Lupin woke up on the couch.
The sun was shining, the birds were-well, they were pigeons so they were bobbing.
Goemon was in his usual place sleeping (Lupin was convinced that Goemon never actually meditated.) Jigen seemed to be relaxing with the morning paper. The house was quiet, almost peaceful.
Could it be-?
"Hey guys, where's Fujiko?" Lupin wondered.
Jigen snorted, "In the bedroom, where else?" Goemon made no movement, strengthening Lupin's theory about Goemon's "zen state".
Lupin stood up and stretched. He was feeling better.
He laughed out loud. "Hey guys, I had the craziest dream. Fujiko was writing all these weird stories called fanfics, and everyone was gay. Jigen, you and Goemon," He pointed to the two. "You were in it, too! You guys wrote all these weird things about Fujiko, and Goemon was a serious head-case and there was this thing with Zenigata and chocolate pudding-"
The bedroom door squeaked open, and Fujiko stumbled out, red blotches covering her body and scratching like mad.
"I hope you're happy, Lupin!" Fujiko's voice sounded like a dying bullfrog. Jigen cracked up. "I'm never going to forgive you-or the Lenningrad Cowboys!"
As Fujiko shuffled her way out of the hideout, Lupin could only stare. "So-so-"
Goemon finally woke up.
"Yes, Lupin. It was real."
Lupin shuddered in pure distgust and horror. "I thought it was just a nightmare..."
"It's only going to get worse," Jigen said. He had been looking at his laptop. "We'd better move. Zenigata knows we're here and he shouted something as he was leaving last night. Dunno know if you heard."
"What'd he say?"
"He'd be back with stuff for us to beta-read."
Looking back, Lupin though it was the quickest they have ever cleared out and had never covered their tracks half as well.
In the following weeks, Fujiko was too sick to write fanfics, so Lupin finally did the easy thing (which he could have done from the start if it wasn't his policy to do things the hard way) and hacked into Fujiko's account and deleted all her stories.
And all was fine and dandy and right with the world.
Until.
Goemon burst into the room, shattering the quiet they had come to treasure in the weeks of Fujiko being too sick to write, and destroying her yaoi.
"It's happened!" Goemon shouted wildly. The other two stared.
"Yaoi-it's back!"
Lupin and Jigen ran over to the computer. There, on the page that had been filled with harmless Mary Sues and aimless adventures, the yaoi had once again made its return.
"Goemon? Why were you looking at ...?" Lupin stopped. "You put your poem up?" Lupin's feelings hovered between laughter and nausea.
Jigen put his hand on Lupin's shoulder. "We all knew it would be back, Lupin. Once Fujiko had given them a taste of yaoi, it was only a matter of time before the gap was filled again."
Lupin, in a dazed rage, tried to get to the bottom of this yaoi mystery. He clicked on one rated 'M' and skipped to a middle chapter.
And what he read was one of the most graphic, disturbing pieces of writing he had ever laid eyes on. Things that he never thought about were described in such intimate detail, it was almost like watching a particularly gruesome video on zoom. Feelings, touches, sensations, thoughts, heat and sweat...Lupin wanted to retch.
"Who...who writes this?! Who in their right minds...for the love of all that is good, who?"
Jigen clicked on the profile link. "According to this, 14 year old girls who call themselves SmexBomb. There's nothing we can do. Death, taxes and fangirls, man."
Lupin, however, was not going to take this lying down.
"I'll find out the secrets of yaoi if it's the last thing I do!"
And thus, Lupin made life a kind of hell for the next few weeks.
He started spending all his time of the computer. Dark circles appeared from lack of sleep. He ate and drank little, his eyes sunk in and looked like lifeless marbles. He stopped interacting with people. Jigen asked if he needed anything, and Lupin told him to keep his "disgustingly girly feelings to himself". Goemon tried to show Lupin how to meditate to calm himself, but Lupin said, "Go cut yourself, emo boy."
Whenever Lupin noticed Jigen and Goemon talking together is whispers behind his back, he yelled at them to just get it over with and come out of the closet.
Conversely, whenever they were apart, Lupin could swear that they were both planning was to drug and seduce him. Either separately or together.
Lupin wouldn't even look at the blackmail photos Jigen had of swollen, hive infected Fujiko he had and Goemon were planning to take away the computer (and check Lupin into a mental hospital) when he was suddenly back to normal.
The night before, Lupin had finally gotten to the last pages of the fanfic section. He clicked on one that sounded promising, but soon found himself sweating from fear.
In chapter one, the gang finds out Fujiko is writing yaoi fanfics.
In chapter two, Fujiko faces the Splenda Monster.
In chapter three, there is a story of a Man Who Is Not A Woman.
Frantic, Lupin clicked to chapter ten and found it: Pudding. Chocolate pudding.
It had been newly updated to chapter eleven, and Lupin read what he was reading about...what he was reading right then.
Lupin closed the laptop with a snap.
He never opened it to Fan again, and he never told Goemon and Jigen what he had found.
Jigen and Goemon never asked, either.
As far as the gang knows, yaoi fics and their ilk are still around. But they hope as long as they don't meddle in the affairs of fanfiction, they won't get hurt.
That doesn't stop them from making a few well planned heists from said authors.
They can't win, but they'll keep living.
A/N: I've never been any good at ending any kind of series of writing (which is why I tend to stick to oneshots), but I hope this doesn't disappoint.
I felt it needed an epilouge, and I hope you guys enjoyed the ride.
The feeling is a little different than the other chapters, but you can't win them all, right? Poor Lupin.