Disclaimer: This is a complete work of FANfiction.

Chapter 3

I wake with a crick in my neck, cramped up in a bed which isn't my own. It's the smell of the sheets which give it away, along with how uncomfortable it is. It's a smell which reminds me of home, one I thought I'd never savour again, watermelon and the scent of his skin. He always uses the same shampoo, the only one Agito and Akito have ever agreed on. I should have insisted that I took the floor last night, not only did I feel bad for imposing on him this way, but the memories of a different bed are enough to stifle me. Sitting up I rub the back of my neck, over the aching, sore muscles. How do I always manage to get myself so twisted up around him? It's been like it since we first met, I had been piss in my pants scared of him watching him mercilessly destroy the Kintetsu Bulls, and it had taken months, until the battle with Behemoth, for me to see that there was something to him other than perverse blood lust. Just seeing him so quiet and broken in that hospital bed, realising that he'd been willing to risk his existence for Aktio, knowing that he hadn't betrayed us how I'd thought... that was the moment I felt myself fall in love with him.

But it's too painful to think of that now. Pushing myself up to sitting I slip my legs over the edge of the bed so my bare feet touch the cold floor. Letting my eyes slide down to the spread out sleeping bag he'd used last night I find it rumpled, unzipped and empty, as though thrown off in a moment of haste. A sensation akin to drowning pulls my chest tight, as though the air I suck in is as heavy and suffocating as water. My jeans are on in an instant and I find my senses artificially sharp, snapped quickly out of the lethargy of sleep. I let my guard down because I was in his home. I've had to be wary these years alone, and coming through it all in one piece is proof that it worked. Why didn't I check the lock on the door or window last night? Did someone find us? It has to be because of what happened in the street yesterday, someone saw us and followed us. My hand swings back automatically, pulling out the knife which should have been under my pillow last night. It's weight in my hands is comforting as I pull it open, an ever present back up plan. I want to call his name, heart pounding at the thought of losing him again, but I don't, keep my cool and my wits about me. A quick tour of the apartment with softly placed feet and I find it empty. I don't like it. He wouldn't just leave me here... would he? It'd be what I deserved, a retaliation in kind. But... I notice a scrap of paper on the otherwise empty kitchen table, held in place by an old, scuffed AT wheel. I'm quick over, snatching it up. A ransom note? I exhale the painfully held breath when my eyes pick out Agito's handwriting scratched bold and clear across the surface.

Room 123- you'd better remember our secret knock.

-Agito

Secret knock? I stand there with creased brows, thinking back to what he could mean. We didn't have anything for the Kogorasumaru base... oh... the memory hits me hard, a jolt of electricity which shocks my heart dead still. I can't believe that he still remembers that, it's only because of this note that it's all come flooding back... not that I'd forgotten, but passing time can fade a lot of things. I'd pretend not to hear the others if they came knocking on my window at night, but he'd made up a knock so I'd know it was him, a tap a pause then three taps in succession. I'd lain awake hours some nights waiting to hear it, lying there heart racing at the slightest noise outside wishing that he would come, that he'd manage to slip away from his house and into my bed. Those nights; the breathless kisses, the desperate hands on hot skin, the complete burning desire...

I can't let my mind be drawn into those memories now. If they do I'll go over there and kiss the life out of him. It had been torture enough sleeping in the same room as him knowing that I had to keep my distance, wanting to honour his words as much as he probably wanted to dishonour them. Before I managed to fall into fitful sleep he tossed and turned as restlessly as me. Taking a steadying breath I head back over to the bed, and a moment of searching shows me that the clothes I had worn yesterday have gone, replaced with a clean white, folded t-shirt and a khaki combat jacket placed on the chair. Again there is a note, but this is in the freer, more rounded lettering from Akito's left handed scrawl.

Hope you don't mind but I put your clothes in the washer. There's some here for you, I hope they fit okay. I don't know if you have anything in your backpack, I didn't want to look. Hopefully you wont mind.

-Akito

A tender smile tugs my lips. Just these words, his... adorable fluster, it feels as though I've been hugged by the past, this a warm feeling not the painful jolt I usually feel. Akito was always so much more concerned about what his actions to other people would cause, the complete opposite to Agito who would just deal with the consequences afterwards, usually by swearing or scowling. Akito was the heart of the team, always quick with a smile or an offer of encouragement. He helped us all with his little parables, his sweet temper. I didn't think that that would ever change, that that smile would be dulled. My chest clenches. Still, it's harder to stomach the change in Agito. I knew, more than anyone else, that he was sensitive beneath all his attitude, was lucky enough to be shown how emotionally shy he was beneath the bravado and dismissal. But even then he'd always stood proud, laughing in the face of our enemies, believing he could shred everything in front of him to pieces no matter how dire it looked to the rest of us. He was a King when we met him, so far above the rest of us. He made us believe we could reach those heights with him, and we did, he pulled us up further than we could have ever imagined. But because of that he rode higher than me, had further to fall when his wings were ripped away, and he fell hard.

