Because, really, once they beat Dad and ruled the world he wasn't going to have a lot of time for things like this. His hamsters would probably wind up missing him a lot, a whole lot, once he as busy ruling the world. And so would his friends, his friend, his best friend. After everything that had happened Shimazaki was still his best friend and always would be. Even if he could sometimes be an asshole, even if he cheated at just about everything, even if he had been in love with Big Sis, and even if…even if Sho had no idea if Shimazaki would side with him when the time came to go up against Dad.

It was hard to tell, sometimes, what Shimazaki would do.

"What are you doing!?" asked Sho as Shimazaki poured a can of something into his hamster's bowl. He didn't know or care what it was, hamsters had to drink water and only water. Sometimes if they were good he put a slice of cucumber or some lemon into their water but that was it. They weren't supposed to have…Sho turned his head to the side.

Coffee cola now with extra caffeine.

"You said to give them more water when I was done grooming them and, yeah, those rats are about as groomed as they're going to be." Said Shimazaki as he tried to tip the last of whatever this truly disgusting drink he'd found on his beer shelf was. Sho, of course, didn't take it well. He never did when it came to his pets. They'd been doing pretty much nothing but playing with these things, and grooming them, and cooking for them since they'd come back from their 'not exactly a rescue' mission. He's been so weird lately, not just about his hamsters but in general. His aura sounded like someone had taken a mouse, put it in a jar, and then started to shake the jar but stopped just before the mouse died.

Honestly it was getting kind of annoying.

"First of all they're rats, not hamsters, and second of all-" said Sho

"Animals this small are hard to tell apart. It's small, it's furry, and it squeaks. It's a rat." Said Shimazaki

"Rats are bigger and longer and they've got long tails. Hamsters don't have tails." Said Sho

"I've felt hamsters with tails before. Remember last night when we broke into that pet store?" asked Shimazaki. He felt Sho roll his eyes.

"Those were gerbils, they're different, and anyway gerbils have fur on their tails….they're different." Said Sho as he knocked the can out of Shimazaki's hand and then picked his hamsters up with his powers. He kissed each and everyone one of them on the head so they knew that he was sorry. He shouldn't have scared them, they were just a bunch of little guys, they didn't know what was going on. They thought that he was their Dad and Dads…well, they were scary, but he wasn't going to be that kind of Dad.

Even if his kids were just a bunch of hamsters.

"So…what's second?" asked Shimazaki as he picked up a ball of fur and let it squirm around in his hands. Something was up with Sho, something was definitely up, and Shimazaki knew what it probably was. Suzuki was back and they first thing that Sho had done was move his whole hamster set up to the living room, which meant that Suzuki had been up Sho's ass about them again, which meant that Suzuki was picking on Sho again…fucking asshole. Sho may have been annoying sometimes, and loud, and downright weird even by Shimazaki's standards but he didn't deserve his Dad treating him like that. If Sho had been one his kids, one of the many kids he assumed he'd made in his younger and less condom-y years then Shimazaki never would have treated him like that. But Sho, of course, wasn't one of his kids…but he was close.

Close enough that Shimazaki gave enough of a damn about him to spend his precious time grooming these little fuzz balls which, upon further inspection, did not have tails rat-like or otherwise.

"Second?" asked Sho

"Yeah, you said firstly so what's secondly?" asked Shimazaki

"Secondly that's not water." Said Sho

"It has water in it." Said Shimazaki

"So does pee." Said Sho, sticking out his tongue.

"And?" asked Shimazaki

"Just because something has water in it that doesn't mean it's water." Said Sho

"Yeah, fine, I'll give you that. Just because something has water in it doesn't mean it's water…hell, this stuff might actually have piss in it for all I know." said Shimazaki

"If you hate it so much then why are you still drinking it?" asked Sho

"Because I'm assuming that something this bad has to belong to Hatori and I don't want him to have the joy, the disturbing joy, of enjoying it." Said Shimazaki

"…you shouldn't mess with Hatori like that." Said Sho. Whether he liked Hatori or not it didn't matter, he was really powerful. Not like in a fight or anything but he was good at spying on people, crashing people's phones, and stealing money. Sometimes he even messed with the economy for fun. Sho didn't full know what it was but he knew that a bunch of people were freaking out on TV when Hatori messed with it so it must have been important. It was better to have Hatori on their side than on Dad's side, even if Sho didn't really like him that much.

