Deals

mellbell: . . . I suppose I should mention that the entire fic is up on my livejournal, shouldn't I. ^^; Thanks for the review! I've justed edited my info page here to include a link to the fic as a whole, so in case anyone else doesn't want to wait for me to post the rest here, go look!

Pairing: I AIN'T SAYING. Because it's complicated, whut. Just so you know, though, the three main characters of the fic are Ken, Crawford, and Farfarello.

Warnings: Graphic violence, graphic sex (twosome and threesome - what is it with me and writing porny threesomes?), spoilers, AU by the end of the fic, and mental disorders up the wazoo. Yeah. (It's got Farfarello in it. Of course there's stuff about mental disorders. ;P)

Disclaimer: Me no own. Me no claim me own. You no sue.

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Deals Part 3

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“Ken-kun, have you seen—” Omi broke off abruptly, entering the Koneko’s front room and staring at Ken. “What are you doing?”

“Moving this board into the back room, what does it look like I’m doing?” Balancing on a stool, Ken carefully loosened the screws in the brackets that held the cork notice board up, then dropped the screwdriver into his apron pocket and stretched his arms out to grip the edges of the board. “I think that’s got it. . . .”

“Ken-kun, stop! At least let me help you carry it,” Omi said in exasperation. “Get off that stool, too. You’re just going to fall off and injure yourself.”

Ken blinked, then grinned at his friend, climbing off the stool and kicking it to the side. “Thanks, Omi!”

“You’re going to be the one to explain this move to Aya-kun, though,” the blond boy added.

“Hey!”

“It’s your idea, after all.”

Ken sighed, and put it out of his mind. “You get that end, I’ll take this one,” he said, getting into position. “We’re going to have to lift it up until the top hits the screws and then pull it away from the wall. The brackets narrow at the top to hold it on safer, so we can’t just yank it off as it is.”

Omi frowned at the board. “Shouldn’t we take the notices off first?”

“Nah, we’d only have to put them back on again.”

“What if they fall off?”

“You put them on. Do you really think they’re going to?”

“Probably not.” Shrugging, Omi took position at his end of the board and gripped it securely. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“On three. One, two, three!”

Lifting, they carefully manoeuvred the board out from behind the counter and into the back room. Setting it to rest against the table, Ken massaged his fingers, noticing Omi doing the same. “That thing’s heavier than I thought it would be,” he admitted ruefully. “Thanks for the help.”

Omi grinned at him. “Any time,” he said. “Although . . . Ken-kun?” He frowned. “Where are we going to put it?”

Ken blinked, then looked at the walls around them.

Walls covered with shelves holding plant after plant after plant.

“. . . Ah.”

Omi covered his eyes. “You didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Not . . . as such, no.”

Omi sighed, then frowned, calculating what could move where in order to make room for the board. “Why did you want it moved back here so desperately, anyway?”

Ken tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. “We don’t put up any customer details or the addresses of where we’re delivering things, but it does have a list of what’s ready to deliver and what we’ve yet to do, not to mention what they’re all for,” he said. “Someone’s already commented on it, so I just thought it would be better back here. Privacy, you know.”

Omi looked mildly surprised. “That’s actually a good reason.”

“Hey!”

“I was expecting it to have something to do with that mysterious admirer of yours,” the blond boy added, grinning.

Ken blushed, then cursed himself as Omi’s eyes went wide.

“. . . does it?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“It does!” Omi took on a delighted grin. “So he came back?”

“No comment!” Ken hurriedly decided where the board would best fit and started moving the plants that were in the way onto other shelves, wherever there was space.

“So the fact that our shop schedules are up on the board as well wouldn’t have anything to do with this move, would it?” Omi settled back against the table, grinning as he watched the tips of Ken’s ears go red. “Thought so.”

“He’s just playing around,” Ken muttered, searching for a place to put the pot in his arms.

“Uh huh. Someone who checks your timetable so that he can catch you on your own isn’t just ‘playing around’, Ken-kun.”

“How do you know I was on my own?” Ken asked suspiciously. He’d been sure Omi had stopped watching him.

“Because every other time you’ve been on shift since your admirer first showed up either Yohji-kun or I have been on with you, and we’ve been paying very close attention for any hints of this mysterious man,” Omi told him, grinning. “I thought you hadn’t noticed.”

Ken rolled his eyes. “Great, now I have three stalkers. Are you going to help me with this or not?”

“So he’s a stalker now?”