I sigh, pulling on the shirt, finding the soft cotton only a little too tight on my broad shoulders. I guess he must see a change in me too. Physical work has made me strong, some would say an athletic build, with defined muscles but no six pack. I run everyday, something I've never stopped. But in shoes alone I've never been able to go fast enough, no matter how hard I ran, how much effort or practice I put into it. Once I got used to the wings on my feet it was hard to find satisfaction in being grounded. The combat jacket fits well, but I can't help but note that it would be about three sizes too big on Agito, who I don't doubt owns this piece. I asked him about it once, about why he liked clothes which were less fitted or wore more layers than Akito. He'd told me that I thought too much into things and needed to stop being so fucking stupid. To this day I'm convinced it had to do with him wanting to disguise the true size of his body; although to me it had only ever succeeded in making him look younger, smaller, like a kid in their older brothers clothes.

Fuck I love him so much.

Hands in my pack I pull out my washbag before heading to the small bathroom off the kitchen. It's cleaner than I thought it would be, although I guess with the two of them working together it's a pretty good deal. Still, how bare it is strikes me. I travel light as I'm always on the move, between cities and countries, looking for work and a way to forget. But from what he's said he's been here for a year. It doesn't look like it. The apartment has minimal, cheap furniture, all necessity and function nothing decorative. One table, one chair, no allowance for company. There are two of everything else, but that has only to do with the differences of the personalities, not with entertaining. It's so depressingly desolate like the bleak concrete of outside has poured its way in, everything grey and dead. Have then truly been alone all this time? Just stood in the shadows watching, waiting? Even in here there's just the two toothbrushes, in different colours, toothpaste and a bottle of shampoo. It looks like a hotel, somewhere where you're just going to pack up your things and leave. Guilt stabs me low in the gut, a knife twisting in my bowels. It hurts that it's still like this; to know that I'm part of the reason why. When he first came to us he had nothing, asked only a space to sleep and his bankbook back. Akito was happy for the change of scene, the chance to be around people other than Kaito and Akira. Agito had distanced himself, kept out of the team, out of our friendship. I helped to draw him in, to break down the barriers he'd constructed so carefully. He feared friendship because of Akira, didn't want to suffer that painful loss and betrayal again. I gave him a reason to belong, to drop his guard. I think back to that time, how much trust he placed in me; how much of himself he gave to me. There was a growing amount of his clothes in my closet, cute stickers Akito plastered on my mirror, AT parts scattered on my desk by Agito's untidiness... then I went and deserted him too.

What did he do when he realised I'd run away? Where did he go? It's not like he could have stayed there, Agito and my sister had clashed on more than one occasion and she'd been waiting for an excuse to kick him out. He couldn't go back to that house, not that any of the sisters were left. I had family, have family, he had... absolutely nothing. As I start to clean my teeth I avoid eye contact with my reflection, the hard, harrowed blue eyes I know would be waiting to stare back at me. It's that sense of contempt again, the one which time had lessened to a shadow now back in full force, enveloping me in the desolate darkmess of nightmares. I'm too ashamed to even look at myself.

I'm washed, fresh and cleanshaven when I make my way out of the apartment, locking it behind me with the key he left taped to the handle. Closing the door it reads 120. There is a light flickering at the end of the hall, a door with no handle but a broken window and a bar with padlock crossed across it. It seems the old man had a right to be worried about Akito in this place. Walking down the dusty corridor I stand in front of the door labelled 123 and knock the way I had been instructed.

'It's open,' comes a call, and I turn the handle and let myself in. It smells fusty in here, and as I look around I realise it's because the windows have been covered, the only light that from the fixture above. 'Lock it behind you.' He says, not turning to me as he sits cross legged on a desk, looking at something on his lap, light from a laptop screen passing over his shoulders. How can he stand to be somewhere so airless?