And it had nothing to do with Dad.

Sure, Dad wanted Hatori to be his son for some reason. Even if he was a fraidy cat, even if he may have been less greasy now but still was pretty greasy, even if he did yell a lot, even if he did cry a lot, and even if he was just one of the most annoying people that Sho had ever met for some reason Dad thought that Hatori of all people made a better son than him! But Sho didn't dislike him because of Dad, he just disliked him, but he could still use him too. So…so if Shimazaki was on his side then Hatori was never going to join them because Shimazaki had to be a jerk all the time for no reason!

Well, because it was funny, but that was no kind of reason at all in these life or death situations.

"And why not? Don't tell me you're finally accepting him as a brother and now you two are going to run off into the sunset with one another or something." Said Shimazaki

"No way! He's not my brother! I just…I just don't think that you should mess with him. If you do then he's not going to want to…to be with us." Said Sho, looking down at the hamster in his hand. It was trying to get away from him. He let it go in it's house. It ran away from him.

There was no reason that both of them needed to be trapped.

"I don't really care where Hatori wants to be or what he wants to do. I don't know why you do, either." Said Shimazaki. He was fun to fuck with but that was about it. If they hadn't both made friends with Mob and Sho then they never really would have crossed paths in Claw. He really didn't have much in common with Sho, either, aside from being the closest person to his age aside from Mob. Sho was being so weird today just like he had been yesterday and the day before.

"Well you should! I mean…we need him." said Sho

"What? For May? I don't think we're going to be working together. I mean, come on, can you see Hatori kidnapping the prime minister?" asked Shimazaki as he put his hamster back in it's habitat too. It squeaked at him before running off to join the others in what Shimazaki perceived as a living, writhing, mass of hamsters.

"No…wait, Dad wants to kidnap him? Why?" asked Sho. He didn't know who the prime minster was but he didn't think that he deserved to get kidnapped. Dad needed to stop doing that, these were the kinds of things that made people want to kill him.

"I don't ask questions, I just do what Suzuki tells me to do and, you know, I try not to make him hate me any more than he does." Said Shimazaki. He wondered if Suzuki was even going to need him at all after he took over the world. He would probably have people opposing him, people who needed disposing of, but after that…Shimazaki didn't know. It wasn't like he had done much to endear himself to Suzuki over the years, in fact he'd done a lot to piss him off, a lot that he hadn't seen coming back to bite him in the near future. Whatever. If Suzuki did wind up putting his head on the chopping block he could always take Toshi and run. The world was a big place and Suzuki was probably going to be running himself too ragged running it to go chasing after two insignificant people. Without Mob's help Shimazaki didn't know how she was going to manage it.

She was the real leader in that family after all.

"But what if…what if you didn't have to do what Dad told you to do?" asked Sho

"I've been at this posting for years now, I really don't think he's going to be moving me around right before his big moment." Said Shimazaki. Sho's aura got really quiet and it felt like he was pulling into himself…not a good sign when it came to him, not at all.

"No, I mean what if…what if you didn't listen to Dad at all?" asked Sho

"You see, Sho, that's what we call 'insubordination' and your Dad, shockingly enough, isn't really into all of that. In fact he's got these special holes he's dug for people who are insubordinate, among other things, and while I can't be trapped in one of them alive there's nothing stopping him from killing me and throwing my corpse down into the hole to feed some starving traitors." Said Shimazaki, patting Sho on the head with every word. Sho pushed his hand away…kind of roughly. Ok, something was definitely wrong here. Sho was so starved for affection that he normally took whatever he got. They both had that in common. If they didn't have that in common anymore then what would be the backbone of their friendship? A shared history? Mutual interests? Shared connections and understanding? A mutual love of getting high and eating way too many poptarts?

