Deals

CianaRui: Writing this turned me into something of a Farfarello fan, I'll admit - or at least, Farfarello when he's not relegated to the background to cackle and licks his knives. Thanks for the review!

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 4

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“Ken-kun!” Omi cried, alarmed at his appearance. He rushed towards the back door, carefully taking Ken’s arm and helping him into the kitchen. As he entered, Yohji’s eyes went comically wide, the cigarette drooping so low in his slack mouth it was in danger of falling out.

“Hi, Omi,” Ken rasped, smiling weakly. Finally relaxing now he was back at the Koneko, it registered how deeply tired he was, the adrenaline high he usually rode on after fights having deserted him. It was taking most of his energy to stay upright and keep his eyes open.

“Don’t you ‘Hi, Omi’ me!” Omi cried. “You’re missing for hours, and then you come back all beaten up! Go sit down. Yohji, find the first aid kit.”

“I have it,” Aya said, entering the kitchen. At Omi’s quizzical look, he added, “I saw Ken coming up the road.”

“What happened, Kenken?” Yohji asked, taking the cigarette out of his mouth.

“Farfarello,” Ken said, fighting to keep his eyes open and wincing as Omi touched the bite on his shoulder. “He started following me, so I led him to an old junk yard, and we fought.”

Yohji stared at him. “You didn’t think to call for backup?”

Ken shrugged with his good shoulder. Omi had taken the first aid kit off Aya and was rummaging through it, searching for the medicinal alcohol. “I was in a bad mood. Needed a fight. And hey, I’m alive, aren’t I?” He blinked, trying to keep his eyes open.

Omi made a frustrated noise, cutting into his lethargy. “That’s not the point,” he snapped. “We’re Weiss. We’re a team. If you come across an enemy as dangerous as Farfarello you call us for backup. Where are you hurt?”

“Cut on the right forearm, cut on my cheek, probably shitloads of bruising and that fucking bite on my shoulder,” Ken murmured, eyes sliding closed. He winced as Omi applied a cloth soaked in alcohol to his neck. “Ooooww. . . .”

“You have bruises around your neck,” Aya observed quietly.

“Yeah, I got careless and he started choking me,” Ken said, wishing they’d stop asking him questions so he could go to sleep. “He was quoting bible verses or something too while he was doing it. Fucking lunatic.” Ken forced himself not to think about the fight, reasoning that he could answer their questions later as his head drooped with fatigue. He was so tired . . . adrenaline was pretty much the only thing that had kept him going on the way back to the Koneko.

Omi was looking at him in concern. “Ken-kun . . . are you okay?” he asked.

“I feel fine, apart from the obvious,” Ken said. “Just tired. My head aches a bit, though.” Actually, it was more than a bit, but making the kid worry was cruel. If he could just sleep a bit, he was sure the headache would go away – he’d just overdone it, that was all.

“Did you hit your head?” Omi asked, his frown getting deeper.

“Couple of times, yeah,” Ken said, then blinked in confusion as Yohji swore and Omi quickly moved behind him, pressing gentle fingers into his head. “Oi, Omi, what are you doing?”

“How many times did you say you were hit on the head, Kenken?” Yohji asked, his tone light despite the worry on his face. “You’re drowsy. You’ve been briefed on head injuries before, idiot – you could have a concussion.”

“Oh.” Ken felt stupid.

“Do you remember everything between you spotting Farfarello and you arriving here?” Omi asked. “Are there any blank spots in your memory, at all?”

Ken struggled to think through his drowsiness. “Um . . . I led him to the junk yard, fought with him . . .” he trailed off as he recalled Farfarello’s mockery of a kiss, and biting through the bastard’s lip. Then frowned, as he realised he couldn’t remember what had happened after that – the psycho probably whacked his head into the wall again, which might explain it. “I might have passed out at one point,” he admitted. “Farfarello whacked my head into a wall, and I don’t remember anything between then and waking up sitting against the same wall, with him gone.”

“Damn,” Omi muttered, scowling. He looked at Yohji and Aya over the top of Ken’s head. “He needs a doctor. He either has a gap in his memory or he passed out, so either way he’s definitely got a concussion. Possibly a severe one. I don’t think his skull’s broken – the back of his head is bloody, but there’s only slight swelling and it looks more like a graze than a deep cut. I can’t be sure, however.”

“We should take him to the hospital,” Yohji said.