“Omi!”

Still grinning, Omi moved to take the plants Ken was holding. He could torment the older boy later . . . when Yohji was around to help.

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Farfarello eyed the café curiously. He’d not been in such a place before, and it was intriguing him. Caffeine addicts reminded him of mankind’s self-destructive nature – their hands shook and faces were pale, but still they came back for more of what made them ill. The café was just another in a chain of brothels of addiction, where the trendy intellectual class of socialites could come and cover themselves with a thin veneer of sophistication in order to pretend that they were better than the average man, when in reality the only difference was a caffeine addiction.

Caffeine. The cause of stress disorders, anxiety disorders, attention disorders, depression, ulcers, malnutrition, and one fifth of all fatal heart attacks.

And yet cafés were reputed to be the official haunts of sophisticated intellectuals, those on the cutting edge of modern philosophy. The desirables of society, as it were.

Cafés amused Farfarello.

What amused him even more was how Crawford would have seemed to blend in with the young, up-and-coming executive business types scattered around, except for the fact that Farfarello was sitting at his table – scarred and foreign and vicious-looking. His smile grew wider as he caught a group of schoolgirls giving him nervous glances.

Sheep are stupid. Even with the wolf right out in front of them, they don’t realise the true danger.

“Don’t,” Crawford muttered, flicking his newspaper to straighten it.

“Just one?”

“No. Stop it.”

Farfarello sighed and slumped back in his seat. His coffee sat untouched; the scent of it nauseated him, but its black depths fascinated him, and so he bought a cup and stared at it. Crawford drank his coffee, because (Farfarello was sure) it amused him to privately mock people.

The Irishman felt like pouting, and almost gave into the impulse, knowing it would scare the rest of the people in the café in an entirely new way. A day without blood, a day without a fight, was not a good day.

“You’ll get your fight,” Crawford murmured.

Farfarello blinked his lone eye at the man. “Have you stolen Schuldig’s gift?”

“There are two paths the future can go down right now,” Crawford replied, ignoring the question. “Either you decide you’ve had enough and follow those girls into a secluded area, or you wait for a few more minutes and get a much more satisfying battle than the slaughter of sheep.”

His oracle knew him so well.

“Can I kill whoever this will be?”

“No. You’ll see why.”

Content, Farfarello settled back in his seat and closed his eye, staring at the pattern of red on the inside of his eyelid. When he turned his head from side to side, the red shifted, and he amused himself with thinking his long-gone eye was observing the blood that had run over it when he’d torn it from his skull.

A bare few minutes had passed when Farfarello heard Crawford put down his paper. “Hidaka-san,” the older man said. “How good of you to join us.”

“What’s he doing here?”

Farfarello smiled, slowly, relishing the sound of Siberian’s voice. Opening his eye, he met the cat’s wary stare with a bloodthirsty one of his own.

He would have to thank Crawford for this later. It had been far too long since he’d had an adequate battle.

“Farfarello has come to join us because, despite his appearance, he has an astute and capable mind,” Crawford said smoothly, rising to his feet. “Albeit one that takes a strange route around most topics. Would you like something to drink?”

Farfarello watched as Hidaka turned his gaze away, looking at the one-eyed man’s teammate. It was intriguing to see how Hidaka’s tensed shoulders relaxed slightly when he met Crawford’s gaze, a telling betrayal of his inner state. “Just water, please.”

“Sparkling or non?”

“Non-sparkling, please.”

“Nothing caffeinated?” Farfarello asked.

Hidaka’s shoulders tensed once more, but there was a challenge on his face when he turned to look at the other man. “I don’t drink caffeine,” he said flatly, holding the seated man’s gaze. He was holding himself rigidly, as though expecting to fight.

Something sparked inside Farfarello, a slow smile spreading over his face as he nodded to the Weiss member. Was this what made Crawford so fascinated with the kitty? When you thought he was one thing, he showed you he was something else. When you thought you could classify him, when you thought you could mock him privately – even on such a little thing – he foiled your plans without even knowing.

Farfarello wanted to know how many times he could be surprised.

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Ken was edgy.

Of course, that wasn’t surprising, seeing as he was currently sipping a glass of water while sitting next to two of his worst enemies, one of whom was a freaking psycho.

He had to wonder why the hell he’d come in the first place. So far in their little meeting Crawford had given him his water – then sat down and started reading the paper again. After Ken had told Farfarello he didn’t drink caffeine, the other man gave him a scary grin and proceeded to stare at him – without blinking – while he took a seat and sipped his drink.

