Deals

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 5

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This was no less dangerous than the time in the park.

Hidaka’s mouth was wet and hot and tasted like stale breakfast cereal. Crawford was beginning to understand some of what made Schuldig tick – it gave him an unbelievable thrill to just do something without having any way of knowing what the consequences would be. Hidaka had asked him what he was doing, and, well – doing was the operative word, because there was no thought here. He had an impulse, and acted on it. He hadn’t thought it through, not least because there was nothing to think through.

Hidaka was right that there was no thrill in a game where you knew exactly what your opponent was about to do.

For example, he most definitely was not expecting Hidaka to surge up against him, wrap his legs around Crawford’s waist and practically pull the older man down on top of him. Stumbling slightly, his hand shot out for balance, and he hissed into Hidaka’s mouth as his hand collided a little too hard with the table – and yet there was still a thrill running through him, a thrill that arose from the knowledge that he had no more control over the situation than the average human being.

In its own way, it was intoxicating, and reminded him vividly of the first few times he had met Farfarello.

But Crawford had decided on a purpose for this particular meeting, and as pleasurable as it was to kiss Hidaka, it wasn’t helping with the task he had set himself.

It took some effort to extract himself from Hidaka’s powerfully strong grip, but he managed it eventually. Murmuring something incomprehensible in a disgruntled tone, Hidaka tried to tug him back down again, but Crawford evaded his hands neatly. Hidaka’s legs were another matter, but Crawford had an inkling that the younger man wouldn’t try to pull him back down so long as he didn’t move entirely away from him, and thus left them resting around his waist.

For a moment, all Crawford did was stare at the man below him. Hidaka raised an eyebrow and stared back, linking his hands behind his head and presenting himself in an utterly shameless manner. Hidaka’s shirt lifted with the motion, displaying the waist of too-loose jeans and one sculpted hipbone below a set of abs that were the result of a few sit-ups, but mostly hard work. At that moment, Crawford wanted nothing more than to rip the other man’s jeans open and suck on him until Hidaka came, screaming his name.

He refrained, however, as being who he was Crawford was incapable of doing anything without at least some measure of forethought – and as satisfying as it would be to blow Hidaka here and now, he had other plans for this meeting.

Not to mention that they had six minutes and thirty-four seconds before an office lady would arrive to prepare the room for the meeting that was due to begin in nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

That thought helped to quash the residual impulse to do what he wanted and damn the consequences. Crawford reached into the inside pocket on his suit jacket and pulled out a small card.

“Farfarello and I would like the pleasure of your company at . . . a private dinner,” he said, somewhat gratified by the fact that he sounded calm and cool and not at all like he was sporting an erection that could have bored through wood, or that Hidaka’s legs were still around his waist and he was beginning to move his hips in a rather distracting way. “I have arranged a room for the night in six days’ time.”

Hidaka stilled. “You’re asking me on a date?” he said, sounding incredulous.

“For lack of a better term, yes.”

Hidaka appeared to think it over for a moment, before he shrugged and grinned. “Why not?” he said, slipping one leg around to nudge gently at Crawford’s groin. At Crawford’s hissed breath, his grin got wider. “Want a taster?”

Privately, Crawford could admit that he did, very badly. It was precisely that thought which made him take advantage of the fact that he was no longer sandwiched in between Hidaka’s thighs, and take two rapid steps back until there was at least a metre of space between them.

“As tempting an offer as that is,” Crawford said, putting a hint of sneer into his words out of some defensive impulse he couldn’t quite explain, “my interest in you does not stem solely from physical desire. You are . . . intriguing.”

Hidaka’s face smoothed out, the grin replaced in favour of a dangerously blank look. “Intriguing,” he said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

Crawford shook his head in irritation. Hidaka was behaving strangely again, and he had no clue of the cause – nor any inclination to find out at that particular point, as he was all too aware that time was rapidly running out.

“You have two minutes and fourteen seconds to get out of this room without anyone spotting you,” he said. “As I will not be around to pull you out of the fire a second time, I suggest you move quickly. The company is very strict about its privacy and safety, and it won’t be long before they being investigating you – and before they discover that you are legally dead.” He smiled. “And this company is not ruled by Kritiker.”

Hidaka said nothing, merely stared at him with that flat, expressionless look.

“I shall see you in six days’ time,” Crawford said, and left.

----------

Omi jumped to his feet as the sound of shop bike’s engine filtered into the kitchen. “You’re back,” he cried as Ken came through the door, and grabbed his teammate’s arm so he could push him into a chair.