“They’ll want to know how he hurt himself like this,” Aya pointed out. “Those are obviously knife wounds.”

“We’ll say he was carrying a box of gardening equipment and fell down the stairs,” Yohji shrugged. “It should work.”

“What about the bruises on his neck, and the ones on his knuckles?” Omi pointed out. “No. We’re going to have to take care of him ourselves. Aya-kun, please call Manx and ask her to send a doctor affiliated with Kritiker over.”

Aya nodded and left the room. “Anything I can do, kid?” Yohji asked, taking a puff on his cigarette.

Omi glowered at him. “Yes,” he snapped. “You can put that thing out.”

Yohji rolled his eyes, and ground out the end of the cancer stick. “The things I do for friends,” he grumbled half-heartedly.

The doctor arrived quickly, and after examining him pronounced Ken to have a mild concussion. His skull wasn’t fractured, thankfully, but the doctor frowned over the wound in Ken’s shoulder and gave him a course of antibiotics. He quickly bandaged the cuts on his arm, cheek, head, and shoulder, and poked at Ken’s ribs for a moment before saying that any pain was solely from bruising.

“Don’t let him sleep for more than two hours,” he told Omi, handing him a list of things to check for. “When waking him, check his blood pressure and ask him a few simple questions like where he is and who he is. He can take ibuprofen or another common painkiller, but not aspirin. Call me if he loses consciousness, vomits, starts acting strangely, becomes increasingly drowsy or develops a stiff neck. Same for if the pain in his head increases.” The man frowned down at Omi. “I’m surprised you haven’t had to deal with concussions before, in your line of work.”

“We’re good at what we do,” Omi said simply. “Thank you for your help, doctor.”

“Don’t mention it.”

----------

Crawford was waiting when Farfarello arrived. “Sit,” he commanded, and perfunctorily cleaned and bandaged his teammate’s wounds once the white-haired man did so. Farfarello was silent, submitting to Crawford’s ministrations without a single protest. He had a vaguely sinister smile on his face, looking at something only he could see.

As Crawford was examining Farfarello’s split lip, he realised the younger man’s arms had slid around his waist. Raising an inquiring brow at the Irishman, Crawford resumed his cleaning, ignoring the fact that the lip he was tending to was spreading further into a blissful smile. “What is it?”

“I owe you,” Farfarello almost purred, his rasping voice sounding soft.

Crawford smiled faintly. “I take it you had fun.”

“So did he.” Crawford’s examination of his lip done, Farfarello leaned forward and nuzzled the precognitive’s neck. “I want him,” he whispered.

“As what?” Crawford’s voice was neutral.

Farfarello’s head tilted back at an unnatural angle, his pupil dilated as he stared into Crawford’s calm eyes. “As what you want.”

The American’s eyebrow quirked. “At the same time? That would require flexibility.”

“He’s an athlete. I want him. He’s one of the wicked.”

Crawford smiled. “Why?”

“Because I say so. Is that not how God judges the righteous?”

“There’s Weiss to think of.”

“Give them to Guilty.”

“I think he prefers them free.”

“Then he can set them free.”

Crawford laughed out loud, delighted. “You just don’t stop, do you?”

Farfarello slid off the chair and pressed himself against Crawford, arms sliding around his neck. “I want him,” he purred, and licked the taller man’s neck. “This was what you intended from the beginning, was it not?”

“Not quite,” Crawford said, smiling. “This was what I intended when I began thinking about how he was not what he seemed. The experiment can be abandoned – it was begun on a whim, it can end on one.”

“Because you realised he was like me.” Farfarello nodded to himself. “What would you have done today, if he had read the newspaper?”

Crawford smiled, and closed his arms around the younger man. “He never would have.”

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Ken yawned as he walked down the stairs into the back room of the shop, raising his arm to rub his eyes and wincing as it pulled on his cut. It had been two days since his fight with Farfarello, and while his head was back to normal, the rest of him certainly wasn’t, his ribs protesting any movement faster than a slow walk. Neither Crawford nor Farfarello had shown up since his fight with the psycho – which was just as well, because Ken had been informed by a rather flustered Omi that there was no way he was going back into the shop until the younger boy was satisfied that he was healing okay.