And what the hell was up with the caffeine question, anyway?

Ken sighed, and kicked Crawford. “You going to read that all day, or did you just invite me here so . . . he could memorise my face?”

Crawford folded down a corner of the newspaper and peered at him over it. “You didn’t read the paper,” he said.

“What the bloody hell does that have to do with anything?”

“A lot.” With that, Crawford snapped the paper back into place and resumed ignoring him.

Ken stared at where the older man’s face had been, then let out a disgusted snort and slammed his glass down on the table, climbing to his feet. He was about to stalk off when Farfarello called out his name.

“What?” Ken snapped, half-turning towards the table.

The one-eyed man’s gaze was calm. “It was mineral water, not tap water.”

Ken stared at him for a moment, before the meaning of the words sank in. Rolling his eyes, he slapped a few hundred yen on the table and stalked off.

Behind him, Crawford and Farfarello sat in silence for a time. Eventually, Crawford took a sip of his coffee and murmured, “You know you want to.”

A long, slow smile that had far too many teeth in it spread over the one-eyed man’s face. He slid a hand along Crawford’s face as he rose, stroking the skin and relishing the strange looks his affectionate gesture garnered from the other inhabitants of the café. “I owe you.”

“Remember that the next time you see a nun.”

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It didn’t take long for Farfarello to find Siberian. The other man was only a few streets away from the café, taking a more roundabout to return to the Koneko – if that was where he was going. If it wasn’t, Farfarello could at least give the man more credit for realising Schwarz probably knew where Weiss lived by now.

Schuldig had once remarked that Kritiker hardly bothered to cover up the whereabouts of their lone lethal team at all. What protection there was came almost solely from little Tsukiyono, and with their employers so indifferent over their employees’ safety, it was a wonder Weiss had survived as long as they had. The German had put it down to the natural resilience of every Weiss member. They just didn’t know when they should give themselves up for dead, kind of like cockroaches.

Farfarello hoped Schuldig was right.

Farfarello’s foot nudged some gravel, and he watched with interest as Hidaka’s shoulders tensed. The young man said nothing, however, the tension gradually draining from his muscles as he kept moving through the streets. His course seemed to have altered, however, guiding the two of them further away from the busier streets of Tokyo.

The white-haired man had his suspicions, and considered them confirmed when Hidaka turned into an empty alleyway and stopped. The alley he’d chosen was on an old industrial estate, abandoned as Tokyo’s manufacturing industry gradually downsized, and far from any potential bystanders.

Turning, Hidaka glowered at him. “Do you really think you don’t stick out in the middle of a bunch of dark-haired, unscarred Japanese citizens?” he asked rhetorically. “What the hell are you following me for, anyway?”

“The oracle told me I would battle today,” Farfarello told him.

Siberian’s stance shifted, the tension he had forcibly dissipated crashing back on him. “Hardly a fair fight,” he said, eyeing the other man warily. “You have knives and I don’t.”

Farfarello grinned. “God didn’t make life fair,” he said. “A flawed deity with a flawed creation.” With that, he lunged.

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Crawford found himself whistling out of sheer malicious joy as he left the café. He had no idea what the actual outcome of the fight between Farfarello and Hidaka would be, but something was telling him that it would be nothing but good – and it was very, very rare that his feelings on such matters were wrong. Not even Farfarello had blindsided him on this, which only meant that it was extremely irritating that his ‘feelings’ were so vague.

Today, however, he was in far too good a mood to allow that to get him down. Instead, he focussed on buying a bottle of antiseptic, some cotton swabs and a few rolls of bandages in preparation for Farfarello’s return that evening. Even when faced with the prospect of a damaged lover who would inevitably make the damage worse simply from not being able to feel it, Crawford’s good mood remained. He put it down to having finally made a decision concerning Hidaka, and where this experiment was going.

Put bluntly, he was going to stop it.

Hidaka’s unpredictable flips from tense, mistrusting, violent assassin into someone who melted into a kiss and would let an enemy fuck them in the middle of a public park were far more interesting to play with than attempting to mould him for a specific purpose.

If Hidaka switched while Farfarello was fighting him, Crawford mused, it would be interesting to see whether he turned into the same sort of person for the Irishman as for Crawford himself. And if he didn’t become anyone new, it would be equally interesting to gauge Farfarello’s reaction to it.

