Title: Obsession
Author: PandaPjays
Chapter Title: Sleepless
Rating: T
Warnings: Yaoi. KaiRei TalaBryan if you don't like, don't read it. Fairly creepy themes and violence towards the end.
Disclaimer: If anyone has ever thought I owned Beyblades they were WRONG. I just like stealing the characters and using for my own amusement
Author Note: For those who're wondering, yes, I did steal this chapter's title from Loveless.
Sorry for the late update again- though in consolation it's a long one. There's a somewhat screwy format to it because most of the chapter is actually a flashblack and I didn't want to put the majority of a chapter in italics. Apart from that I'm rather proud of this chapter. It seems to accomplish something! Yay!
Enjoy
Rei stared at his ceiling blankly, trying to figure out whether he was actually awake or in some sort of asleep-and-dreaming-with-eyes-open state.
The almost silent night combined with the dull glow of the city lights filtering under his curtain and giving the room a sheen of light made the atmosphere around him almost seem ethereal- giving credence to the latter theory.
Rei blinked slowly, trying not to shatter the mood of the night around him. He rolled on to his side to stare blankly at his alarm clock glaring an ungodly hour of the morning at him.
A soft sigh escaped Rei's lips as he rolled again on to his back. The glaring numbers from his clock had shattered his illusion.
He was horribly, inexorably, cruelly and utterly awake.
Rei swore softly to himself, frustrated with his inability to fall asleep. This sucks. He decided, turning his head to confirm that a full minute had passed since he had last checked the clock.
He understood why he couldn't get to sleep- he just didn't like it. Sometimes the ability to think about the past day just wasn't worth it.
It had all started off rather ordinarily, or so Rei had thought. Unlike himself, every other employee of the café had been early.
That was where the problems had started.
-o-
-Flashback-
Tala yawned as Bryan parked their car behind the café. "Why do we do this again?" He asked plaintively.
"Do what?"
"This." Tala said, gesturing to both the café and the near pre-dawn hour. "It's insane and weird and just… bad."
"Don't want to face Lee?" Bryan asked, a small smirk gracing his lips.
"Got it in one." Tala said sulkily. "I thought after a while he might become more civil or human or something."
"It's Lee." Bryan said flatly. "He's a bastard. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can stop whining about something you got yourself into."
Tala sighed and opened the door of their car, letting the out air from the inside out and immediately chilling the interior of the car. "You're an arse sometimes, you know that? You're meant to be supportive." He huffed and began to get out of the car.
Bryan rolled his eyes before making a decision. He reached out to grab the redhead's arm and pulled him backwards into the car, accompanied by a yelp of surprise.
Tala landed sideways on his seat, his legs still outside the car and his head resting on the glovebox. He made a face and shuffled sideways, trying to get rid of the seatbelt cover digging into his back.
Bryan smirked, amused, and leant down to place a firm, upside-down, kiss on the redhead's lips. He pulled back slightly and contemplated Tala silently.
"You know, you just made it that much harder for me to leave here and go to the hellhound."
Bryan smirked. "You're welcome." He said lightly, still studying Tala's face. "Hellhound?" He asked as the second portion of what Tala said had sunk in. "That's… inventive." He moved to brush his lips against Tala's forehead and stayed there so his lips barely grazed the redhead's forehead. "I like it."
Tala smiled at the tickling sensation he got when Bryan spoke. He rubbed his nose against Bryan's "I'm glad you approve." He murmured.
Bryan smirked and moved the fraction it took for him to place a second kiss gently on Tala's forehead. He sat back up fully and pushed Tala into a seated position. "Leave." He commanded.
Tala blinked at the sudden change of mood – then pouted when he realised that it meant he had to move. "But I don't want to." He complained.
Bryan rolled his eyes and opened his own car door. "But you're going to." He said flatly.
Tala sighed and clambered out of the car, unhindered by Bryan this time. "You so owe me for that." he grumbled.
Bryan smirked as he rounded the front of the car. "We were planning to go out tonight?"
"Not any more," Tala assured his lover, heading towards the back of the café.
Bryan rolled his eyes and followed the redhead, glad that they had come early. "Isn't staying in for a week considered to be a bad thing in some places?" He asked.
Tala scoffed. "Hell no." He said confidently.
"Can we please stop talking about this now?" A new voice asked behind Tala and Bryan.
Tala jumped around, eyes wide in shock. "Wha-?" He asked intelligently.
Lee raised an eyebrow at the redhead. "There are many things I know about you that I don't want to. I draw the line at knowing when you get your nooky."
Tala blinked.
Bryan blinked.
Lee walked past them and opened the back door of the café. "And you're so going to regret that hellhound comment."
-o-
"Rei…Rei…REI!"