Ken grinned to himself. What Omi didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

Just as he was settling into a chair in front of one of the arrangements that had yet to be finished, Yohji walked through the door and did a double take. “Oi, Kenken, are you sure you should be up and about?” he asked, looking concerned. “And I’m not just asking this because the kid would skin my hide if he found out I’d let you help in the shop.”

Ken rolled his eyes. “I’ve gotta do something,” he replied. “I feel fine, but I’m going nuts from boredom.”

Yohji gave him a long look, but eventually shrugged and pushed his sunglasses up on his nose. “Your funeral if Omittchi finds out,” he said, picking up one of the smaller arrangements on a shelf near the door, turning back towards the main body of the shop. “I won’t tell Aya,” he added over his shoulder. “He’d probably try to work you as hard as normal.”

Ken snorted. “Thanks, Yotan.”

Yohji grinned at him, shutting the door behind him.

Ken worked throughout the morning, slowly making progress with their backlog of orders. Yohji made sure he was the only one to come into the back room, keeping Aya and the fangirls as far away from Ken as possible. Ken didn’t know whether to be irritated or amused at the motherly instinct the blond man was showing.

Sighing, he turned back to his work. He could only hope he was doing this right – he knew the flower meanings, but usually begged or bribed Omi into doing his share of the arrangements. So long as it had the correct flowers and looked pretty, though, he figured it was all good.

A few minutes after Yohji’s third trip into the back room, Ken heard the outside door open. Has to be the guy with the next batch of flowers Omi ordered from that specialist place, he thought, gingerly climbing to his feet and turning. He mentioned they should be coming this week. “Can you dump the flowers in the—” Ken broke off as he saw who was at the door, lip curling into a snarl. “What do you want, you crazy shit?”

Farfarello grinned at him, spreading his arms wide as if in an attempt to make him look harmless. Ha, yeah right. “We won’t battle today,” he said, his voice rasping. “If I have my way, we won’t battle ever again.”

Ken blinked, his animosity vanishing under surprised confusion. “Do you ever make sense?”

Farfarello’s grin spread further, making him look disconcertingly happy as he dropped his arms back to his sides. “You’re one of the wicked,” he informed Ken. “One of my wicked.”

Ken’s eyebrows were slowly making their way up his forehead towards his hairline. “Your wicked?”

That apparently wasn’t worth a response, because Farfarello simply stepped towards him, gliding with a peculiar stalking grace across the linoleum floor. Ken took an involuntary step back and whacked into the table, hissing as it jarred his ribs. The sudden pain reminded him that he wouldn’t be able to hold his own in a fight right now, and he eyed the other man warily, wondering if he could be trusted about not intending to fight Ken.

“How’s your shoulder?” Farfarello asked abruptly. Ken jumped, startled, then scowled.

“Better than it was when you took a bite out of it,” he snapped.

At that, Farfarello got an odd look on his face, a cross between blessed remembrance and guilt. Like much of the other man’s behaviour in this meeting, and it confused the heck out of him.

The Irishman walked forwards slowly, and the closer he got the more Ken tensed up. A part of him was calculating the weapons to hand – a pair of scissors, some thick wire, flower pots and a wire cutter – while the rest of him was focussing on what he could do to not trigger a violent episode in the psycho. I could keep him talking, Ken thought, then wondered what the hell he could say, and snorted mentally as the answer came to him. Not much that isn’t likely to piss him off.

Ken blinked, and suddenly Farfarello was right in front of him, close enough that if he leaned forward just a fraction their bodies would be touching from knees to chest. As he stared at the other man, Ken was struck by the sudden realisation that Farfarello’s eye wasn’t really yellow at all. This close, he could see it consisted of bands of pale honey brown, fading as they moved towards the pupil. Some of the bands of colour were almost the same shade as Crawford’s eyes.

The whirring of the overhead fan and the faint chatter of girls from the front of the shop fell heavily in the silence of the back room as Ken stared at the man in front of him. Neither moved, as though crossing the millimetre of distance between them would start something . . . something that felt as though it was strangely important.

Ken couldn’t figure out why. If Farfarello was going to try for a repeat of the blowjob he’d given the Japanese man after their fight, though, he really wished he’d get on with instead of staring at him.

The handle of the door into the front of the shop rattled loudly, Yohji’s voice drifting through it louder than before as he called out to one of the girls in the shop and breaking the expectant tension in the room. Farfarello lunged forwards, catching Ken’s lower lip between his teeth and sucking on it for a brief moment, and then he was out the back door just as Yohji was coming in the other.