"Cut it out." Said Sho

"What's wrong with you?" asked Shimazaki

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you!? Dad's going to try and take over the world and you're still siding with him because, what, you're scared of him?" asked Sho

"Of fucking course I'm afraid of your dad. Who the hell isn't? Kid, anybody with half a brain is terrified of your father. Nobody should be as strong as him, nobody has ever been as strong as him, and also he's generally a pretty fucked up guy! And this is coming from me, Sho, so you know it's true." Said Shimazaki

"But…but what if you didn't have to be afraid of my Dad?" asked Sho

"If I'm ever so far gone that I'm not afraid of Suzuki anymore I want you to put me down like the dog at the end of pretty much every book about a dog." Said Shimazaki

"So you'd rather die than try and stop my Dad?" asked Sho

"Sho…I'd die if he ever even heard me THINKING of working against him…and where the fuck is this coming from? You weren't in my drawer, were you? Because you know that's a no Sho zone, especially after what happened with the molly." Said Shimazaki. Sho was treading on some very dangerous ground here. He didn't know what he was saying. He was just pissed, that was all, and when Sho got pissed off the first thing he lost control of was his mouth. There was no way Sho was actively planning on working against Suzuki…right? He had more sense than that…right?

Of course he had more sense than that, even Shimazaki himself had more sense than that and he knew he'd killed a good percentage of his braincells by now.

"I didn't go in your drawers. I just thought that…that maybe you'd want to help me-" said Sho, hands in his lap and words caught in his throat. Words that disappeared as soon as he felt another presence in the room. The aura was big, like Big Sis's, but…how could he not have recognized Serizawa?

Maybe because his aura had never been so…calm…before.

"Shimazaki? Um…can I ask you a favor?" asked Serizawa from the safety of the hallway. He could see Shimazaki and Sho and he didn't want to interrupt their hamster time…and also he kind of didn't want to talk to Sho since Sho was Miss Suzuki's brother and anything he said, anything that he let slip, would get back to her and if she knew how he really felt, why he really wanted to spend time with Fukuda, then it would have gotten back to him and he would have wound up breaking her heart.

And he didn't want to hurt her, not now or ever, he would have gladly died first.

"Depends on the favor." Said Shimazaki. He didn't want to do anything for Serizawa and…and those may have been jealous thoughts. Those may have been thoughts that he should have known better than to have. Good thing he wasn't jealous or…or he would have had to be pretty pissed off at himself right now.

"Actually, no. Ask and you shall receive." Said Shimazaki

"Can you take me to Fukuda's house? I felt Miss…I just really want to hang out with Fukuda right now." said Serizawa. Shimazaki knew the truth but Sho didn't and he didn't need to know it, either. Shimazaki was such a good friend. He not only kept the truth to himself but he also tried to give Serizawa some good advice. Serizawa just couldn't take it, that was all, the thought of doing what Shimazaki had told him to do made him feel kind of sick…kind of really sick…

"Your wish is my command." Said Shimazaki before he teleported over to Serizawa, grabbed him, and then deposited him right in front of Fukuda…hey! He was in the kitchen now and it smelled really good. Fukuda's cat walked up and started to do that thing cat's did where they rubbed their heads on your legs and purred. Not really as affectionate as a dog but he would take it. He bent down to pick it up-

-and was, amazingly enough, too slow.

"Stop harassing my cat, Shimazaki, you have a bad track record with pets." Said Fukuda as he picked his cat up and handed it to Serizawa. Shimazaki knew better than to do anything to set him off.

"I'll have you know that I'm the finest pet owner in all of Claw, thank you very much, and anyway it was my cat first. I have to fill the void that my dog's departure left and hamsters just aren't doing the trick so…" said Shimazaki. Fukuda sighed and turned to face whatever he had been making on the stove. Serizawa held the cat tighter to his chest and shook his head.

"Sorry, Shimazaki, but this is Fukuda's cat and not yours." Said Serizawa as the cat purred in his arms. It was so warm and nice, kind of like holding Miss Suzuki, before things had gotten all…weird…with her.

