A/N: finally, I am baaaaaack! With an update to boot. The discussion between Komui and Kanda was sparked by Rush Hour 3. Komui and Lenalee actually speak French as a third language and when Komui is worried e tends to talk in a combination of French and English (I don't think it is possible to mix up you home language and second language, especially not when they are as different as English and Mandarin, but your second and third are okay.) Sorry to have kept you guys waiting so long, I hope what I am posting now makes it worth the wait. Reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: how many of you have done probability in maths. Well one of the things you do is work out how probable something is based on internal and external factors. The probability of me owning -man or Beauty and the Beast comes to, let me see so if you take that into account then you do this, er… zero. i.e. it is impossible

Flower in an Hourglass

Many people believe that animals have an instinct that preserves them. An ability to smell danger. Senses that allow them to predict things like an earthquake, senses that keep them alive. They warn them when to back off and when to attack. A human is a form of animal, it too possesses survival instincts, maybe not to the degree that an animal does but evolution has equipped them for survival. Evolution was known to make mistakes though, skip people out; these people are commonly known as the terminally stupid. Komui was one such being. Kanda was in many ways a man of action. He was intelligent, make no mistake, and often thought before doing something but there were times when he relied on gut instinct. Times like now. he knew what would happen if the lotus was harmed and before his mind had time to catch up with his body; Mugen was pressed solidly against Komui's throat.

"I'm sorry but what do you think you are doing? I'm working here, come back later once I've figured out how to get this thing from its glass."

Luck saved him, he moved to retrieve something from his bag and in doing so, he missed Mugen's blade by a mere inch. Looking up he received a sudden and much-needed dose of fear, kind of like the adrenaline you give to a person in anaphylactic, the type that keeps there lungs open. Kanda was an intimidating individual at the best of times but when he was angry… suffice to say he would send the monsters under the bed running for cover. Komui's brain started to make up for the overtime it missed since moving to the Ark (not that he'd been the one with overtime issues back at the cottage but his brain was skipping over minor details like that) as he searched for a solution. Finally, he landed on one, not one he would've used had he thought it through but Komui's mouth had a tendency to move faster than his brain, and that was saying something.

"You promised" he managed to choke out as Kanda prepared to deliver the finishing blow. "You promised to let us stay so that Lenalee would be happy. You promised not to hurt us."

He was grasping at straws and knew it, he also knew fare and full well that no promises had been made, least of all ones that exempt him from physical harm. He did however provide Kanda with the perfect means for revenge and a way to ensure that nothing like this ever happened again. Unbeknown to Komui he was right, Kanda could not hurt him without upsetting Lenalee. Something kept him from upsetting her, he was sure it was the spell.

"She promised to keep you in line. When it is phrased like that the most logical way to deal with this is first to remove you from my room and then to go deal with her as it seems the fault is hers."

There were sun-bleached bones with more colour than Komui's face had at that moment.

***

Lenalee was searching for Komui. Actually, the entire castle was looking for Komui. Despite his short stay, all the inhabitants had learnt that he was a dangerous man when left to his own devices. A mirror (that never reflected anyone) named Crowley and a vanity bag with whom he was quite besotted were looking outside. They looked after the special section of the garden, it had man eating flowers and Lenalee could just see her brother trying to figure out how they digested their food. Jasdebi and David were shouting threats in the basement, taking their time to lay several traps. They called them ingenious, everyone else called them childish. Lenalee was not the type to object to someone doing something in their own home besides she thought that Komui would find the traps interesting. Well if he could devote two days to getting a ship out of a glass bottle without breaking the bottle, she was sure he would find the challenge of removing an armed bomb from a sake bottle equally attractive. She was with Allen and Lavi, turning one of the living rooms upside down when Kanda appeared. He marched straight up to her.

"Your bastard brother has been in my room, I do recall you telling me that you would keep him out of trouble."

He looked down at her expectantly. Her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish's, her arms moved helplessly up and down as she tried to find a reasonable explanation. Nothing came; nothing ever did when Komui was involved. Reasonable and Komui were far from synonymous; in fact, they shouldn't be said in the same sentence unless there was a negative in the sentence. Eventually she did the only thing she could. She bowed slightly saying.

"I am very sorry for my brother's behaviour."

Kanda opened his mouth to say something, she never found out what because Komui burst in at that exact moment.

***

"Now you listen to me…"

Often those who evolution forgets are abandoned by luck too. Whether luck hated him or whether he suffered from short-term memory loss was unclear, the result was the same. Komui temporarily forgot what he was supposed to call Kanda and used the only other word that fit.

"…YOU."

"You had better not be addressing me bastard nobody calls me Yuu."

"I never called you, Komui I called you, you. I know who I am and I would never dream of calling you me."

"What are you going on about sister-complex? There is no one called Mi here and I will slit you open and tie you up using your innards if you ever call me Yuu!"

"I told you I never called you me, and there are many me's here everybody calls themselves me. Do you have name issues is that why you object to being called you? Is it so terrible if someone dares not call you by your given name?"

"What do you mean bastard. You are calling me by my given name."

"What is your given name?"

"It is Yuu!"
"I know who I am and I have been standing here for well over a minute so don't tell me I am me. I understand the concept."

"I am Yuu!"

"No you aren't I am me, you are you and Lenalee is Lenalee. Which is why me is responsible for me's actions"(Nobody ever accused Komui of grammatical excellence, especially when he was scared, and no one was ever likely to)

"I know that I am Yuu, that is what I have been trying to tell you and who is this Mi? what has he done? Is he one of your friends cause then I will kill both of you!"