Ken stood stock still in the middle of the room, blinking. Yohji paused as he saw him, a puzzled and vaguely amused look coming to his face, his foot propping the door open. “Yo, Ken, you okay? You look a bit zoned out.”

Ken shook his head, trying to jiggle the cobwebs out of it. “I’m fine,” he said. “I thought I heard the delivery men, but . . . I must’ve been daydreaming.”

Yohji grinned. “There’s not enough in your head to let you daydream,” he said. “All your brainpower’s taken up in managing to stand. You must’ve overloaded the poor thing, and it had to restart.”

Ken glowered at him. “Bastard.”

Yohji laughed, grabbing the plants he’d come in for and beating a hasty retreat before Ken – in his slowed condition – could get to him. Smiling a little, the brunet turned back to his work.

Although . . . he could have sworn there was someone at the door when he turned around.

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Schuldig paused in the middle of spooning sugar into his cup, and blinked. He turned his head to stare at Crawford, a bemused look on his face. “You have a thing for the batshit crazy ones, don’t you?”

“And you appear to have a ‘thing’ for making absolutely no sense,” Crawford replied, then turned back to his newspaper.

Schuldig shrugged and started stirring, occasionally pausing to put more sugar in with – Crawford winced – the same spoon. “Farfarello’s on his way back here,” Schuldig said absently.

“From where?” Crawford asked.

“Weiss’ flower shop.”

Crawford paused, then put the newspaper on the table. “He was with Siberian,” he said. Schuldig eyed him warily, edging backwards a little before he realised what he was doing and made himself stop. Schuldig had seen Crawford in this mood before, and – having usually been the cause of it – knew precisely how much trouble the person on the receiving end was.

But then, if it wasn’t his fault this time . . . this could be fun.

“Yeah,” Schuldig replied.

“Right,” Crawford said flatly.

To Schuldig’s bemusement, he picked the newspaper back up again and set about ignoring his teammate once more. Schuldig was fairly sure that nothing in the newspaper warranted the tight grip his leader had on the edge of the pages, though and this looked a lot like potential entertainment to Schuldig, particularly in light of what he’d picked up from Farfarello and Siberian about their meeting. Grinning to himself, he settled back in his seat to wait for the Irishman to arrive.

Roughly half an hour later, and said Irishman walked in through the back door, radiating self-satisfaction. Schuldig, in the midst of his third cup of coffee, hid his grin with the mug and settled back to watch the sparks fly.

Crawford waited a moment more before putting his paper down. Schuldig’s grin grew wider as he watched Farfarello still as he got a good look at their leader’s face, realising that despite Crawford’s calm, unhurried movements, he was most definitely waiting for the Irish man. And not in a good way. Even a nutcase like Farfarello knew that Crawford could make life very, very unpleasant for him if he so chose.

“I hear you went to the flower shop today,” Crawford said, his voice deceptively calm.

Farfarello watched him warily for a moment more, before shrugging. “Yes. I wanted to apologise.”

Schuldig’s eyebrows shot up as he heard that one. He knew all about the whackjob’s fight with Siberian, and if Farfarello was following up on it – well, an apology was the last thing he’d expected.

. . . and Farfarello had a damn weird idea of an apology.

“We agreed not to approach him until he has fully healed, which will take a few more days,” Crawford replied, and Schuldig winced. If anything, Crawford was now less happy, and it made him wonder if it would be a better idea to head for the hills rather than give into the sadistic side of his nature and watch Farfarello get his arse kicked.

As usual, though, sadism won.

Schuldig fully expected Farfarello to back down. That was how things worked in Schwarz – you could challenge all you liked, but when push came to shove they all acknowledged that Crawford was at the top of the heap. He might not be able to make someone stick a gun in their own mouth and pull the trigger, he might not be able to demolish buildings with a thought, and he might not have Farfarello’s sheer violence and immunity to pain, but they’d die without him and they knew it.

Far from what Schuldig was expecting, however, Farfarello scowled and said, “We did not agree. You decided. And it’s not just your game any more.”

Crawford went very, very still, and Schuldig began looking for the quickest way out of the blast zone. Shit. He’ll be upside down for a week, he thought, shocked and somewhat awed by Farfarello’s bravado. To his increasing anxiety, however, there was no way he could get out of the kitchen without passing between Crawford and Farfarello – and that was one place he did not want to be when the shit hit the fan.

