Phantom Destiny Part 39 – Openings

A howl of unbridled frustration echoed through the hall outside the penthouse suite of the Tokyo Hilton. The inhuman sound left the two black-suited men posted outside the door staring at each other warily. "Doesn't exactly sound like 'everything's under control' to me," the shorter guard commented.

"Like he said, no one enters or leaves until the press conference later. Doesn't matter what crazy shit we hear in there, we stay out of his way."

The first guard nodded, flicking open his cigarette lighter. "Just like you said. It ain't worth anything getting on the boss's nerves, especially when he's like that.

A loud crash inside the room made both men cringe. "…That's going to be on the bill."

-oOo-

Gorudo panted, arm still outstretched in front of him as glared at the shattered screen across the room.

*Great pitch, genius. Now we have no clock radio and no TV.*

"Do you ever get tiredof talking all the time?" Gorudo snarled, pounding his head back against the headboard of their king-sized bed.

*Normally, maybe. But not today. You know so much about me, Christopher. I want to know more about you.*

"I'm not telling you a thing, you insolent freak! Now shut up!"

*Use your "inside voice", partner. The other patrons are trying to sleep in.*

"I am not your partner, and you are not my equal. You are my possession," Gorudo shouted, his harsh baritone rattling the hotel mirror.

Dark's laughter filled the man's head. *For someone who refuses to open up, you do an awful lot of soliloquy. I wonder how long it will take for your men to start wondering about the sanity of their illustrious boss when he's talking to himself all the time.*

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

*Losing it already, are we? Hey, can you go find a mirror? I bet your face is as priceless as your estate.*

"I can find something better," Gorudo scowled, climbing off the bed and storming to the kitchenette attached to his suite. He tugged out a drawer until it smashed against the end of its glider. His hand emerged with a steak knife. "If you've forgotten your place, I can remind you of it. I may not be able to kill you, but I can bring you to the brink. I'll break you. It's a matter of time, and I've got all the time in the world now."

*Oh, we can see who breaks who. But are you really prepared to cut up your own body just to hurt me?*

"It won't hurt a bit," Gorudo smiled.

*You sure you want to test that theory, right before a press conference?*

"Certain," Gorudo smiled, pressing the knife tip just under his thumbnail. With a shove, he drove the blade underneath and beyond, until the knuckle stopped its progress.

Dark screamed.

The billionaire smirked, admiring his uninjured hand. He threw the knife in the sink. "You'll hurt when I want you to hurt. You'll shut up when I want you to shut up."

At last, there was silence from the being he'd assimilated. Satisfied, Gorudo went to summon his guards. It was time to get dressed for his first day of immortality.

Inside the silent darkness of Gorudo's mind, Dark pinned his screaming hand to his chest. He was in pain, and he was exhausted. The night before had done little to heal him, but it had been worth the effort of keeping Gorudo awake, even if it meant no sleep. He'd used that time to explore, and prod, and dig and dig at the rank pile of garbage that was this man's mind. He'd even felt himself consider, in some of the darker moments, that it was all pointless.

But in fighting the angel, the billionaire had worn his own mind ragged as well. In that moment, when Gorudo had been forcing his blade through the angel's flesh, for just a second, Dark had seen it. A vital microsecond of lax overconfidence. A vulnerability.

A dark smile elbowed the pain out of the angel's expression. He'd found an opening, and he intended to use it.

-o0o0o0—OOO—0o0o0o-

The door to Satoshi's room shut, just a bit too hard.

Satoshi's calm breathing went tensely still. The sound of the door brought forth the awareness of filtered sunlight across his face and warm blankets across his body. Food smells were drifting in from his kitchen. The reminder that he wasn't alone in his apartment thrust him back into awareness of everything that had happened the day before.

However, it wasn't until his now-nervous hands gripped the edge of the blanket, and found absurdly soft feathers instead, that he remembered Krad. His fingers sprang loose from the smooth down and balled up into fists. Krad was behind him. He could feel the angel's body heat next to him on the mattress, as surely as it was radiating through the living blanket stretched over him. His pulse plunged to a hectic rhythm, messy and confused. Krad was right there. He lay very still, as if he'd woken up next to a sleeping nest of hornets. He couldn't move. He had to move.

He very cautiously slid forward, off the side of the bed, legs first, then torso, then the rest, as if he were some gelatinous creature. He melted into a puddle on the floor and lay there, breathless. He listened for sound behind him until his ears were ringing with the even whisper of Krad's breath. He waited for the angel to burst awake and drill a cold yellow stare through his back. After a few moments, when the world didn't explode, he shot upright to size up his accidental bedmate. He fumbled for his glasses and brought the blurry shapes in front of him back into focus.

