Disclaimer: "Detective Conan" belongs to Gosho Aoyama, and "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon" belongs to Naoko Takeuchi.
This is an alternative story to my other fanfic "Encounter in Venice" and one of the possibilities of what could have happened if Ai had taken the antidote before Shinichi brought down the Organization.
Thanks a lot to my friends and betas Rae (Astarael00) and SN1987a and the Aicoholics on LiveJournal, without whom I would never have started this fic.
This chapter has been betaed by aritzen (SN1987a), who hasn't only kept me motivated for years but is even betaing the long fic now that it has ended. I can't thank her enough!
FS
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Ghost at Twilight
(edited version)
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Even before the scene...
Even before the scene materializes out of the darkness, you can already distinguish the sound of the rain, a pitter-patter of tiny droplets of water against the windowpane, and smell the damp air, which is heavy with the scents of the night. The impersonal tang of the detergent with which the new silk sheets have been washed, the sweet musky fragrance of fresh roses, Gin's new eau de toilette—an intriguingly different aroma compared to his usual one—and the occasional whiff of fresh tobacco...
On the screen, you can see fifteen-year-old Sherry sprawled across the double bed of a luxuriously furnished hotel room, her upper body propped against her elbows and her head cupped in her hands while her eyes are scrutinizing the roses on the bedside table. Gazing past the flowers, she throws a brief glance into the large mirror on the wall when, once again, you are pulled into the depth of the dream, where the boundaries blur between the observer and the observed. Now it is you who turns her attention back to the roses, admiring their deep scarlet colour, their distorted reflections in the sapphire-tinted bouquet vase, and the tiny water drops on their silky petals, which are shimmering mysteriously like tear-shaped jewels on red satin.
Feeling Gin's fingers in your hair, you pull yourself up into a sitting position, turn your face towards him, and placidly receive his kisses with the same mixed emotions you've had since your first date. It is rather enjoyable, the sensation of his lips on yours, warm and soft, with an underlying sincerity and affection you would never have expected from a man like him. Or this nostalgic feeling you always have when you run your fingers through his long smooth hair like you did in your childhood days before you were moved to the orphanage of the Organization. Even when you were abroad you always clung to those memories, promising yourself that—one day, when you were a grown-up—you would return to Azabu Juuban, where he lived, and find an excuse to run your fingers through his hair again.
During the moments when you can forget that the hands caressing you can also kill without hesitation, you feel like surrendering to these gentle hands.
Whenever you meet, he always smells of something pleasant, especially tonight when he has exchanged his usual eau de toilette for a more natural yet more seductive one. The intoxicating fragrance of orange blossoms combined with the languidly smooth scent of sweet osmanthus lace exotic charm with a touch of warmth, overwhelming you with a vague sense of sadness, whose cause you can't put your finger on. Nevertheless, you like the scent of his hair and his skin and don't even mind the smell of fresh tobacco, which always mingles with his. When he pushes you back on the bed and deepens the kiss, however, you taste the tobacco and hate it.
No, you tell him as he takes off your nightdress and his shirt. During the two months with him, you've developed the ability to recognize his intentions just by looking into his eyes. Even though you intend to put it off as long as possible, you know it can't be avoided if you want to stay with him. Sometimes you wonder why you're still resisting him now that there is no spot on your body he hasn't already kissed. But despite your own confusion about your obstinate refusals, which are trying his patience, you've always successfully managed to keep him from going all the way with you.
"Why not?" he asks as the clothes land on the floor.
"I don't know," you sigh as he kisses your breast. "Maybe I just don't want it yet."
He stops and brushes your hair away from your face to gaze into your eyes. In the artificial light, his green irises appear almost blue while his blonde hair seems almost silvery-white—a chameleon-like change that always fascinates you for no apparent reason.
"Still afraid of me, aren't you?" He smirks. "But don't be a hypocrite and pretend that you don't want this."
Grudgingly, you admit to yourself that he is right. And yet you aren't sure whether your desire to give in is only an unfortunate byproduct of your childish infatuation and raging hormones or rather the inborn curiosity of a scientist and your appreciation of his tantalizing perfume.