"Traitor." Said Shimazaki

"I'm not a-" said Serizawa

"Is that all, Shimazaki? Can we please get on with dinner now?" asked Fukuda

"Yeah, fine, do whatever you want. Sho and I have hamsters to groom." Said Shimazaki. He made one final reach for the cat but Serizawa just turned around completely…and to think Shimazaki had shown him some grace and compassion just now. Well fine, then, that was the last time he was compassionate towards anyone.

"You and…Sho?" asked Fukuda, turning away from his cooking.

"Yeah, Sho, now get back to cooking and stop, I don't know, being about to accuse me of something that we both know I'm not capable of." Said Shimazaki as Fukuda turned away from whatever it was that he had been cooking. It smelled like it was starting to burn, whatever it was, which was kind of a pity since it had smelled pretty good.

"I have no idea what you're capable of but that's not the point. You and Sho are spending time together again?" asked Fukuda

"We never stopped. Sure things got a little rocky back there but it's not like either of us to abandon a friend." Said Shimazaki

"So you two are…talking?" asked Fukuda

"Well since neither of us has quite gotten sign language down then, yes, we kind of have no other choice." Said Shimazaki

"Are you two talking about anything in particular?" asked Fukuda. He had to know who else this had spread to. He had impressed upon Sho, or at least tried to the importance of this not getting back to Suzuki. He didn't know how Sho could have gotten so reckless in such a short amount of time but here they were.

"Nothing you need to know about." Said Shimazaki before he teleported away. He knew what Fukuda had been getting at and he didn't have to sit there and listen to those wild accusations. He wasn't trying to fuck Sho, that wasn't on his mind and never would be, but for some reason Fukuda had this idea in his head that he would. He couldn't think of anything more stomach turning than that, and he'd briefly worked on the team that cleaned out the traitor holes. Sho was practically his kid and, really, it said more about Fukuda than it did about him that Fukuda thought that he would fuck his own kid.

Really.

Shimazaki was in a mood. He decided to take a slight detour on his way back to hanging out with Sho. He knew that Toshi was still sleeping, he knew that they had said that they didn't want to be disturbed, and he knew that they were tired but…but he knew that they loved him and he knew that he needed them…and he knew that he was being kind of needy right now…

But maybe it was time that he accepted who he was.

"Toshi…you awake?" asked Shimazaki as he teleported into bed beside them. They were awake, he knew just from being there, but he wasn't about to go and pull the blanket off of their face and bother them. That would have pissed them off faster than anything else. No, he waited for them to pull the blanket off of their face, sit up, and talk to him.

It didn't take long.

"I am now." said Minegishi as they sat up. They'd managed a few hours on their own at least, a few hours to think. A few hours wasted before they died on Mob's birthday…or they lived. They weren't sure yet. They would either win or lose, that was it…win or lose.

Taking a third option, going to sleep, wasn't going to be an option.

"You were already." Said Shimazaki

"Then why in the hell did you ask me if you already knew the answer?" asked Minegishi

"Because I didn't want to piss you off." said Shimazaki

"I'm always pissed off." said Minegishi with a sigh. They felt their head start to pound. Getting pissed off was normal for them, they were surrounded by idiots after all, but this…this was new. This was a hell of a lot of crappy crap that had been dumped on their head and now…now they had to deal with it. With Tsuchiya and Shibata and Mob…Mob was the cause of all of this. They had no idea why she had, one morning, gotten up and decided that she would be the new queen of the world.

It didn't matter why she did it, she was going to do it, and the only thing that they could do was go along for the ride and try to keep her alive for as long as possible.

"I didn't want to be the one to piss you off." said Shimazaki. Toshi sighed and moved, the bed groaning as they leaned away from him. For a second he thinks that they're leaving, but no, he feels them pull on something and then there's a loud click…oh, right, it must have been dark in there.