The angel was lying on his chest, as far as possible toward the opposite edge of the bed, except for the enormous wing that stretched gracefully across Satoshi's half of the mattress. Krad was very still, and showed no sign of waking. Satoshi demoted his code-red panic to yellow-orange and took a half-step toward the bed to study his sleeping counterpart.

Risa always tended to look very peaceful in her sleep. Peaceful wasn't a word Satoshi would use in this context. The sleeping angel looked sedate, but in a tired sort of way. There was a slight tension in his lips and the set of his brows that suggested exhaustion. Krad's back rose and fell softly with his breathing. Some of the wounds on his shoulders and torso already showed signs of healing. Then again, several harsh bruises had also matured over the course of the night. It was rare to see the angel injured, and even rarer to imagine Krad wanting anyone around him in a condition like this.

Why was he here?

Satoshi straightened up. His heart was slamming against his ribs, telling him to get out of that room. He remembered then what had originally woken him up. He'd heard the door close. Now that his reality started to stretch beyond the four-foot radius containing Krad, he became aware again of the sounds of activity in the main room. Who had been in his room earlier? Whoever it was had seen-…

The thought raised a flush to his face. He glanced down at the watch he'd worn to sleep, and realized it was past ten AM. He rushed to the door and into the bright-lit kitchen. "Why didn't anyone wake me?" he demanded as he shut the door firmly behind him.

The others were all awake. The movement of so many bodies in his normally empty apartment was disorienting. For a delusional moment, he almost wanted to retreat back into his room. He made his way to the safety of a stool at the kitchen island instead.

"I should have been up hours ago."

Riku paused in her process of frying a batch of eggs in a huge pan. "You're injured, Satoshi. After yesterday, we thought you could use some extra time." There was a strong underlying concern in her voice that suggested she was worried about more than just Satoshi's physical injuries. "Are you alright?"

Satoshi fought back the sensation that everyone in the room was suddenly tuned in to their conversation. There wasn't much he could do to avoid it. After losing control in front of all of them the night before, it was no wonder they were worried. "I'm fine," he said stiffly.

"Did he tell you why he came back?" Risa asked.

Satoshi grimaced and thought about the desperation on Krad's face the night before. "Probably just because he needed to show off that he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants."

"He flew through a bullet storm and inside a police barrier to get to you, Satoshi," Risa pushed. "That's not the behavior of someone who's after freedom."

The bluenette's gaze hardened. "He's just messing with my head to torture me," he said, standing to get out the paper plates. He leaned against the counter and reached to the top shelf of the cabinet.

"I don't know, seems like he took pretty good care of you last night," Hattori commented.

Satoshi froze and turned to him, his head rushing with panic. "You were the one in my room."

"I wanted to be sure you were alive in there, but you seemed quite cozy," the vet snickered.

Satoshi set the paper plates on the counter and grabbed Hattori by the front of his shirt. "This is not a game, and it's not funny."

Hattori smirked. "It is kind of funny," he insisted, much to the confusion of the others in the room. Apparently he hadn't told anyone else, thank god. "But I wasn't referring to that." He looked pointedly at Satoshi's chest and the way the boy was easily collaring him. "Feeling better much?"

Satoshi blinked. Twelve hours ago, it had been excruciating just to breathe. But he'd just stretched to reach his top shelf, and now he was strong-arming the vet, and he barely even ached. How could he have not noticed? He released Hattori's shirt and stared down at himself. "I don't understand," he barely whispered. "Did you give me something in my sleep?"

"And risk waking that thing? I think not. And in case you're wondering, the only things I've ever seen heal up this quick have been them." He gestured with his thumb to Satoshi's bedroom door.

"Satoshi…" Daisuke said carefully, "When I was in Gorudo's lab, I recovered from severe gunshot wounds in a matter of days. I can already walk without crutches."

"What are you people getting at?" Satoshi growled.

"I think it's possible Dark and Krad can use their links to heal us," the redhead offered.

Satoshi didn't miss a beat. "If that's what happened, it sure as heck didn't happen on purpose."

"Well, is he healed?" Riku asked.

Satoshi rolled his eyes. "How would I know that?"

"You didn't check on him when you got up?" Risa murmured.

"Why are you all suddenly defending him?" the bluenette demanded. "I am not his nurse."