"I just don't like the idea of being used and then cast away like all the other women you've been with. Why don't you keep things between us as they are now and go get someone else for a one-night stand?" From past experience, you know that pretending to be jealous and insecure of his feelings is the best way to keep his hands off you without insulting him. Bored out of his mind by sentimental and clingy women, he usually loses all interest when you allude to the issue of commitment.
For all that... while a part of you sincerely wishes that he will get tired of you sooner or later and finally leave you for good, another part of you—unfortunately the stronger one—still clings to the fading hope that your love can conquer his malicious side, turning him inside out like a double-sided jacket and dragging him with you from the darkness into the magical twilight.
"I haven't been seeing anyone apart from you these days, which is exactly the reason why I can't wait any longer for this!" With a smirk, he rips off your lovely white silk slip, which you liked so much that having it destroyed in such a way fills you with indignation at the person who committed the heinous offence. Smiling at him in mock shyness, you gently run your hands through his hair and then jerk violently at it.
As expected, he points his Beretta at you and you smile again, obediently apologizing and pulling him down to you for a kiss.
"Nice scent," you tell him between two new kisses, wrapping your arms around him in an affectionate hug. "Orange blossoms, isn't it? With a note of sweet osmanthus, I think. Why are there so many names for the same plant? Sweet osmanthus, sweet olive, fragrant olive, osmanthus fragrans..."
"Kinmokusei, they call it here in Japan." He strokes your hair with his free hand and attentively examines it, wrapping a few short strands around his long finger. "In one or two weeks, the whole city will smell of it."
One or two weeks are too long, you realize, wondering how you're going to appease him with endless kissing throughout your whole trip without driving him crazy until he really uses his Beretta on you. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow at the latest it will be game over. Rolling to the side, you slide from the bed, hide behind the curtain, and open the window. The scent of kinmokusei outside is still barely noticeable; and yet there is a hint of it in the damp air, lingering there like a vague promise of an attainable dream.
With a shiver, you close the window, draw the curtain, and reach for your nightdress, whereupon he kicks it away and pulls you back into the bed next to him. Throwing his knee over your hips and shifting his weight to make sure that you can't escape him again, he raises himself up on one elbow, places your head into his palm, and smirks.
"You've been evading me for two months." He gives a small chuckle, fastidiously removing a reddish hair from your hip with his left hand, in which he is still holding the Beretta. "No woman has ever dared to do this to me. I've really enjoyed the hunt, my little Sherry, but even I have my limit!"
"Not yet," you insist, nestling your head against his shoulder. Pulling the cover over both of you, you give his neck a chaste kiss. "It's late and I'm tired. Let's postpone it until another time... tomorrow, if you like..."
Much to your relief, he doesn't throw a tantrum but puts the Beretta aside before he reaches out for the lighter and the cigarette case on the bedside table to light himself a cigarette with his free hand without letting you go. Now he is smoking silently while you've comfortably settled yourself half on top of him, arms and legs entangled with his, unscrupulously misusing his body as a pillow or a giant plush animal. Despite his violent character, he has enough self-respect not to force a woman into giving him what he wants, you acknowledge in satisfaction, breathing in his beautiful new scent. If it weren't mixed with this aura of cruelty you've begun to detect whenever you're in the vicinity of a codename member, you would love it. Without his unwanted advances, the atmosphere has become drowsy and pleasant.
"You've been acting strangely since the incident with the red-haired woman," he remarks between one pull and another, exhaling the smoke with obvious enjoyment. "Does it make a difference to you to know that she has survived?"
"Has she?"
"They both have... He with just a few scratches, she with a few more. The only one I killed that day was the guy who joined us for dinner and tried to blackmail me with the photos he had taken of us. I don't like the fact that you show so much interest in a complete stranger, though, and a woman, at that." From the corner of your eye, you can see his lips curve in a suggestive smirk. "I didn't expect that you swing both ways."
"Didn't it ever occur to you that I might not swing either way?" You turn away from him to avoid the smoke, and add in an attempt to account for your behaviour, "I don't like purposeless destruction. You told me yourself that one should save one's energy and stay inconspicuous. I didn't want her to get hurt since she didn't have anything to do with the Organization."