“You’re right,” Crawford said softly.

Farfarello’s scowl vanished as though it had never been. “Thank you,” he said.

Schuldig’s mouth fell open in shock. What the hell? He stared between the two of them, watching as both Crawford and Farfarello’s body language relaxed. Farfarello dropped into the seat beside him and stretched as Crawford picked his newspaper back up, and suddenly all was well again.

Except that . . . Crawford had backed down, not Farfarello.

What the fuck?

Schuldig’s gaze flickered between the two, and for once he cursed being unable to read past the surface of either of their minds without developing a debilitating migraine. Crawford’s mind existed in three tenses at once – past, present and future – and although he could read it, it had a tendency to knock him out if it took him too long to find what he was looking for. And Farfarello’s madness was . . . well, on the times it didn’t scrape his mind raw, it was dangerously appealing. Schuldig didn’t fancy becoming Farfarello Mark 2.

“Somebody explain to me when half of Schwarz was replaced with pod people,” Schuldig announced.

Crawford’s newspaper rustled, but he didn’t put it down. “This is none of your business, Schuldig,” he said.

“The hell it isn’t,” Schuldig replied. “We’re on the same team, aren’t we? And—” His eyes narrowed as something occurred to him. “This is about Siberian. Weiss are my toys. What the hell are you playing at?”

This time Crawford did put his newspaper down. Farfarello snorted suddenly, and a quick skim of his mind – the most Schuldig could do without causing himself pain – showed that their madman was amused at how many times Crawford had picked up and put down the newspaper in the space of five minutes. A black and white paper yoyo. The mental image was mildly amusing, but Schuldig was no longer in a mood to be amused – Weiss were his. Even if Siberian was a boring little shit, it didn’t change the fact that he was his.

“Schuldig,” Crawford said, “you are not in charge of this team. Back off Hidaka for the time being.”

Schuldig’s eyebrows shot up. “Siberian is important enough for you to tell me to back off?” he said incredulously, growing more and more irritated by the second. “What’s the matter, one psycho not enough for you?”

Schuldig saw Farfarello’s hand coming and threw himself sideways, just barely missing having his head slammed into the table even with his enhanced speed. He didn’t see Crawford’s fist coming, though, and pain exploded in his jaw as he fell back, skidding along the linoleum until his head slammed into the base of the oven. The coppery tang of blood filled his mouth and let him know that he’d split his lip, at the very least.

He wasn’t stupid enough to retaliate, though, and contented himself with spitting a wad of bloody saliva onto the floor. “Fuggin’ bastard,” he said indistinctly.

“You can have the rest of Weiss,” Crawford told him. “Hidaka is ours.”

Schuldig stayed slumped on the floor as Crawford left the room, Farfarello following him like a good little lapdog. Or hell, maybe it was the other way around – but that was more than Schuldig ever wanted to know about their love life.

Just for that, I’m not telling you about Kishou, Schuldig decided, rationalising that whatever problems they got into now were their own damn fault. They wanted Siberian? Let them have him – with all that entailed.

----------

It was just as Omi was about to go do deliveries that Ken remembered.

Five days had passed since Ken’s fight with Farfarello – three days since he’d first decided to go back to work – and he had been pronounced healed enough to pick up his shifts again. He’d been so absorbed in trying not to let it slip to his teammates that he was still hurting that he’d completely forgotten that it was almost time for Crawford’s arrangement to be delivered.

“Omi!” he yelled, diving for the helmet and snatching it out of his friend’s hands, then grinned breathlessly at the look on Omi’s face. “I’ll go do deliveries today.”

“But it’s my turn. . . .” The blond boy stared at Ken.

“Nope!” Ken said, fixing a grin on his face in the hope that it would cover his sudden panic, and hoping it didn’t end up looking more like a grimace. “You guys have covered for me the past few days, and I’m well enough to do them now, so it’s my turn!”

“If you’re sure. . . .” Omi trailed off, still staring at him. “Ken, are you feeling all right?”

“I feel fine! All healed!” Ken practically yelled, deliberately misunderstanding him. “This is the list, right? They’re all on the bike?” Omi nodded helplessly. “Okaygottagobye!”

Slamming out of the back door, he strode noisily towards the delivery pike, then paused and tip-toed back – thanking his lucky stars that the blinds were down – as he strained his ears to hear inside the shop.