My hands work without any help from my brain, eyes too eager to take everything in. This room is so different to the other, even more sparsely furnished with only a table, chair and single cabinet. A printer sits on the floor, flashing a 'no paper' glow as marked sheets pool around it's mouth, spat out onto the floor but not collected, over the cables which twist like snakes. Still, the walls are filled with pictures, printed scraps of paper and handwritten notes in Agito's script. I look to him now, sat in the middle of the chaos, so still in ripped jeans which bare his pale knees, a black t-shirt hanging from his angular shoulders to rest on the beltline, head bent forward to expose the bottom of his neck beneath his hair. It's the stillness which is most disturbing, as though he is perched like a bird of pray, watching, waiting for something to skitter out of the bushes. It feels so dark in here.

'What is this?' I ask, not taking another step inside. Yesterday he had seemed so forlorn... and this... this is more than I expected.

'I told you I was watching,' he replies, still without turning, gaze fixed on the screen.

'But still, this... it looks like years of work.'

'That's because it is,' he answers, stone still although his fingers still elicit clicking from the laptop keys.

'Is... is it all about him?' I ask as I catch his face in one of the photographs, smug and smirking as he stands over a fallen rider. All these years and he's done nothing else... not even attempted to live? How can he... how did he..? I feel the prickle of hot tears sting my eyes as my heart bleeds for him.

'Isn't everything?' He asks, voice monotone, lifeless.

'It doesn't have to be,' I whisper, know that I've shut him out of my mind for months at a time; lived as though there wasn't this dark weight on my shoulders.

I let my words rest in the air, feel them hanging there in the staleness of the room, no breeze to sweep them away. I'm too aware of the thump of my heart in my chest, regular but heavy. It takes a moment but he sighs, shoulders sagging as he turns to look at me, lifting the laptop as he unfurls his legs, letting them drop over the desk edge.

'This... this is all I know to do, all I have ever known. I was born into this, you know that.' He looks down, at his still fingers. 'When I woke up from the coma all I wanted to do was forget, turn my back on all this shit. All those years in my head, defeating Lind, it made me realise that... that, ' he stops a moment,and I see his shoulders dip, hear the drawing of a shallow breath damp with unshed tears as he attempts to keep his emotions in check. 'Fighting so hard for this body made me see that I'd never really lived with it. That's why I went to India, to try and put this all behind me, to try and give Aktio something... something...' I see his eye close, dark lashes a curved sweep across his delicate cheekbone, clumping with the moisture of nearly shed tears. 'Something which wasn't pain or death or violence or.. or... fucking AT's... but... but I can't... don't...' be bites his lip and turns his head so I can no longer see his face, obscured completely by his lank hair, Agito, the Fang King looking so small and wounded in front of me. 'I don't know how to change.'

My heart breaks. I want to touch him, pull him to me and hold him tight. I want to tell him that we'll run, that I'll take him wherever he wants to go and I'll teach him what it's like to live. Maybe he wants me to, needs me to. Before, when he was the boy I remember, he hated anyone acknowledging his weakness. But now... this is... I take a step close, hand raising out to him. Agito...

'Fuck, so anyway,' he says, breaking the moment with a voice which is too loud, pulling his shoulders up, blinking away the swelling tears as though they were never there, making me drop my hand too quickly. 'If you're serious about what you said yesterday I've been digging and I've found where Ringo is... you... wont be able to do this on your own.'

'I'm not on my own,' I say softly, still overpowered by the fragility of the previous moment as I stare at him in wonder. I want to run my hands through the lengths of his hair, kiss his mouth softly and tell him how much I love him, will always love him. He can do all this and call it nothing. Does he honestly think that he's not strong?

He ignores my words and puts the laptop down, whole body seeming to unfurl as he fortifies his resolve, regains control of his mouth and emotions. I

'I've tracked her down to a monastery on Tiger mountain, it's not easy to get to, and from what I've been told... the inhabitants are not too friendly to questioning.'

'Let's go then,' I say, making the decision for him.

'And say what?' He asks, eye narrowing, 'fancy meeting you here, it's been a while. Oh, and by the way I'm planning to overthrowing the Storm King, you want in?' He shakes his head, sharks eye darkening in thought. I see it on his face, the same concentration as all those years ago when he was planning our strategies for us. 'No, you need to go to her with something, something she wont be able to say no to. And I think...' He turns his attention back to the laptop, scrolling through files before settling on one, clicking it open. 'This should do it.' He tells me, turning the laptop so I can see the screen. I look at it, at the information that's displayed for me. I feel sick, the house that they grew up in... used for... that.