“So domineering, Omi-chan,” Yohji said, grinning around his cigarette.

“You shut up. Now,” Omi continued, pinning Ken with a piercing blue stare. “Talk.”

Ken looked vaguely amused and a little confused. “Talk?” he said.

“Talk,” Yohji confirmed.

Ken glanced from one to the other, and looked even more confused. “Um?” he tried.

Omi let out a theatrical sigh and rolled his eyes and Ken. “About your not-so-secret admirer, and what’s going on between the two of you,” he said. “Yohji and I agreed after you left that it was just a little bit too weird the way you insisted on doing the deliveries today. So, talk.”

“. . . what do you want me to say?”

“Are the two of you dating,” Yohji prompted. “What he was like when you delivered the flowers today. Use your brain, Kenken, you have one somewhere, even if it is most likely in your football.”

Something strange flickered across Ken’s face, but was gone before Omi could blink. “Kenken,” the blond boy thought he heard Ken murmur under his breath, but the other man was speaking before he could call him on it.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Ken was saying. “He’s . . . weird.”

“How so?” Yohji asked.

“I don’t know what he wants from me.”

Omi frowned, watching Ken talk to Yohji. There was something about the way he said it that gave Omi the impression that Ken had thought he knew what the other man wanted – but that was probably just Ken thinking it was a guy having a laugh, he thought to himself. Nothing to be concerned about. But still, he kept watching his friend.

Yohji was rolling his eyes. “Isn’t that obvious?” he asked Ken. “He wants to fuck you. You’re not that unattractive, Mr World-Class Athlete.”

Later, Omi would conclude that if he hadn’t been watching Ken, he would have missed it. The flicker of relief that crossed Ken’s face was so sudden and swift that it was almost as though it had never been there at all – and it was much later before he would come to realise what it meant.

At the time, Omi said, “Yohji-kun! Just because that’s all you want out of your dates doesn’t mean that that’s what Ken’s man wants!”

Ken laughed, grinning at Omi. “I think I’ll stick with the guy who knows what he’s talking about, rather than you,” he said, and Omi’s eyes widened at the thinly-veiled venom in his words. “Try again when you’ve got some experience, okay?” He stood, weaving past them in the small kitchen towards the stairs up to their apartments. “I’m going to go get changed. See you later!”

“No, you won’t,” Aya said, appearing in the doorway, forestalling anything Yohji or Omi might have said. “Manx just arrived.”

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Yohji kept a close eye on Ken throughout the mission briefing. Something was up with the younger man – something that had led to his surprisingly vicious comment to Omi. The only way Ken was every vicious was physically, and even that was always a heat of the moment thing. Ken didn’t do nasty comments and delicate slights.

Apart from that one comment, though, he seemed to be perfectly normal. He focussed intently on the mission briefing, and discussed how many of the team would be needed with Omi as though nothing had happened.

And perhaps nothing had, Yohji thought. It wasn’t unlike Ken to be thoughtless – cruel, no, but thoughtless, yes. Ken most likely hadn’t meant what he said to come out sounding quite the way it did, and Yohji was just reading too much into it.

He kept watching Ken, though, and saw that Omi was doing the same.

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The mission looked complicated. The target, Matsushina Benjiro, was the leader of a multi-billion yen drug ring that imported several tonnes of various illegal and highly addictive drugs each year – cocaine, heroin, and LSD being among their more popular merchandise – and sold them on for a hefty profit. He had extensive security and ran a gang of over seventy members, with an intricate hierarchical structure.

Normally, this sort of setup would mean a bloodbath. Even if the head of the organisation was taken out, there would be another viper waiting to step into his place – which normally meant that at least two members of Weiss (usually Ken and Aya, as they were the ones whose weapons and fighting styles were most suited to mass murder in enclosed quarters) would ambush a group meeting and slaughter everybody they could, leaving Yohji or Omi – sometimes both, if Yohji decided the mission was worth his time – to pick off the ones who managed to get away. The slaughter was regrettable, but also the only way to ensure that the organisation was destroyed instead of merely growing a new head.

This time, however, things were slightly different. From the information Kritiker had been able to gather, it seemed as though Matsushina kept the information vital to running the group in his head, and never shared it with anybody. He made sure that he was the only one who had contact with their suppliers, and he made sure that he was the only one who knew in advance when and where a shipment would arrive – meaning that his gang only had last-minute information to go on when it came to receiving a shipment of drugs. In one way, this was greatly beneficial, as killing Matsushina meant the gang would be unable to function – but in another way, it was a great detriment, as it meant that Matsushina’s men were used to surprises and were constantly kept on their toes. They wouldn’t be able to rely on confusion in the ranks at a sudden attack.