"Well at least you have that going for you." said Minegishi

"What happened? Tsuchiya and Shibata aren't coming back?" asked Shimazaki

"No, they are…just…it's complicated, ok? They're going to stay in the Seventh Division and…Ryou, can I just…" said Minegishi. They were certain, mostly, that Ryou would follow them to the end of the earth if they asked. He did love them and they…it was strained and would be for a long time but they did love him. They didn't know if they could do this without him, if only because he was one of the most powerful espers in all of Claw, but also because for all of his terrible choices he'd made he was still always there for them and they…

They needed someone on their side.

"Just…?" asked Shimazaki, his hand finding their stomach. He moved down lower, slowly, until he got to their drawstring. They slapped his hand away…confusing. What had he done? He hadn't done anything today but kill two people, soap a staircase, excessively sample food at Costco, and hang out with Sho…wait…they didn't think…

Did they?

"Come on!" said Shimazaki

"Ryou-" said Minegishi

"Bo, seriously, come on with this!" said Shimazaki

"I'm not up for it right now, Ryou, don't throw a tantrum. If you're so horny then roll over and take care of it yourself. I'm tired." Said Minegishi

"No, it's not that! You're just…you think that I want to fuck Sho! Just like-" said Shimazaki. Toshi hit him over the head with a pillow. He let them.

"Is this something that I have to worry about? Because it had better not be, Ryou, it had better not be." Said Minegishi. They may not have been Sho's biggest fan but they knew that sleeping with Ryou would have probably destroyed him emotionally. Minegishi knew, too, that Suzuki may not have been Sho's biggest fan but sleeping with the little monster would have been enough to get Suzuki to destroy Ryou physically, too. God almighty! How had Ryou not learned his lesson at this point!?

"Oh course not! How can you say that?! You, Fukuda-" said Shimazaki. He held up his hand and started to count down all the people who thought that he was into Sho. Them, Fukuda, Shibata, Tsuchiya, and…and probably other people, too. He had no idea how anyone could have said or thought anything like that about him!

"I'm not siding with Fukuda or whatever you're thinking in that head of yours, Ryou, I'm just worried. Twice now, twice in a lifetime, you've fucked the boss' underaged daughter and were nearly killed for it. Forgive me for knowing your track record." Said Minegishi

"That was different, Toshi, you know that. I can't feel like that about Sho. He's just a kid, he's my kid, and I could never think about him like that." Said Shimazaki

"Fine, whatever, I believe you. Can I please go to back to laying in bed and staring into the void?" asked Minegishi

"Only if I can sit with you and…and ok, Toshi, I can be kind of an asshole…I lost it and I'm sorry, ok? Just let me be here with you." said Shimazaki as he laid down and used them as a pillow. He heard the beating of their heart and felt the rise and fall of their chest…he loved it. He felt them shift. He braced himself and began to picture the living room, ready to teleport away at any moment…but they didn't push him away, no.

They ran a hand through his hair.

"Fine…but…Ryou?" asked Minegishi as they played with his hair. He'd had quite a day, it felt like, gravity was winning the battle against his spikes.

"Toshi?" asked Shimazaki as he shut out everything else but the feeling of their nails against his scalp. He didn't care if they were fucking up his hair, he could always fix it, but he couldn't always fix his relationship with them. He knew that he had gotten pretty damn lucky, really, when it came to what had happened between the two of them. They so easily could have told him to fuck off and never talk to him again…but they hadn't.

They were still here, with him, and he was never going to fuck up when it came to them again.

"I've gone along with a lot of your insanity over the years, am I right?" asked Minegishi

"You know you are." Said Shimazaki

"And…and you wouldn't mind doing the same for me, right?" asked Minegishi

"Yeah, of course." Said Shimazaki

"So would you do something as truly insane as…opposing Suzuki with me?" asked Minegishi. They held their breath. Ryou didn't say anything. He could have been thinking it over or he could have completely zoned out, it was hard to tell with him a lot of the time.

"Toshi, I love you, but I want to know this…if you have the good shit why aren't you sharing? I mean, ok, it's been kind of a bumpy ride this year but I didn't think that you could ever have done something so stingy, so emotionally crushing, as keeping the good shit from the love of your life." said Shimazaki. Toshi sighed and stop moving their hand…in fact they completely removed their hand from his hair all together.