Rei started and turned around. "What?" He asked, seeing Lee in the doorway.
"What were you doing?" Lee asked.
Rei shrugged and gestured to the mound of paper on his desk. "Boring stuff. You?"
"Hiding from Tala." Lee said nonchalantly. "I was so in the wrong place at the wrong time this morning."
"What happened?"
"I kind of… caught Tala and Bryan being fairly cosy this morning. Neither really appreciated it."
Rei blinked. "Eh? Tala and Bryan?"
Lee nodded. "I know what you mean. I've had an inkling about them since that night we all went out but I wasn't sure until this morning. I can't actually remember a lot of that night."
"Tala and Bryan?" Rei asked again, still trying to work out what Lee was saying. "They're… together?"
"What? You didn't know?"
"Obviously."
"Not even a little bit?"
"They're hardly affectionate towards each other when I'm around. In fact… I think the closest Bryan gets to being affectionate is tolerance."
Lee nodded sagely. "You have a point there." He pause for a second, considering the possibilities. "…That's not a problem, is it?"
-o-
"So… I heard about you and Bryan." Rei said awkwardly.
Tala's eyes widened and his hands ceased their seemingly endless chore of slicing food-in-general. He looked over at Rei cautiously. "What about me and Bryan?" He asked, slowly putting the knife down.
"That you…" Rei gestured helplessly. "Are…" He stopped, looking at Tala and silently pleading for the redhead's assistance.
Tala's eyes narrowed instantly. "Is there a problem with that?" he asked venomously.
Rei blinked, unsure of how to react to the anger in Tala's voice. "Uh…"
Tala's eyes narrowed further- a feat that was apparently still possible. "I can't believe this." He muttered, looking down at the work he had completed before looking back up at Rei. "Do you want us to leave?" He asked with a new tone of resignation in his voice. "Is that it?"
Rei's eyes widened. "What? No!" He said, surprised at Tala's question. "This place would seriously die without you! I need you here."
Tala relaxed slightly before a thought occurred to him and his eyes narrowed once more "I'm not leaving him."
This time it was Rei's turn to narrow his eyes in anger. "Why the hell would I want you to do that?" He asked before drawing a breath. "Or fire you, for that matter?"
"Why are you asking about me and Bryan?" Tala retorted. "Why does it matter?"
Rei paused, considering the question. "Because I thought we were friends?" He tried.
"And that entitles you to know everything about me?"
"Why are you so defensive?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"I asked first."
Tala looked away from Rei before nodding. "Whatever." He conceded. "Bry and I have been fired from our last two jobs because of our relationship."
Rei frowned. "Isn't that illegal? Besides, both of them gave you good references."
Tala shrugged. "The promised to do that as long as we left." Tala ignored Rei's first question and fixed the Chinese man with a look. "Now… Why do you want to know?"
Rei shrugged. "I just wanted to know why you didn't trust me enough to tell me." He said with finality. "Guess I know now." He muttered with a tight smile.
Tala returned the smile, equally uncomfortable. "Guess you do."
Rei nodded slowly before glancing at a clock on the wall of the kitchen. He turned around abruptly and began to walk toward the door leading to the main café area.
Lee walked back into the kitchen from Rei's office/hideaway room. "Y'know, Rei, I never realised how much shit goes into running this joi- Hey- Where are you going?" He asked, noticing Rei's rapid retreat.
"To lunch with your sister." Rei replied smoothly before disappearing through the doors and leaving a bemused Tala and a thoroughly confused Lee.
-o-
-Real Time-
Kai glared at his alarm clock- willing it to go off and end the hours he was obligated to lie in bed and pretend to try and fall asleep
At least that would relieve the boredom.
Kai rolled over to glare at the opposite wall, unable to get the events of the previous day out of his head.
He growled under his breath and sat up, throwing the doona cover off his legs.
Kai rubbed his eyes as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked over at the dark shadows on the opposite side of his bed, barely visible in the darkness of the night. He smiled fondly as the shadows merged and melded together to form the silhouette of a sleeping Rei
"I forgive you." Kai murmured before standing up, giving up any hope of sleep.
-o-
-Flashback-
Kai watched Rei and Mariah leave the café with a sinking feeling of both jealousy and sadness. His nightmares had come true.
Without thinking about what he was doing, Kai stood and, leaving behind his barely touched cup of coffee, followed the pair outside.
"So… why did you drag me out here?" Mariah's voice filtered across the crowd to Kai's listening ears.
Good Question Kai thought darkly, skilfully weaving through the crowd in pursuit of the quickly moving couple in front of him.
Rei smiled slyly and leant down to whisper in Mariah's ear something that Kai couldn't hear.
He could, however, see Mariah's immediate reaction, pulling away from Rei and grinning like a loon. "Really?" She asked an octave or two higher than usual as they strolled across a road at an intersection guarded by traffic lights.