“Do you think you’ll need four people for this one, Omi?” Ken asked, looking at the boy sitting beside him.

Omi gave him a strange look that Ken couldn’t quite decipher. After a moment, he replied, “Most likely, yes. It seems that the only time we’ll be able to schedule an attack is at the gang’s monthly meeting. The rest of the time, Matsushina keeps his movements fairly random.” Omi frowned, staring at the scant information Manx had been able to provide them. “We could attack his residence, I suppose.”

“Too dangerous,” Aya said, leaning against the wall. “His security is stellar.”

Manx turned towards Yohji. “Are you going to sit this one out?” she said. “You’ll be leaving your teammates in danger if you do.”

Yohji shrugged. “Might as well help out,” he said, then gave Manx a sly look. “But since there’s no women involved in this one, do you think I might get some compensation by way of, ooh, say . . . dinner?”

Manx snorted. “Nice try,” she said, then nodded at Omi. “I’ll be in touch.”

Yohji gave a melodramatic sigh and flopped onto the seat next to Ken. “She must have a heart of stone, to resist my tender advances,” he complained.

Aya snorted. “Either that, or she has taste,” he said.

“Kenken, are you going to let him talk to me that way?” Yohji said, poking Ken in the side.

“Why not? He’s right,” Ken said, grinning at him.

“Mission, please!” Omi said, drawing their attention back to him. “Thank you for your kind attention,” he said, rolling his eyes. “The next group meeting is in six days’ time. We know that it will be held at the residence of Matsushina’s second-in-command, Takizawa. Between now and then we need to get hard copies of the floor plans, find out how many guards there are, what their routine is, how alert they are and their level of training. Kritiker will provide information on when the meeting is due to start and how long it is due to go on for, but we’ll need to find out the various routes to and from Takizawa’s and which one Matsushina is most likely to take. We haven’t got much time, but we’ll need to have everything together in four days – five at the latest.”

“I’ll take the floor plans,” Yohji said, raising a hand. “Most of the architect firms around here know me as an amateur enthusiast. Or at least their secretaries do,” he added, waggling his eyebrows.

“I’ll need to find out who the architect for Takizawa’s home was, but thank you,” Omi said, nodding at Yohji. “Aya, Ken, that leaves you two with finding out the guard routine. I’ll get to work digging up the backgrounds of Takizawa’s security.” He nodded, satisfied, then looked around at the rest of the team. “Let’s get to it!”

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Guard watch was boring.

Ken was not a patient person by nature. He preferred to rush headlong into anything he did, acting on gut instinct and trusting that it wouldn’t lead him wrong – and, by and large, it hadn’t. (When it did go wrong, it went spectacularly wrong, however – as evidenced by Kase and Crawford.)

Anyway, the point was that he was not the sort of person who could sit still for large amounts of time without going stir-crazy.

Should’ve talked Yohji into giving me his part, Ken grumbled, shifting position in an attempt to get some feeling back into his buttocks. Takizawa’s home was in a strategically brilliant position – although close to Tokyo and therefore to the gang’s seat of business, it was nonetheless situated so that very few people would have an excuse to come near it. At the very tip of an upper-class estate, it had what amounted to sheer cliff-face on three sides, and a small park opposite.

Ken was posing as a bird-watcher who had heard rumours that some rare bird normally only found in Europe had been introduced into the wild in that park. It was the daftest cover story he’d ever been given, especially since a single question about birds would destroy it, but it gave him an excuse to wander around in broad daylight near Takizawa’s house with a pair of binoculars. So far, only one person from the mansion had bothered him, and once Ken had pounced on him with a long and completely fabricated list of this bird’s attributes, the guard had excused himself as quickly as possible before returning to the house. Ken saw him making ‘this guy is crazy’ signs as he talked to the other people on duty, and breathed a sigh of relief that they’d bought it. All it would have taken was one person knowing enough about birds to spot that Ken’s list was complete bullshit, and Ken would have been lucky to get away with his life.

Aya had it easier, Ken decided. Since he had the night shift, all he had to do was hide in a tree. It made sense, though - for someone with hair the colour of blood and fire engines and other really noticeable things, Aya was damned good at hiding. It helped that Ken was a lot less memorable than his teammate.

Didn’t mean he had to like it.

It’s only another two days, Ken reassured himself, then groaned and slumped in his seat.