"Sato, I know he's a creepy jerk, but he was shot. What if he went to fever in his sleep or something?"

Hattori chuckled. "Oh, he went to fever, all right."

Satoshi cast the vet a look that could boil steel. "We're done talking about Krad. Where are we on our plans for Gorudo?"

The sudden silence raised his blood pressure.

"Well," Daisuke said quietly. "We've been talking all morning, and there's a plan that could work." He met his friend's eyes apologetically. "But you're not going to like it."

-oO0O0Oo-

Krad's eyes snapped open. He blinked the wall of Satoshi's bedroom into focus and stared at it, hard, until he knew where he was. He rubbed his hand into his hair and drew a slow, deep breath. He'd had dreams before, but never so vividly as he had since obtaining this new body. And of all the things to dream about…

Speaking of which… he raised himself up and looked to be sure the boy was still asleep.

The empty pillow jarred him. He pulled his wing back in against his side, away from the residual warmth Satoshi's body had left on the mattress. He frowned at the empty sheets. He'd meant to wake first. How had the boy reacted, waking up like that?

He forced his sluggish muscles to cooperate as he pushed aside the covers and rolled to his feet. His right leg throbbed angrily. Krad took his weight to the other side and limped to the mirror in the corner.

He didn't feel like himself. He didn't even look like himself. His hair hung long and untied, cascading messily around his shoulders and down to his waist. The rest of him looked like he'd been somebody's punching bag. The angel bent forward and pulled up his right pant leg. The fabric was stiff with dried blood as he tugged it up to his knee. For a moment, his fingers trailed along the darkened bandage Satoshi had wrapped the night before.

He let the fabric fall back into place and met his own yellow eyes in the mirror.

His mind saw something different. "You don't get to waltz in and just screw me up whenever you feel like it!"

He studied his reflection and swallowed. Satoshi's spoken words weren't the only things that stuck with him from last night. In the midst of the boy's emotional collapse, in that chaos of thoughts and feelings, some had actually been intelligible.

*Give up, give up, you naïve idiot. He doesn't care, he'll never give a damn about you.*

The angel slowly reached out and turned on the tap. He splashed water over his face and rubbed, until the last of his and Dark's blood had disappeared down the drain. Then he went back into the bedroom and looked at the door to the main apartment.

He could hear voices, including Satoshi's. The boy hadn't woken him, despite the state they'd been in. Had he been offended? Angry? It occurred to him it would be much easier to know what to think if he saw the bluenette face to face. His gaze fell to the doorknob that would expose him to the crowd he'd intruded upon last night. His hand rested on it, and then dropped back to his side. He turned stiffly away from the voices and back into the bathroom. He wasn't ready to go in that room yet.

It was half an hour later, after a very thorough shower, that he finally ventured back to the knob. Satoshi wasn't the only one in the room to fall silent as the door opened.

Krad was wearing one of Satoshi's towels wrapped tightly around his waist. He glanced out at them warily, hand still on the knob, like he might yet change his mind and retrace his steps back into Satoshi's room. Other than the pure white wings and the inhumanly perfect physique, the angel's appearance was almost ordinary.

"Come in, Krad," Riku said gently, studying the angel as hard as everyone else in the room was.

He stood halfway through the doorway, looking surprisingly modest about showing himself to all these strangers. Their blatant stares didn't help much.

The angel sought out Satoshi and held his gaze in focus. The boy's crystal-blue eyes offered him nothing. "I…wish to borrow some clothes."

Satoshi stood up and walked past Krad without a word. The angel stepped aside, perhaps a little too quickly, to avoid brushing him in the doorway. If the boy's mind had been a broken levee last night, it was an impenetrable dam today. Krad tried in vain to decipher what the boy was thinking as Satoshi knelt down in front of his dresser.

"Abnormal of you to ask for permission," the boy's cold words cut the quiet air as he pulled open a drawer. "Come and pick what you want."

Krad approached the bluenette and knelt next to him. His proximity to the boy left Satoshi's heat radiating on the angel's bare shoulder. The blonde shuddered, far too conscious of the boy's presence. He couldn't seem to concentrate properly. With a soft shake of his head, he reached into the drawer and took a pair of dark jeans and a white cotton button-down shirt. He could feel the boy watching him. He needed to say something.

"Last night, I-"

"Stop." Blue ice froze the rest of the sentence in the blonde's throat. "I don't want to hear any of it."

The angel sat back, caught off guard.

