Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language.

Note: Couldn't help it. Had to write a second chapter. I don't know if I'll add onto it after this, but I might. Feedback would be beneficial in the brainstorming process. Also, after rereading Volume 6 for the billionth time I noticed that I've made a technical error—Osamu's gun isn't a Beretta at all; it's a Colt 45. I'm way too lazy too go back and re-title this story, though. :/

Beretta-2

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

The water is freezing, and the bullet wound still fresh and raw in your shoulder screams in protest to the salinity here, but you're alive if not a bit uncomfortable, so you ignore the stinging throb and reach out, snagging the hood of Tokitoh's sweatshirt like a guide rope and pulling him closer. The skinny little thing barely weighed enough to burden you when you carried him home that frigid January afternoon, but he's put on a few pounds since then, and soaking wet he's definitely heavier. For a long while you do your damnedest to keep your heads above water and wait for Kou to arrive with the speedboat. Your life is like a Hollywood action movie. You wonder how your unconscious co-star would respond to that particular simile.

He gives you the opportunity to ask when he moans groggily and opens pained violet eyes to find you floating amiably beside him, but there are things to say that are so much more important, right now.

I'm sorry.

Great shot.

I love you.

That last one catches you completely off-guard and apparently your surprise registers in your eyes because once he's done bitching about the salt in his wounds he frowns at you and croaks, "What?"

You purse your lips in contemplation and shake your head slowly. Those words are not your own. Those are borrowed, spoken to you a long time ago by someone fragile, hollow, and broken, and you did not return them. Because fragile, hollow, and broken things do not appeal to you, never have, especially in the face of something as loud and angry and curious and damaged as the soaking wet stray dog-paddling under his own power now beside you.

Tokitoh is the only person you've ever known that has brought those words to the forefront of your memory, but you can't say them. They aren't yours. And if every other word that falls from your lips on a daily basis is a half-truth, a part-lie, you don't want those words to be illegitimate. You speak in riddles and abstract concepts but Tokitoh is very fucking real, like a grade schooler once reminded you, and the fierce protective, possessive something that pounds like your heartbeat in your ears is real. You can't bring yourself to voice it aloud, but you think that if love were real and not the presence of certain biological chemicals in your head or the naive and idealistic falsehoods uttered in soap operas, you would love Tokitoh.

As it stands now Kou is slowing down to drift beside you and reaching over the side of the boat to haul your tired and angry cat out of the water, so you clamber over after him and lay sprawled and dripping and exhausted on the floor, propping yourself up against the low wall at the rear because even in your half-dead and waterlogged state you can't stop your tired eyes from straining and scanning the dark night sky. Kou doesn't ask any questions, and neither do you when Tokitoh half-crawls over to you and collapses in your lap, glove squelching with water as he clings desperately to your wet shirt. He's covered in rancid seawater, blood, vomit, sweat. You don't hesitate to pull him closer.

You stumble off of the dock and through the streets of Yokohama with your Glock in one hand and Tokitoh in the other, and right now you couldn't give a fuck less that people are staring at you like you're crazy. Maybe you are. As long as the beaten and bleeding kid beside you keeps holding onto your hand like it's a fucking lifeline you don't care. He's alive. The Izumo youth gang is not. That's really all that matters. Kou watches you in his peripheral vision as you all three move like shadows through the dark streets and alleys where you thrive, and the knowing flash in his eyes tell you that there will be questions later, but not now.

You're back at the Toukohan before you realize it, and Kou frets over the state that you're both in. He herds you into a back room and demands that wet clothing come off immediately to be replaced with dry, and you don't have the energy to argue. Tokitoh hesitates, eying the good doctor warily, but Kou's helpful hands motivate him enough to scurry behind you and he strips in record time, slinging his jeans at Kou to keep him at bay. He struggles into clean, dry jeans and a sweatshirt and as you drop your own pants to the floor with a wet thud and pull on a new pair you stop fumbling with the fly and stare at the sickeningly livid bruises covering Tokitoh's scrawny torso.

They beat the shit out of him. His chest is a mess of angry purple and blue, red welts and scratches. There are finger-shaped bruises around his slender throat, deep lacerations across his hands pulling down the hem of his sweatshirt. Kou shakes his head in disgust and turns away, returning to the front of the shop, for medicine and the first aid kit, you guess. You reach out, your own jeans half-zipped and hanging loosely from your lean hips, and still Tokitoh's hands.

"Kubo--" he protests, but you don't honestly give a damn about his modesty when there are thin trails of blood running down his chest and his fingers look like they've been sliced into with-- "Piano wire," he says quietly as you stare down at his slender hands in yours. "Those assholes tied my hands with piano wire so I couldn't get out."

You nod, silently regretting feeling the slightest hint of remorse when you pumped every last one of those Izumo bastards full of hot lead. The less rational half of your mind is concocting a thousand and one ways to torture Sanada into insanity for ordering his men to lay a hand on Tokitoh. You will kill him eventually. Of that you have never been more certain. Right now, though...