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As boring as his assignment had been, the four days Ken had spent wandering the park opposite Takizawa’s home had been productive. Omi had been able to put together a comprehensive guide on the guards from his and Aya’s information, and had promptly doubled the number to compensate for the expected increase in security on the night of the meeting. Really, doubling it was going way over the limit – but, as Omi said, better safe than sorry.

They were planning for about fifty well-trained guards being stationed in Takizawa’s home on the night of the meeting, dotted liberally about the premises. It meant that as far as manpower was concerned, security was pretty much watertight. It would not be possible to sneak past the guards without a distraction, and once inside they would need everyone in order to get to Matsushina – which meant that the distraction couldn’t come from one of them. Omi called Kritiker, only to be told that they couldn’t spare any agents from other assignments.

“What do we do now, then?” Ken asked, feeling irritated at his total lack of surprise when Kritiker had refused to help them. As usual, Weiss were almost ostracised from the organisation, as though Kritiker was embarrassed to admit that it had a lethal team.

But not embarrassed enough to stop using us, Ken thought, scowling. He hated that whenever they needed help from Kritiker, they had to pry it from them with a crowbar. He knew that part of the reason Aya never refused missions was that he was terrified that Kritiker would take that as permission to cut back on the care his sister received – and he knew that if there had been a lull in the number of missions they’d been handed out, Omi would start fretting over the income from the flower shop, because they all knew that there was no way in hell Kritiker would help them if money started becoming a little tight.

Omi sighed, then grabbed the phone book. “One of us is going to have to find a pay phone somewhere in the Tokyo area that’s close to Takizawa’s, but reasonably far from us,” he said.

“Deliveries?” Yohji asked.

“Yup. Chinese, pizza, Indian, American – anything you can find. Don’t order more than a group of five or six could eat, but order it from every place you can think of and send it all to Takizawa’s.” Omi frowned. “We’ll have to do some research into what places cook the stuff from fresh and how long they normally take to deliver,” he said. “We need everything to arrive at Takizawa’s as soon as possible. They’ll most likely all be delayed since the guards will have to question them about who ordered the food, but if we can get as many of them at Takizawa’s as possible we should end up with a sufficient distraction.”

“And then – boom?” Yohji said, grinning.

“Boom,” Aya agreed, and Ken decided that one corner of his mouth was most definitely not twitching suspiciously. That was too disturbing for words.

Somehow, it wasn’t quite as disturbing as the fact that he was looking forward to the mission. Ken knew that he enjoyed the final part of each mission much more than his teammates – but then, he was a much more physical person than they were. He was no good at planning, and was always guiltily relieved when it was over and he could finally kill something.

And that was yet another thing that he couldn’t tell them. Weiss were didn’t kill because they enjoyed it; those who enjoyed it were the people they killed.

Every day, that began to look more and more like hypocrisy. Brooding, Ken listened to the rest of the meeting with half an ear, and silently defied his guilt by urging the night of the mission on. He’d be back to normal once it was over, he was sure – once he’d used the mission to purge all the anger and guilt and loneliness that Crawford and Farfarello had stirred up when they entered his life.

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Schuldig was well aware of everything that went on around him in the Schwarz household. Even if his teammates were a little more difficult to read than other people – and often resulted in a migraine if he tried – the rest of the world wasn’t.

He’d been intending to warn Crawford and Farfarello that Siberian had a mission on a certain night that week, and thus would not be showing up. He really had. There was only so long that he could hold a grudge about a split lip, especially when he’d woken up the next morning to find an unopened tub of his favourite ice cream sitting in his place at the table.

And then he’d found that Crawford had cut his access to his bank account down to one thousand yen per month. Two hundred and fifty yen a week. Thirty-five point seven yen per day.

Fuck that. If asked, he’d say that he thought Crawford knew. After all, if the precog didn’t know how Siberian was going to act, how could he, Schuldig, be expected to? Hidaka was always in two minds about everything, after all.

Quite literally.

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Two on his right, one on his left.

Ken charged the lone man to his left, tearing out his throat in one quick, clean move before spinning to face the other two. They fired, and Ken hit the floor and rolled, coming to his feet right in front of them. He kicked the gun from the hand of the one on his right and gutted the other, using the momentum of his kick to keep turning and bring his claws straight through the third man’s throat.

Jogging onwards through the maze of corridors, Ken reviewed the fight and grinned. Three men dead in under four seconds, with not a move wasted – he was definitely getting better at this. Quick, economical, clean deaths. Not clean in the sense of no mess, obviously, because he was covered in blood – but definitely clean in the sense of one hit equalled one death.