"If I had wanted to kill her, she would be dead by now just like the little traitor I took care of that night! As it was, she was only collateral damage. Your foolish sympathy would bother me very much if I weren't sure that it's only your well-developed sense of beauty. You wouldn't have cared at all if she had been an ugly dwarf like the one I shot."
"His looks didn't really matter because he deserved it." You yawn, relieved that he is in an agreeable mood despite your stubborn refusal. The person he killed was a greedy little leech who had been leering at you for the whole evening—a natural sadist and blackmailer who had joined the Organization of his own accord, hobnobbed with the codename members, and grossly overestimated his own abilities when he chose Gin out of all people as his next victim. His death didn't move you a bit, and the only thing which depressed you when you learned about it was the fact that the murderer was Gin, who uncaringly chose your first date to do away with him.
He has just put out his cigarette and is now kissing your neck again, stripping off his briefs before turning you round to face him. Trapped by the old mesh of fear and desire, you feverishly try to come up with another topic of conversation to distract him and yourself.
"Say, does it belong to your job?" you ask in a light-hearted voice. "Executing the traitors of the Organization? You told me once your job is to handle the most important financial transactions."
"Hmm," he only mutters, gently grabs your knee to pull your hips towards his, and shuts you up with a kiss.
"Is it true that one can buy oneself out of the Organization as that man said?" You move away from him, inwardly congratulating yourself for remembering the conversation at the table when the "ugly dwarf" proposed buying Gin and you out of the Organization so that you two could "enjoy a lifelong honeymoon together" while he took over Gin's cocktail name and position in the Organization. "How much would one have to pay for the two of us?"
Gin instantly stops and gazes hard at you, his eyes startlingly bright and unreadable.
"I'm only curious." You give an indifferent shrug, surprised by your own boldness. "It's rather dangerous to let the members quit like that, isn't it? Someone could get the idea to go to the police and spill whatever they know about the Organization."
"Insignificant members can always leave whenever they want to... if they can pay a sum big enough to buy themselves out." He eyes you warily. "With all their personal data stored in our files, they can't do any harm to the Organization. No one in their right mind would risk their lives and those around them to go to the police without a shred of evidence. There is no such thing for people with cocktail code names like us, though."
"And how big is the sum one has to pay?" you ask, excited at the prospect that, if only you work hard enough and save up, Akemi-nee-san can be free one day.
"Depends on how much that person knows and how long they've been with us. It doesn't start under a hundred million yen, though. For those who've been raised by us and have relatives and friends within the Organization, it starts at a billion yen."
You can feel your enthusiasm shrinking. Nevertheless, the glimmer of hope his statement aroused is not that easy to extinguish. Brimming with youthful confidence, you tell yourself that, for a fifteen-year-old who is working on a project like APTX4869 and going out with Gin, saving up a billion yen may be a considerable challenge but not an impossible task.
"Too bad we two can't buy us out of the Organization," you joke, as he has begun to kiss you again and—which is even more unsettling—is working himself down from your belly to rather intimate spots. "I guess we'll have to go away without their consent."
He groans. Grabbing your wrists and pinning you on the bed, he towers over you threateningly, fixing your eyes with an intense green gaze.
"I know you love to play with fire, Sherry," he hisses. "But if you don't stop now, I'm forced to conclude that you're planning to leave us. It would be such a shame because I'd have to put holes into this gorgeous body of yours here and now."
"Didn't you ever consider it?" you continue, feeling strangely secure despite his threats. "We'd be working regular hours and then have the whole night for us, switching off the phones during our dates for once so that we wouldn't be disturbed all the time. No one would try to spy on us. I think I'd actually like it if we were free to do whatever we wanted."
That must be sufficient to ruin the mood for him for tonight, you think. Now he is going to launch into a tirade about your stupidity and forget what he has set out to do in the first place.
He stares at you, incredulous, before he lets himself sink down next to you and begins to laugh uncontrollably.
"Freedom? You're still a naive little brat, after all," he sighs after his fit is gone. "Freedom... Don't make me laugh! One is always a prisoner outside the Organization or inside it. It's security and a good life which really matter. You've been sheltered by the Organization since your birth. A greenhouse flower like you can't imagine how it is... the realities of true freedom..."