"I'm not a fool," Satoshi warned. "You came here because you want something. Whatever it is, whatever your ploy for showing up like you did, you can forget about it until after I've helped Dark. Daisuke needs me today, and in case your delusional mind is thinking otherwise, he's a whole lot more important than you."

Krad observed the iron expression on Satoshi's face. He pressed back the sense of betrayal that tried to make it to his voice. "Fine."

The boy raised an eyebrow at the angel's yielding tone. "And whatever you're looking for, if you expect me to get it for you, you'll help us, without complaint and without interfering. If not, you can consider that outfit a parting gift. Keep it and get out."

The angel's expression wilted. He looked down at the clothes in his hands.

It seemed to take minutes for Krad to finally murmur, "Yes."

"I thought so. Now get—" Blue eyes flashed to the blonde. The bluenette had been so prepared to corner the angel into his own eviction that at first, he genuinely wasn't sure he'd said his own part right. "What did you just say?" he tried, sounding pale.

Krad rose stiffly back to his feet and looked down at him with an oddly blank expression. Satoshi stared back, more puzzled than ever. The blonde stuffed the clothing under his arm and turned toward the bathroom. Limping, the boy realized. His hand unconsciously went to his healed ribs.

Krad didn't look back when he spoke from the doorway. "I said, I will help you."

-o0o0o-OOO-o0o0o-

To be continued!

Thank you for reading! I'm sorry as always for the wait on this chapter. I got sidetracked on another project—starting a web comic. I am excited about the coming chapters! Shit's going to hit the fan.

Shout outs:

Seriyuu – Thank you so much for reading! I'm sorry for the REALLY long wait!

Hawaiianbabidoll – Thank you for reviewing! Yeah, Risa and Satoshi made a certain kind of sense. I felt the end of the anime kind of implied they would survive together. There was that moment where he was standing there in his ruined shirt and she was mourning Dark and they looked at each other. But I couldn't help feeling like it was a "we both need someone right now" moment, not a "oh, you were right in front of me all along" moment. I felt like the logic of their relationship would kind of go out the window if the things they'd lost returned.

Seylin – Don't worry, Dark's not done fighting! He'd get bored otherwise. *grin* Thank you for your review!

Animeannie – THANK YOU! 3 And as for wanting to pet Krad's wings…. INORITE? *drool*

KathyAnn – Wow, that is a huge compliment to me! I am so flattered that Krad's transition has been believable enough to change your feelings about him. And I totally went there on the Krad X Satoshi thing. Muhaha. Thank you as always for reading and encouraging me!

Son Goshen – Hi there! Thank you for your review! It means so much to know people are enjoying this thing!

Maj156 – Thank you for reviewing! The fluff was surprisingly fun! I have a feeling you're in for more of it quite soon as well.

Turkmen - I am so flattered that you like how Krad has come out! He kind of took on a life of his own. Thank you for reading and for your heartwarming feedback!

Yoruhana Hitsugaya – Woot you're still reading! Hooray fluff!

Yuki Hikari – Yay, I'm so happy you liked the fluff! And thank you for warning me about the typo!

Fireflower19 – I haven't played portal, for some reason, even though I know I would love it! I'm sorry I was so mean to Dark. You have a point that Gorudo can't necessarily be omniscient just from one day in Dark's head. That's going to get more interesting I think as the next chapter starts. Thank you so much for reading and as always for your feedback and reactions!

Girru – I cracked up when you wrote that Krad has PTSD. That is so sad but true. There is going to be more of the "bystanders describing the main characters from third person" in the next chapter ^_^. Also thank you for catching my typo! That thing was in the worst possible place, very distracting.

Stormshadow13 – I am really glad you liked the wing-draping scene! As fluffy as it is, I had fun writing it. Thank you as ALWAYS!

PunkRawkKitteh – Thank you for your lovely review! I love how you describe Krad – "the more contact with humans he gets, the more comfortable he seems". You might just get your wish, as far as your request that he "gets over his pride for once and helps". Hee!

Tokonatsu – Thank you so much for reviewing!

Nanees – I'm so glad you took the time to read this monster! Thank you for reviewing!

Anja-chan – Thank you for your detailed reviews! It is so neat to see stream-of-consciousness style reviews, because it gives me a sense of what your thought process is as you go through this crazy thing. I hope you keep reading!

Arie Blaqie – Thank you! I wasn't originally planning to make Krad such a major character, but yeah…he took on a life of his own and just kind of happened. You're right—I have been pretty mean to Dark. So glad you're reading!