Crawford’s feeling was telling him that whatever the reaction, he would like it.

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Holy shit! the little voice in Ken’s mind yelped. Ken ignored it and threw himself to the right, dodging the thin blade that pierced the air where his ribcage had been.

Farfarello twisted, his other hand thrusting a knife towards Ken’s new position. Ken reacted on instinct, ducking under his opponent’s outstretched arm and running headlong for the alley’s exit. Why the hell didn’t you grab a weapon before stopping? the little voice yelped at him. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than going for one now!

He didn’t do anything in the café! Ken snarled back.

That was IN A CAFÉ! You’re not in a public place any more!

He burst into an open area, casting around for a weapon. He had no hope of getting one off Farfarello, that was for sure – if he went for one hand, he’d be stabbed by the other, and trying to disarm Farfarello while dealing him enough damage to keep him down for a while was just asking to get his arse kicked. He’d chosen this area in part because it had been a dumping ground for construction materials, so there had to be something here.

He hoped.

Ken heard a soft sound behind him and threw himself flat, narrowly missing one of Farfarello’s blades. Rolling onto his side, he pivoted on his elbow and kicked backwards and upwards, his heel connecting solidly with the side of the psycho’s torso. Using the time knocking Farfarello off balance had bought him, Ken scrambled to his feet and charged into the debris littering the yard.

Gotta think gotta think . . . what the fuck can I use as a weapon? Ken thought frantically, charging through the piles of junk. Bricks, bricks, dried cement mix, support frames – aha!

Lunging at one pile, he yanked a short length of metal pipe from it, holding it like a club. It wasn’t as good as his claws, but better than nothing. Now, where is he?

. . . Good question.

Holding himself still, Ken strained his ears for any hint of Farfarello’s whereabouts. His muscles were tensed, ready to dodge, the metal pipe held stiffly before him.

Suddenly, debris from the pile of junk behind him clattered down around him, and Ken pivoted, catching Farfarello’s knife on the metal pipe. A horrid screech filled the air as the blade sheered along the pipe, and Ken swore as his opponent’s other hand came up, slashing his cheek.

Ken rammed the end of the pipe into Farfarello’s chest and sprang back, eyeing him warily. His cheek burned where the knife had split the skin, but the blood wasn’t dripping down his cheek in large enough quantities for it to be a deep cut.

“Is the kitty-cat done with running away?” Farfarello rasped, the pupil of his single eye so dilated that the iris was nothing more than a thin circle of yellow surrounding it.

“The scores are a bit more even, now,” Ken said grimly, hefting the pipe.

Farfarello smiled, and the little voice in the back of Ken’s mind screamed PSYCHO! and whimpered. “I’m not the one who’s bleeding,” the Schwarz member said, drawing out the last word as though he could taste it.

He probably wants to, that voice said. You know, the sane thing to do right now would be to RUN!

“I’m not running,” Ken snapped, in answer to both his opponent and that irritating voice. From his perspective, they were almost the same thing right now.

Farfarello’s grin widened. “Good,” he said, and lunged.

Both hands on the pipe, Ken swung the bottom end across his body to knock Farfarello’s right arm away, then twisted to his left and rammed the top end of the pipe into his opponent’s left shoulder. Farfarello grinned, unperturbed, and thrust his remaining knife towards Ken’s unprotected torso.

Ken yelled wordlessly and twisted his arms down, trying to move the pipe where it could intercept the knife. Unused to fighting with a weapon other than his claws, however, he didn’t make it in time and the knife punctured deep into his forearm.

Clenching his teeth against the sudden pain, Ken kicked Farfarello viciously and threw himself backwards. His arm stung, blood running freely down his forearm onto his hand and making his grip on the pipe slippery. Farfarello grinned at him, looking far too pleased with himself and making no move to attack.

I’m not used to fighting like this, and it’s slowing me down, Ken thought, narrowing his eyes as he snarled at Farfarello. If it slows me down too much, I’m dead. My arm won’t be much use if I get another hit, and that guy just doesn’t lay down and die when he should.

I’ve got to end this soon.

Making a snap decision, Ken threw the pipe at Farfarello and charged headlong into him, tackling the other man as he brought his arms up out of instinct to bat the pipe away. Ken’s shoulder slammed into Farfarello’s chest, throwing them both backwards into another pile of junk, scraping along their skin. Hearing the clatter of the other man’s knives hitting the ground, Ken reared backwards, clenching his fist and ignoring the pain from his cut as he slammed it into Farfarello’s face. Snarling, he grabbed Farfarello’s head with both hands and pounded his skull on the ground beneath them.