“. . . well, that was odd,” he heard Yohji remark. “Maybe the girls got to him after having some time off work.”

“Maybe,” Omi agreed with a sigh. Ken heard them shuffling a little, then footsteps moving away from him. “But I’m not sure. . . . Anyway, speaking of the girls, we’d best get out there before Aya-kun is swamped in them.”

“It’d probably do him some good,” Yohji said, his voice fading as he moved away. “He just needs some female companionship. . . .”

Ken let out a huge sigh of relief, then glowered at the pink delivery bike. “When I find that bastard, I’m gonna wring his neck,” he muttered. At least Crawford setting Farfarello on him meant that Ken had a reasonable excuse to do deliveries, but if it wasn’t for him he wouldn’t be doing them at all. Ken hated deliveries. Growling to himself, he started the engine up and made his way off.

The midday Tokyo traffic was just as bad as usual, but the delivery bike was small enough – just – to dart in between the cars and make reasonably good time. After delivering the other three carefully packaged arrangements, Ken clenched his jaw and decided it was about time he stopped stalling and went to give Crawford his flowers.

The address he had been given led to a large office complex, with far too many floors and far too few directions. The main body of the complex was sealed off from the reception area by a large, solid, self-locking door which required a swipe card to get past. Luckily for Ken, an employee returning from his lunch break assumed that he had every right to be there, and held the door open for him.

Once inside the building, Ken was stuck. He had no clue where Crawford might be – or where the flowers were supposed to be delivered – and all the internal doors needed swipe cards as well. He wandered around aimlessly for a while with the arrangement box in his hands, steadfastly ignoring the little voice that kept up a running commentary on the reason – or reasons – why Ken hadn’t simply left the box on the front desk, instead of wandering around pretending not to look for Crawford.

The reasons mostly revolved around Crawford’s arse. And Ken was ignoring it completely.

Yup, definitely not paying it the slightest bit of attention.

. . . even if it was annoying the crap out of him.

“Sir? Might I ask what you’re doing?”

Ken jumped at the sudden question, nearly dropping the arrangement as he span around. A young man in a suit was standing behind him, looking equally startled at Ken’s reaction.

“Uh – sorry,” Ken blurted. “Didn’t see you there. I’m supposed to deliver this, except the directions only went as far as this building. . . .”

“You didn’t ask at reception?” the man asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Ken squirmed internally and tried not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. Asking at reception for one Brad Crawford was an easily traceable action, and he really, really didn’t want to be traced asking for one Brad Crawford. “I—”

“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” Crawford’s smooth voice interrupted.

Ken managed not to jump again, and turned to find the American giving both of them a benign smile. It was an expression that did not sit well on Crawford’s face.

Ken had never seen anything so welcoming in his life.

“I gave the shop incorrect directions for the delivery of this arrangement,” Crawford continued, ignoring Ken as he spoke to the man in the suit. “I erroneously instructed them to deliver it to a specific room, forgetting that they would not have the necessary pass. No doubt this gentleman has been trying to figure out how to get to his destination. If you would follow me,” he added to Ken, raising one eyebrow as if daring him to say something stupid, “I can show you to the correct place.”

Ken restrained his automatic glower and nodded, keeping his mouth shut as he followed the brisk pace the older man set. Crawford led him up two flights of stairs and down three hallways, completely silent, as Ken tried to work out whether following him so easily – trailing after him like a lost puppy, the little voice whispered viciously – was really a good idea or not.

No matter which angle he looked at it from, the answer was no, and Ken couldn’t fathom why this irritated him.

“In here,” Crawford said, gesturing to an open doorway. Ken ducked into the room and scanned it quickly, his eyes picking out a loose curtain rail that could be easily pulled down, a projector stand, and a few thin wooden pointers. He switched his attention back to Crawford, happy that he had catalogued most of the immediately available weapons in the room.

One track mind, the little voice said disgustedly.

Hypocrite, Ken shot back, then frowned. Of all things he could have responded with, why had he picked that?

His attention jerked back to the present, however, when Crawford began talking.

“The arrangement can go on the central table,” the American told him. Ken dutifully balanced the box on the edge of the table, breaking the seal and easing the arrangement out with the ease – and speed – of long practice. Despite his quick movements, Ken deliberately put his back towards the other man – although if asked, he couldn’t have said why.

“You’re being unusually quiet,” Crawford observed.