"I'm sorry," is what you say. For letting them hurt you, is what remains unspoken, because you aren't sure that you're ready to accept full responsibility for what happened tonight. Admitting that you fucked up would mean admitting that you let your guard down and that Izumo got the upper hand on you, and you don't want Tokitoh to spend the rest of his life paranoid and constantly looking over his shoulder. In short, you don't want him to live like you.

"Kubo, you didn't do this to me." His voice is quiet, tired, strained, and you're positive that he probably spent the better portion of his time on that oil tanker screaming and cussing and raising hell, and that thought makes you smile. Even while being interrogated and beaten by the Yakuza your angry little cat put up a fight. Because that's what Tokitoh does; he pushes and shoves and hits and shouts and breaks things until he gets what he wants, what he needs, what he thinks he's entitled to. And you love him for it.

There's that fucking word again.

You're tired, you tell yourself. Worn out, injured, and put through the wringer. You need three consecutive days of sleep and an entire bottle of prescription strength aspirin and probably a tetanus shot, and you'll feel better. Your mind is running on fumes right now, your body is running on fucking prayers, and that's where this nonsense is coming from. You step back and sit down heavily on a barstool as Kou reappears with his too-familiar first aid kit. You can't help but feel relieved watching as your employer's skilled hands make short work of patching Tokitoh up, even as your cat looks nervously at you across the room. You're in no fit state to be playing nurse right now, and you're so angry about the scars that those wounds are going to leave on him that your own hands are shaking.

You struggle to keep the lead weights of your eyelids open, smiling weakly, reassuringly at Tokitoh, but you've never been this exhausted in your fucking life and eventually you nod off slumped against a counter. Some time later Kou wakes you cautiously, extremely aware of the Glock still held in a white-knuckled grip in your lap. "There's a futon in the loft," he says quietly, inclining his head towards the stairs behind him. You'd never really noticed them before. "I believe I'd rest easier tonight knowing that my employees are safe. I don't quite feel tired myself, and I think the glass out front could use some cleaning."

You smile drowsily at him in sincere gratitude, scratching the side of your head absently with the barrel of your loaded gun. Going back to your own apartment would be incredibly stupid now. Sanada knows damned well where you live, and Kou's shop is probably the most secure place for both of you tonight. Yakuza though your enemies may be, they aren't bold enough to attack a Triad in the middle of Chinatown. Even junkyard dogs have a basic survival instinct.

As you get to your feet Kou sighs and presses something cold and heavy into your hands. You look down and find Tokitoh's gun, and you glance up at the unlicensed doctor. "I wasn't sure if you knew that he had it. I..." He smiles sadly. You've never seen Kou at a loss for elegant words. "I just can't imagine him with a weapon," is all that he says, but you know that's not all that he means. He's simply too polite to speak his mind, but you appreciate that for what it is.

I never thought that you would let him near a gun.

You sigh and shake off that train of thought. As you climb the narrow ladder into the tiny loft you pause to allow your tired eyes to adjust to the lack of light up here. Tokitoh is sprawled across the mattress and you are always amazed at how such a small, scrawny kid can take up so much damned space all by himself. You shove him over gently, ignoring his habitual slurred curses, and you place your Glock on the well-worn wooden floor beside the mattress. Your glasses follow.

In his sleep, he rolls into you, his arms snaking around your bare waist. He nuzzles into the damp ponytail at the base of your skull and mutters into your ear. "Kubo-chan?"

The smile that takes your lips is also habitual. "Hm?"

"Just making sure it was you," he murmurs. You chuckle at his childish antics but twist around in his arms until you're facing him. His lower lip is split, his right cheekbone bruised, and he'll have a spectacular black eye in the morning, but he's still alive and drawing breath and you kiss him briefly before letting your eyes fall closed.

His breathing is evening out into the deep rhythms of sleep to which you are accustomed. You rest your forehead against his and sigh. "I love you, Tokitoh," you mumble, because you're positive that he's asleep and you can deny ever having said it later and you know that your quiet confession is true. You feel relieved for having said it.

"I know you do, Kubo-chan," he breathes, and it startles you. "I know." His arms tighten around your waist. You stare at him in astonishment but he is still very much asleep. And even while unconscious to the world he can tell that you'd kill thirty more people to protect him, to save him. This gorgeous creature understands how deep the bond between you runs, how much you've come to depend on each other. Tokitoh got it before you could sort these raw emotions out for yourself. He takes everything in stride, at face value, and he doesn't lie.

So when he leans up and murmurs that he loves you against your chapped lips you know that he's telling the truth. And you feel guilty because you know that you've taught him this dysfunctional concept, and that no one else will ever be able to care about him quite the way that you do. No one else will kill indiscriminately for him, take on the Yakuza for him, fight practically suicidal odds to keep him safe. No one else will hold his right hand without flinching, deal weapons and drugs to feed him, or gamble their own pathetic lives on him.

You know that you have to stay alive for him, and that's probably the hardest thing that anyone has ever asked you to do.