Taken aback by the bitterness in his voice, you reach out a tentative hand to stroke his cheek, but he slaps it away and grabs your wrist again, looking furious.
"Don't ever dare to pity me," he says, his voice icy and cutting. "I don't mind your little games as long as you stay within the boundaries I set. Step on them and you'll get to see what happens. I swear you won't like it."
You stare at each other in silence until he pulls you on top of him, kissing you with unfamiliar harshness.
"It doesn't matter whether we belong to the Organization or to the FBI or to another group," he whispers, cupping your face with a dark smile. "The rules are always the same and it's the strong ones who survive in the end. The woman you liked and pitied so much... She belongs to the weak. There is no place in this world for people like her. Just accept it."
"I'm weak, too," you admit, feeling miserable.
"I'd like it if you were a bit weaker." He grins. "But since it's almost midnight and I've been waiting for so long, the few minutes don't really matter."
In answer to your inquiring gaze, he indicates the clock on the wall with a movement of his head and smirks.
"Tomorrow, you said. Don't go back on your promise!"
"I don't want to play games," you explain in a desperate attempt to free yourself from the trap you've dug. Lost for words, you don't know what else to tell him apart from the naked truth. "I've loved you since forever. I wanted a real relationship, not this... You don't really need me for this. Why are we together if you don't even trust me?"
"Trust?" he exclaims in surprise. "You think I don't trust you after I've told you about Pandora's Box and given you the key?"
"But that was a joke? Wasn't it?" You stare at him, incredulous, as you recall the wild story he told you last night when you two shared a bottle of sherry. "You were drunk. I'd never have thought Pandora's Box was real."
"It's just as real as the fact that I'm one of the crows guarding it. Don't let the other members know that you know about it, and don't sing the song to anybody."
He is now stroking your hair with a mysterious smile, singing the hauntingly sad song you heard for the first time last night.
"Fear and selfishness are the most reliable feelings, and knowledge is the key to power. All the information we've collected about the most powerful people in the world, all the dirty little secrets that should never be revealed, a tight-mesh net through which only a few of the politicians will fall... The Organization will always control the world as long as Pandora's Box exists, and it's my duty to guard it. Do you understand now why I can never leave the Organization? Pandora's Box deserves my absolute loyalty—so does the Boss, who saved my life when no one cared whether a brat like me survived or died. Even if all of the other members were gone, the last one to stay would be me. You either have to stick by me for life or we two will be enemies."
"And we don't want to become enemies so soon, do we?" you joke in an attempt to turn away from the truth that you will never be able to live a normal life with him. "You should never have taught me how to use a weapon! As it is, our fight would end deadly, considering our shooting skills. Let's postpone it until I'm eighty."
Slowly and gently, he traces the outlines of your face with a grim look in his eyes.
"Don't fool around with this, Sherry." He smiles at last. "You think I can't kill you but I assure you that I can! I've never trusted a woman in my life but you. If you ever think of betraying me, it will be the end of us. Trying to hide from me would be futile because I will hunt you down and find you no matter where you are. I will kill you and all the people near you, without exception! Don't think I'd hesitate even for a moment because of love. Love is fleeting and insignificant. Loyalty will always be the most important thing for me."
"Your notion of loyalty is rather warped and one-sided, isn't it?" you retort in bitterness. "You mean you can mess around with other women while I have to sit in my apartment like a lovesick fool, waiting for you to come to me whenever you feel like it."
"If that's the only thing you're worried about—I swear I won't ever touch another woman as long as you don't betray me."
You blink at him in surprise, astonished by the simplicity of his words. While his eyes are still sharp and mocking when he smirks at you, there is also something staggeringly serious in them, something vulnerable and hopeful as if he genuinely felt some sort of emotional attachment.
"To be the only one for me... Wasn't that what you've always wanted? Let's do it for real, then. The papers can wait until you're old enough." Trailing the tips of his long fingers down your back, he wraps his arms around you, presses you to him with an almost boyish grin, and poetically adds, "In sickness and in health, till death do us part..."
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A/N: I've finally dealt with the post-vacation laundry-of-doom, but the weather has been so great that it's hard for me to focus… *hiding her paints
furr: lol You aren't the only one. ;)