“You’re stalling,” Ken responded flatly, not turning towards him. Crawford’s visits generally had a point, even if it was just to piss him off, but he was dancing around the subject as much as the Great Crawford Bastard was capable. Follow me, Ken. Put the flowers here, Ken. You’re being awfully quiet, Ken.

Although . . . Crawford’s visits usually had a point. This time, however, Ken was the one visiting.

“Maybe I am,” Crawford said, after a moment, and Ken’s hands clenched on the edges of the box.

He forced himself to finish shifting the arrangement from its container to the table, and dropped the box on the floor as he turned around. “So?” Ken said, folding his arms over his chest and raising an eyebrow. “What’s the point this time?”

Crawford smiled. It wasn’t the smirk for once, but it wasn’t a nice facial expression all the same. “That is where we come into some difficulties,” he replied. “My original purpose for this meeting has been vetoed.”

“Who by?”

“Myself . . . and Farfarello.”

Oh, great. Ken rolled his eyes and slouched, leaning sideways on his arm. “I should have guessed. What, does he want to take another bite out of my shoulder?”

Crawford raised an eyebrow. “I believe he feels rather guilty about that, having decided that you are one of his people.”

“‘His’ people?”

“One of his wicked.” At Ken’s confused look, Crawford shook his head. “That can wait. As the point of this visit has been diverted during the time between its arrangement and now, I am afraid that there are no deep, dark plots going on concerning you – that I am aware of, at least.”

“So . . . something’s changed since you last ordered flowers, which means that now there’s no plots or anything going on that concern me?” Ken asked, clenching his fingers on his biceps. “So what about before whatever it was changed?” The thought that Crawford had just been toying with him all this time created a sinking sensation in his stomach that both alarmed Ken – and left some part of him completely unsurprised.

What did surprise him, however, was Crawford’s reaction. The man actually grinned in response, genuine amusement openly displayed on his face. “It’s for moments like these that things changed,” Crawford replied. “I would never have expected you to say that, or to realise that. To answer your question, however, there was an agenda surrounding my visits to you. It is now irrelevant, as that agenda is no longer applicable.”

“Irrelevant?” Ken sputtered, incredulous. “How the hell could you actually think that some – some – some plot involving me is irrelevant?”

“Due to the simple fact that it is,” Crawford replied, staring down his nose at Ken.

“I want to know what it is.”

“Was.”

“Whatever! I want to know!”

“Then you shall remain unsatisfied,” Crawford said, then paused. The grin that slid over his face both caused warning alarms to go off in Ken’s head, and something to tighten low in his belly. “In this, at least,” the American continued, and that could not be a purr in his voice of the sort Ken heard Yohji using all too often on the girls that frequented their store.

This felt far too much like a game to Ken, and yet he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that that was the case. Schuldig was the one who played games. Even if Crawford wanted to play a game, it would end up too rigidly planned to have any element of competition in it – and what was a game without the possibility that you might lose? Confidence was one thing – certainty was another.

“You’re not playing a game,” he announced flatly, ignoring the way this made Crawford’s eyebrows shoot up. “I don’t think you could play a game if you tried, since you know what your opponent is going to do next. There’s no thrill in it. I’d believe a game of Farfarello, but not you – but if you’re involved in whatever the fuck he was doing, then he can’t be playing a game, either.” Ken held Crawford’s gaze steadily, refusing to let himself be distracted by the strange expression on the older man’s face. “So if you’re not playing a game, what the hell are you doing? Why are you doing this? Why are you bothering me? And why would you stop with whatever your fucking ‘agenda’ was?”

Crawford’s smirk slowly faded, replaced with a dangerously intent expression. Instead of answering, he walked towards Ken, each step slow and deliberate. Ken’s nails dug into his skin through the cloth of his sleeve, but he refused to move away. If Crawford wanted to play chicken, Ken would damn well play chicken. It was one of the few games he ever won at.

Crawford came to a halt less than a foot away from Ken, staring down at him with that intense look on his face. Ken stared back, ignoring the little niggling feeling in his gut.

“What am I doing, I wonder,” Crawford murmured.

Ken opened his mouth to respond scathingly, only to draw in a breath sharply as Crawford’s hand slid into his hair. Shocked out of whatever he might have said, he had only a moment to register the way the light of the room gave Crawford’s eyes a glow like hard amber – and then everything went black.

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TBC

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