A fist caught Ken in the jaw and threw him sideways, Farfarello twisting to knee him in the stomach. Ken doubled over, wheezing, his blood pounding with anger and adrenaline. He felt savage, the need to rip his opponent apart with his bare hands almost overwhelming.

He was enjoying this.

Has anyone ever told you that you need psychological help?

Shut the fuck up and let me kill this bastard, Ken snarled at the little voice, forcing himself to block Farfarello’s next punch. The insane man hadn’t pulled out any more of his knives, leaving them grappling with each other bare-handed.

Farfarello bit down on the junction of Ken’s shoulder and neck, his teeth tearing into the skin. Ken yelled in pain and bucked, twisting so he could slam Farfarello down. The knock to his head jarred the other man’s jaws loose, and Ken lurched back, snarling at the sight of his blood on Farfarello’s mouth. “Fucking psycho,” he growled.

Farfarello stood up slowly and spat to the side, a mix of blood and torn skin hitting the ground. His lip was split, the back of his head bloody, but he grinned at Ken as if there was absolutely nothing wrong. “I want more,” Farfarello said, grinning. His teeth had blood on them.

The edges of Ken’s vision tinged red, and he lunged. Farfarello grabbed his outstretched arm and swung him around against a large concrete slab, knocking the wind out of him. He pressed Ken up against it with his own body, and wrapped his fingers around the other man’s neck.

“May God arise, may His enemies be scattered,” Farfarello said, so close Ken could feel his breath on his cheek. Choking, Ken clawed at the hands around his neck, trying to kick the other man off him. He couldn’t connect to flesh, however, as Farfarello thrust his hips between Ken’s legs, rubbing against him in a parody of lust. “May His foes flee before him. As smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow them away; as wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. Psalm 68, verses one and two.” Farfarello leaned in close and whispered in Ken’s ear, fingers flexing as the heels of his hands crushed Ken’s windpipe. “Unfair, isn’t it? Who are the wicked? Those who God condemns. Why are they wicked? Because God condemns them.” Drawing backwards, Farfarello licked the blood delicately from the cut on Ken’s face. “I will make a new way,” Farfarello said, lips against Ken’s cheek as his hands choked the life out of him. “I will slaughter those deemed righteous, and save those deemed wicked. Then we will see who is the stronger – God, or me.”

Drawing back, Farfarello placed a light, mocking kiss on Ken’s lips. Ken bit his lip, tasting Farfarello’s blood as his teeth sank into the soft flesh, and saw something spark on the other’s face. In an instant, the hands around his neck were sinking into his hair, yanking his head back as Farfarello devoured his mouth.

Suddenly, Ken registered the hard body between his thighs. Farfarello’s hips thrust against his, his thumbs hitting a pressure point to force Ken’s jaw open, and the feeling of the insane man’s clothed erection pressing against his while his tongue thrust in rhythm against Ken’s sent a spark of white-hot lust shooting along his spine.

Ken moaned as the adrenaline in his veins abruptly changing to arousal. Their kiss was hot and raw, lips and teeth and tongue clashing together fiercely, the passion of their fight altered to another form. Ken could taste blood in the other man’s mouth, both his and Farfarello’s, and that thought made him surge up against the taller man, grinding his hips into him. Farfarello slammed him back into the wall, sparks exploding behind his eyes as his head hit the concrete.

Abruptly, Farfarello ended their kiss and dropped to his knees, undoing Ken’s jeans, his mouth around Ken’s cock in a matter of moments. Ken cried out, gripping tight handfuls of white hair in shock and arousal.

Farfarello sucked him hard, gripping his buttocks to hold him still as he bobbed his head up and down Ken’s length. Farfarello seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and it felt like it was only a few moments later when Ken came hard down his throat, his fingers clenching in the short white hair.

The Irishman’s mouth slid wetly off Ken’s cock, his lips glistening with saliva. Suddenly exhausted, Ken’s knees buckled as the pain from the injuries he’d sustained in their fight abruptly made themselves known, and Farfarello let him sink gently to the ground. He kissed Ken’s forehead gently, like one would do to a child.

“The oracle says you remind him of me,” Farfarello murmured. Ken barely registered the words, still half in a daze and his head aching. “I think he’s right.”

With that, Farfarello was gone.

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TBC

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