Kai was forced to stop, as the light watching over the road Mariah and Rei had just crossed turned red. He swore quietly at the traffic rushing past and tried vainly to keep Rei and Mariah in sight as they walked away, blissfully unaware of Kai's attention.
Kai watched with a growing frustration as Rei said something else to Mariah and she giggled, blushing.
Bitch. He thought vehemently, almost running across the road at the first break in traffic.
He reached the side of the road Rei was on and looked through the crowd, trying to spot Rei and the thing he refused to give name to.
He couldn't see them.
Kai resisted the urge to throw a temper tantrum before turning on his heel and storming back through the crowd.
He had seen enough anyway.
-o-
"Are you sure?" Mariah asked, halfway between anxiety and excitement.
"Of course I'm sure-" Rei assured her. "'Else I wouldn't be wasting my lunchtime on showing you."
Mariah raised an eyebrow. "It's ten o'clock. Hardly Lunchtime."
"About the time he's due to emerge from…" Rei paused, scanning the long residential street they had walked to. "There." He pointed to a small apartment halfway along the street where a large blonde figure was walking out on to the street.
Mariah squinted at the distant figure and the apartment block he'd emerged from. "Is that-?"
"-Where Spencer lives." Rei finished for her.
"How did you find out?" Mariah asked, her eyes still following Spencer as he proceeded to check his mail.
Rei shrugged. "I have my ways." He said simply with a small smirk, silently praising Tala's uncanny ability to find everything about anyone within five minutes.
Mariah frowned, looking over at Rei. "Isn't that a bit… stalker-like?"
Rei blinked in surprise. "Er… N-ARGH!"
Rei landed heavily in the bushes adjacent to the path he'd just been standing on. Mariah quickly followed him, holding her finger to her lips. "Shut up!" She whispered. "He's coming this way!"
Rei looked skyward, silently praying to whatever deity was out there to give him strength. "And you call me a stalker." He muttered as he began to sit up.
"Down!" Mariah commanded, surprisingly effectively considering her whispered tone. She placed her hand firmly on Rei's chest and forced him back to the ground. "Stay!"
I do not envy Spencer. Rei thought, as he obligingly lay flat in the dirt, Mariah adopting a similar position beside him.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, long enough for Rei to be bitten by ants twice, before Mariah sighed in relief. Taking it as a sign Spencer had passed, Rei stood up quickly, brushing himself down to rid himself of any excess antage.
"Where do you think he was going?" Mariah asked, standing up and stepping carefully out on to the pathway again and beginning the painful process of de-foliaging herself.
Rei sighed as he carefully stepped through the bushes. "The café."
Mariah froze in her movements. "What? How could you possibly know that?"
"I invited him to come in about-" Rei checked his watch. "-Ten minutes."
Mariah blinked. "So this whole excursion…"
"Was just so you could tell Lee where to pick you up after you confess your true feelings to him etcetera etcetera." Rei told her with a mischievous smirk.
Mariah coloured and made a face at Rei. "You're a bonafide arse." She told him emphatically before realising exactly where Spencer was heading. "Shit! I have to get there before he does!" She took off at a dead run, already trying to figure out if there were any shortcuts she could use.
Rei rolled his eyes and followed at a much more leisurely pace. Strange Girl.
-o-
"Enrique… you're a psycho." Brooklyn said disbelievingly.
The blonde grinned. "I know! Ollie told me that the next thing I should try is breeding mutant, killer chickens."
"After taking him sky-diving on a first date I have no doubt you will." Brooklyn told him incredulously before frowning for a second. "Could you actually do it?" He wondered aloud.
Enrique looked at Brooklyn, trying to gauge if he was joking, but before he could answer he was interrupted by a raging dark cloud of murderous despair.
"Kai! You're back!" said Enrique, failing to notice Kai's 'cloud' status.
Kai ignored him and sat at his desk, his mind still churning with ideas on how best to dispatch a certain pink-haired Rei-stealer.
"Kai?" Enrique tried again, beginning to realise that it possibly wasn't the best time to attempt to make contact.
When he was ignored again, Enrique shot Brooklyn a look and stood up. "I'm going to go and do that thing." He announced before making good his escape from Kai's dark aura.
Brooklyn blinked at his abandonment. Great. Just great. He thought, sarcastically, turning back to his work, trying to look as small as possible.
Kai ignored Brooklyn and began determinedly typing on his computer and trying not to scoff aloud at the Tate's spinning tops business venture. They had finally realised that spinning tops just weren't going to cut it so they had added into the formula an idea of magic beasts living inside the tops. There had even been talk of a TV show.