'Whatever is he thinking?' I ask, although the depths he has fallen to no longer surprise me. It doesn't stop the kick of shame. We helped him get here.

'Just one look at those girls and she wont be able to say no to us. But that doesn't mean it's going to be a walk in the park.' He stand up, placing the laptop on the table, walking over to a cabinet, unlocking it with a swiftly produced key. Swinging the doors open wide I can't believe what I'm seeing, guns and weapons stored in there, boxes of ammo.

'Agito?' I question.

'You don't work for the police for so long and not know where to get hold of these things.' He takes out a gun, holding it easily in his hand, checking the magazine. He keeps them loaded? Sliding the magazine back in he runs his thumb over the back to check the safety is on before holding it out to me. I stand there stunned. Since when did the Fang King stoop to this?

'You... know how to use it?' I ask, not taking the offered gun, feeling as though my hand is welded to my side.

'Kaito didn't just teach me to ride AT's ruthlessly. But I don't care for guns much, I think they're for cowards, still... it's better to be prepared than be dead. The people who run for the Storm King have no idea of honour.'

'Agito...'

'Fine, if you don't want it don't have it,' he snaps, pulling his hand away, turning to pull out ammo boxes, 'you're obviously much more comfortable with a blade.'

He saw that? I bite my lip, push away the alien feeling of disappointment at watching him handle the gun. We've all had to change, I can't hold this against him.

'I'm sorry. It's just...'

'I know,' he sighs, instantly losing the momentary spark of anger, the attitude of his former self fading into nothingness. 'Do you want it or not?'

'Yeah, you're right. We don't know... he finds out about this he's going to want us dead.'

'He's always wanted us dead, all of us who got away.' He replies bitterly, moving away, pointing to a poster he has pinned pride of place on the wall. Getting closer I see our teenage faces on there, our names and a reward figure large and lewd beneath it. 'He gave these to all of his recruits after he moved them into Behemoths old base. He's got his own personal fucking army and they'd all love to bring him our heads.'

'I don't...'

'What, you don't believe it?' He scoffs, closing his eye as he shakes his head. 'Now there's proof, more than this idiotic plan, that you're insane.'

'No, I just don't know what he's thinking. Why... why does he need this?' I ask, completely stunned. I knew he hated us, but I thought us running away would be enough for someone I once called my best friend.

'Cos he's an arrogant bastard who always thought he was better than everyone else.' He spits, turning to slam the laptop closed, slinging the bag of guns and ammo over his shoulder, laptop under his arm. 'I'm going to pack some things. You need to think if this is really what you want to do because if it's not then it's better you decide that now, not when we're half way up a mountain.' He stalks over to the door, but stops as he pulls it open, standing still in the rectangle of light which penetrates the room. When he speaks his voice is barely a whisper, words passed back over his shoulder as he grips the handle, everything about his stance tired. 'Don't fuck me about Kazu... please.'

With that he is gone, leaving me overwhelmed. It sinks in completely and my limbs feel heavy, the darkness of the room closing in, pressing my bones. If we do this, if I do this... it's all going to be on my shoulders. Each decision, each mistake. It'll be me who has to close my eyes at night and answer for it, look Agito or Akito in the face and tell him that I'm the one responsible if it all goes wrong. I have his life in my hands as well as my own, and that's something so precious, so fucking valuable it's hard to comprehend. Am I really up to this? Can I step into his shoes and not become like him? Victory and failure went to his head, and he lost sight of everything he once held dear, was corrupted into this evil in his own weakness. Am I strong enough to have other peoples faith in me and not abuse it?

I stand there in the darkness of the room, door still open with Agito expecting me to follow him out. Something ruffles my hair, a weak breeze fluttering in stirring softly at the corners of the paper on the floor, the words and images stuck to the wall. I close my eyes, let the cold, fresh air prick the hairs on my arms to standing. I see him in my minds eye, the boy I once knew, the smile he used to hold. It was never as sincere as I thought. But Akito's happiness, Agito's hard won shy grin... those were real. With them I have something he never did, someone who wouldn't be, isn't, blind to my faults. They'd tell me if they thought I was on the wrong path, make me see sense the way they always have. No, they wouldn't let me fall. My fists ball at my sides and my head raises in determination, eyes snapping open as I take in the walls, his eyes staring back at me. They suffered so much with me as a coward, if they want me to lead then I will. I hold the gun straight out, testing the weight of it in my hands as I line up a space right between the pictures eyes.

I'll take him down, I'll set this all right. Can you hear me Storm King? I'm coming.

.