"Ryou, I'm being serious." Said Minegishi. He sat up and turned to face them.

"So am I. You know that I always share with you so you should share with me, in the spirit of fairness of course. I'm not keeping score or anything, I read in a book that it's a real relationship killer to keep score like that." Said Shimazaki

"Ryou, I'm serious. Mob…she came up with this crazy idea that she's going to depose Suzuki and install herself as leader and…and you know that I'm not going to be on his side so-" said Minegishi

"You." said Shimazaki without thinking. It was the only word that came to mind. Toshi. Them. You.

"What about me?" asked Minegishi. They were too tired to try and decode whatever it was that he was trying to express.

"I'm siding with you, Toshi, I'm siding with you and…fuck! It's always been you, not Mob, ok?" asked Shimazaki. He loved Mob but he wasn't going to sacrifice what he had with Toshi for her. No. He loved Toshi more, he strongly suspected that they were the love of his life, and he also loved Mob but if she was hell bent on killing herself that didn't mean that Toshi had to go with her.

"You mean with Mob." Said Minegishi. They got the feeling that they hadn't won so easily. Ryou was cryptic sometimes and this was most likely one of those times. He had something going on in that head of his and they had no idea what.

"No, I mean with you. Kind of like…like…I have no idea what she's going to do, why she wants to die, but she doesn't have to take you with her. I won't let her and…and I won't lose you. I can't lose you, not again, not permanently." Said Shimazaki before he pulled them into his arms. They didn't hug him back, no, instead they shrugged his arms off.

"Ryou, no, I need you to be serious right now! Don't you understand? Mob is making her move and-" said Minegishi

"So stop her!" said Shimazaki

"And how in the hell am I supposed to do that? From the day I met her she's been more powerful than I can ever hope to be! There's nothing…there's nothing that I can do…I have no way of changing her mind or stopping her so the least that I can do is be there on her side and try to help her win." Said Minegishi

"But Toshi-" said Shimazaki

"She and Sho have this idea that they're going to depose Suzuki and I…I guess I have to go along with it. This crazy idea that two thirteen year olds came up with…God. Ryou, I need you, but if you won't help me then I guess I'm going to have to go on without you." said Minegishi. They were hitting him where it hurt, they knew it, and they didn't care. They needed him and either he helped or he got out of the way. There was no way they were going to fight against him…they couldn't. He loved them and they…

For all of his faults, flaws, and moments of pure insanity they loved him too.

"Toshi, if you need me I'll be there for you. I'll always be there for you…but in one second. I have a bone to pick with Sho." said Shimazaki before he teleported away. It took less than a second before he was sitting right next to Sho again and another second before he was smacking him upside the head.

"Hey! What was that for!?" asked Sho as he rubbed the top of his head. The hamster that he had been holding ran away…great! Now he was going to have to spend all night looking for him and even if he did find him then he was going to feel betrayed because Sho yelled at him and threw him like a bad hamster Dad!

"For starting a rebellion and not telling me, you little asshole!" said Shimazaki as he hit Sho over the head again. Not enough to hurt him, of course, because he did still love Sho…but still. Being pissed at someone didn't mean that you couldn't love them at the same time.

"Wait! Big Sis told you about-" said Sho

"No, Toshi did! Toshi told me and now I have to go and put my life on the line because you and Mob had to be idiots! And this is coming from me, Sho, me! Me!" asked Shimazaki as he hit Sho over the head a couple more times. He expected Sho to hit him back, he even gave him a clear opening, but he didn't. He leapt at Shimazaki but, instead of beating the shit out of him, he hugged him.

Shimazaki hugged him back, after getting in one more hit to his head, because he couldn't just let Sho get away with all of this shit.

"Shimazaki…this is great!" said Sho as he hugged Shimazaki. He loved Shimazaki, not like he had before, but he did love him. This was great! This was…he wasn't going to let go. If he let go then they would have to start talking and planning and all of that stuff, stuff that made him worry about the future, and he just…he wanted to be here, in the present.

All he wanted was to be there with Shimazaki and his hamsters…just that.