Kai sighed as the familiar glare of the computer screen was clouded over by the vision of Rei and Mariah on their lunch date. He shut his eyes only to have the apparition follow him into his head.
Kai stood up abruptly, making Brooklyn jump. "Getting coffee." He muttered before walking away from his desk. As he stepped out from behind his desk he bumped the corner and, cursing quietly to himself, he limped toward their small kitchen, ignoring the sound of breaking glass behind him.
Brooklyn watched Kai leave before tentatively reaching out to pick up the picture frame that had fallen. It was strange that Kai had walked away from his desk after bumping it, let alone after he had broken something. Normally, whenever Kai left his desk he took great pains to have it as tidy and as orderly as possible.
Brooklyn's hand reached the frame and he picked it up, being careful not to cut himself on the glass that had been holding the picture in. The frame came away cleanly, leaving the picture it once contained to sit on the broken glass.
Brooklyn put the frame carefully to the side and picked up the photo. He frowned when he saw it was the photo of Rei.
He mentally slapped himself- Rei's photo was the only personal thing that Kai kept on his desk.
Which begged the question even further. Kai must have known what had broken- why had he walked away?
Brooklyn frowned as he felt a lump of cardboard underneath the photo. He slid the separate object from under Rei's photo, his frown deepening as he looked at it.
It was a much dog-eared business card for a café or restaurant named the Gatling. He scanned the card, thoroughly confused until he came to a line that explained all.
Proprietor: Rei Kon
Brooklyn grinned. Kai keeps knick-knacks. He's human.
"What are you doing? Where's Kai?"
Brooklyn looked up at his second storm cloud of despair for the day, Johnny. "Huh?" He asked intelligently.
"Don't make me repeat myself." Johnny said darkly.
"Um…" Brooklyn looked around, trying to find an out for himself.
"He better not be still on his bloody lunch break." Johnny grumbled murderously.
"Um…" Brooklyn said again, unsure of what to say.
Johnny had explicitly explained the Tate case to both Kai and Brooklyn that morning. More than that, he had explicitly explained that the entirety of their case had to be completed by that afternoon or the contract was off.
It was Brooklyn's private theory that Kai had been the one charged with the task of finishing off all of the money business because Johnny wanted to either have the amusement of watching the bluenette sweat or the euphoria that he would feel if Kai failed, giving the redhead a reason to fire him.
It had infuriated Johnny when he realised that Kai had left for an early lunch.
Kai walked back toward his desk with a cup of coffee and a slightly better frame of mind. He had a vague plan to make Rei understand.
"Kai!" Johnny said, spotting the bluenette. "What the hell are you doing? I told you I want the Tate's finances within this company to be sorted. I want a comprehensive quote of how much it will cost them to even get this thing off the ground. Comprehensive. I want it down to the cost of the catering on the ad-shoot.
"The Tate's are a family with money, unlike yours. Money they want to give to this company. Do you understand me? Money that is vital to keeping us from going under. And you take an early lunch! Obviously you don't understand the gravity of the situation. This is the biggest contract this company has ever even come close to. Every other department has been working overtime to make sure this goes through.
"Except for you, that is. If this thing doesn't happen the blame will rest squarely on your shoulders and don't think that I'll hesitate on placing that blame.
"Do we have an understanding?" Johnny finished, face flushed.
Kai slowly put his cup of coffee down, his plan for Rei slowly reforming in his mind. "I quit." He said quietly.
Johnny's eyes narrowed. "What?"
"I quit." Kai said again, ignoring the image of unpaid bills dancing through his head at the words. Rei was more important.
"You can't."
"I just did." Kai said simply before turning and walking purposefully away from Johnny, his desk, and his picture of Rei.
"Are you forgetting?" Johnny called after him. "I was the only one who'd employ you after what happened with your family. No one in this city will ever employ you. I'll make sure of that."
Kai ignored him and continued to walk away, pausing only to check the clock at reception.
He still had time enough to spend the afternoon at the Gatling.
-o-
-Real Time-
Kai sighed as he sat at the table next to his Rei-wall. He looked up at the many pictures he had taken. He had added to his collection, taking candid picture of Rei at the café.
He studied the picture closest to him, one of Rei as he gave a child a large chocolate cookie. He had leant over the counter to hand over the cookie, the shirt he was wearing riding up at the back to show a sliver of skin in the process.
It was not this that the camera was focussed on, however. The camera had tried to capture the ever-present vibrancy and the life in Rei's eyes as he smiled down at the child.
Unfortunately, Kai's camera didn't have that ability. Rei's eyes appeared like the rest of the photo, 2D and frozen in time.
Kai ignored this fact and continued to study the picture.
The decision to quit his job had been an unplanned blessing in disguise. It allowed him to concentrate on the one important thing, rescuing Rei from Mariah's talons.
Please tell me what you think