"No you listen to me, I am me and-"

"oh so you are still the problem, why do you call yourself Mi? are you schizophrenic sister complex it wouldn't surprise me!"

"Now you listen to me."

"Don't call me Yuu, you bastard Mi!"

Lenalee decided to butt in, as entertaining as it was to watch she could see the situation travelling towards a one way route to hell.

"hey, hey, hey. Listen to me. Big brother his name is Kanda Yuu, as in Y-U-U. Kanda, my brother forgot your name so he was calling you, you as in vous. We are not naturally French, he was using a term he knew. Me is English it means moi. We all understand each other? Now let's try to not kill the furniture."

"Che, whatever. Everybody get out! Oh no, not you"

A hand gripped Lenalee's shoulder as she moved off with Komui.

"You and I need to talk about the Sister Complex."

***

After a little persuasion from the girl, the sister complex had left muttering something about just having escaped Skinn Bolic only to find him. The comment made no sense to him. He hated things that confused him so he turned to the girl for clarity. She blushed profusely.

"He was a suitor back at the village."

"For you?"

Stupid question, who else did he think this Skinn Bolic would court? She nodded focusing on her feet.

"What was he like?"

Surprise flittered across her face and he felt slightly offended. He always made sure he had as much information as possible about his rivals. It made them easier to beat. Wait a second! Rival? Where had that term come from? He was certainly not some love struck fool, vying for a girl's attention. His face grew cold; pride stopped him showing confusion as it always had. Lenalee took it for anger at her silence.

"I-i-i-i'm sorry" she stuttered. "Skinn Bolic was one of the men at our village. His uncle, the Earl, was the most influential man in the village so he usually got what he wanted. Well after the church bake day, he made up his mind. You see he is very fond of sweets and he took to the cakes and biscuits I made. It's quite a relief to be away from him he used to come round nearly everyday to get me to cook for him and to try and persuade me to marry him. He is however a bit of a Neanderthal so the meetings never went too well and Komui, objected to them."

He pressed his lips together and stared at her.

"You need to control your brother; one more offence and I remove him."

"I understand, it won't happen again I promise."

It was a few minutes before Kanda left the room and much to his horror he realised he understood Komui slightly better than he had. The girl was as much a flower to the sister complex as his lotus was to him. He kept her separate in his own way, in a glass bubble so people could look but never touch. He wondered if the sister complex realised that his time was running out, Kanda's had stopped long ago, but as she got older she'd drift closer to the edge of his bubble, till eventually she'd leave it. Kanda was not the sympathetic type, this revelation did not make him feel anything other than annoyance for the sister complex. It was not a route his mind would've followed if that was all he could gain from it, no he'd thought about this as a military tactic. His mind stored and manipulated the information; hopefully it would bring him a certain degree of peace. He stood up as fluidly as always and went to check on his hourglass.

***

As soon as Lenalee was out the room, Komui pounced on her.

"Brother!"

"My precious Lenalee, did he hurt you? You are okay, entirely fine?"

He turned her round, looking for so much as a hair out of place. Eventually he decided that she would live and released her.

"What did you do?"
I went up to the west wing and I was looking at some of the stuff in there, he has some interesting items…" Komui trailed off when he saw the look on Lenalee's face.

"YOU. DID. WHAT?"

He didn't have time to dodge the kick she directed at him. Instead, he sailed out and down the staircase.

"Brother!" she shouted after him. "Reflect on your actions and don't do it again."

***

Komui and Lenalee wouldn't have recognized the cottage they shared if they had seen it. Snow lay thick on the ground even though none entered the grounds of the enchanted castle. The door hung off one of its hinges and the contents of the cupboards were strewn across the floor. Skinn Bolic stood in the middle of the kitchen, destroying everything he got his hands on. He'd just returned from an extended hunting trip for his uncle. It had taken the better part of two months but had been planned for one. An unexpected landslide had trapped them in a neighbouring village until he'd found a way round. He'd come back expecting to find Lenalee Lee and her hot chocolate and cake, instead he found a house that hadn't been lived in for at least two weeks, if not more. There wasn't as much as a scrap of edible food. He snarled and yelled for the Lee family, he received no answer. The people in the village sighed, Skinn had a loud and carrying voice and they knew trouble was coming. Skinn was considered mentally unstable by most of the villagers, not that any of them would ever say it to his face. He had once beaten up a new maid at the manor when she had failed to make his boiled egg sweet. They'd all been very pleased when he'd become attached to the foreign Miss Lee. The only problem had been her over protective and (in the villagers' opinion) somewhat crazy older brother. He would never consent to her marrying someone let alone Skinn Bolic. They had blamed her oddness on that. She had never been interested in village boys, maybe because she knew that none of them were welcome where her brother was. He was probably the most pigheaded man in the village, his only rival on that count was Skinn Bolic. Right now, that was what worried the villagers; Skinn Bolic wasn't the type to let something go. His logic only allowed for the fact that Lenalee made the best sweet stuff in the village. The snow was melting fast, it wouldn't belong until the Millennium Earl's men came knocking at their doors, looking for answers. It wasn't without cause that the men had become known as Akumas among the village people. What worried them was not that they had nothing to say. Komui had howled about a beast living in a castle buried deep in the woods that had kidnapped Lenalee. No one had really paid him any heed. He was a known lunatic. They had decided that either he was deluding himself or he planned to move with Lenalee and lacked subtlety or a good excuse. As of yet no one was sure which was more probable. What worried them was that Skinn Bolic was simple enough to believe the mad ravings of Komui Lee, single minded enough to get it from the people, and he would not rest until his source of candy was returned to him.