Mentally consulting the map Omi had made them all memorise, Ken was fairly sure he was on what they’d labelled corridor seventeen, and took a right – and nearly ran straight into Aya. Lowering his sword, Aya nodded to him, and flicked his eyes over Ken’s form, his lip curling in disgust at the blood and other things coating Ken’s shirt and bugnuks, and dotted liberally over his jeans and skin. Scowling, Ken gave him a mental ‘Fuck you’, before moving onwards down the corridor.

“Matsushina is on the move,” Omi’s voice said in his ear, the headset making him sound tinny. “They’re trying to get him out – make your way to corridor nineteen or corridor four, whichever is closest. Stop if you get to where they join corridor twenty.”

“Just turned onto corridor eighteen, Bombay,” Ken murmured back, swerving left. “Abyssinian’s with me.” This place was a fucking warren of narrow, winding corridors, but at least that meant he and Aya stood a good chance of getting the drop on them.

“Great,” Omi replied. “They should be approaching from your right. Balinese, make your way to corridor twenty-one and take out a couple from the rear as they go past.”

“On my way,” Yohji’s voice replied over the headset. “You joining the fun, Bombay?”

“I’ll stay on the monitors until they’re on corridor twenty between nineteen and twenty-one. I want radio silence until my signal.”

“Gotcha,” Ken said.

“Radio silence, Siberian.”

The next few minutes stretched out like hours. Ken didn’t dare relax in case there were any other guards wandering around that none of them had bumped off yet, but he was becoming increasingly aware of the way that the blood on his jacket was slowly dripping down his arm and into his glove, and that his left arm ached where he’d been grazed by a bullet. His blood was pounding in his ears, his muscles were tense and primed, he was covered in blood and he wanted to kill something, already!

“They’re approaching your position, Balinese,” Omi said, and Ken nearly whooped in relief. “Six of them, with Matsushina in the middle.”

“Roger,” Yohji breathed.

“Radio silence, Balinese,” Omi snapped. “They’re close enough to hear you. Get ready for my signal, everybody.”

Ken straightened and nodded to Aya, who raised an eyebrow disdainfully at the red smudge Ken had left on the wall. They could hear them now – seven pairs of thudding feet moving at a swift jog towards them, one voice barking orders tersely.

“Now,” Omi said, and all hell broke loose.

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It had been a short fight, but a satisfyingly brutal and bloody one. Ken stood over Matsushina’s body, breathing hard and resisting the urge to rip off his bugnuks and tear the body to shreds with his bare hands, just so that he could dance on the bloody, dismembered body parts.

“Funny how you’re all so fucking pretty – do you bend over for the redhead, the blonde, or just anyone who walks by?”

Closing his eyes, Ken gritted his teeth until the pure rage Matsushina’s words had caused subsided. He had no idea why those words had angered him so, but when he’d heard them it was like the world stopped. Then the little voice said Kill him in a flatly unemotional tone, and Ken did.

“Siberian,” Aya said, his voice breaking through the anger still clouding Ken’s mind. “Mission’s over. We’re leaving.”

Right.

Turning, Ken found all three of his teammates staring at him, with varying levels of disgust on their faces. It took him a moment to work out why, and once the realisation hit him he felt sick.

He was standing over the body of their target, and he was covered in blood.

It was the blood that did it, he thought, looking at them. Ken tended to get messier than the rest of them during missions, since he tended to go for his opponents’ throats, resulting a spray of blood from the jugular. That night he was bloodier than most, and it had suddenly reminded them that yes, they were in fact murderers.

You fucking hypocrites, Ken wanted to scream. Was it just because it was him? Aya tended to be the one to deal the final blow to their targets more often than not, and Aya got bloody as well – but nobody looked at Aya like he’d just killed a kid once the mission was over. Nobody would even think of it, because Aya exuded justice. If Aya did it, it was okay, because Aya would never do anything that wasn’t fully justified.

Never mind that he’d been killing solely on hearsay when they’d been ordered to pick him up and make him join Weiss.

They walked out of Takizawa’s in complete silence, with the rest of Weiss carefully avoiding Ken’s eyes. When they reached Yohji’s Seven, Ken halted, realising that he’d have to sit with them if he wanted to get home. Yohji had driven them all there.

“I’ll walk,” he blurted, his voice too loud after the silence between them. “I . . . need to cool off.”

“You’re covered in blood, Siberian,” Yohji said, his voice flat. “Get in the car.”

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Hey, Ken, do you remember the orphanage?

. . . a little.

Weiss is a bit like that, don’t you think?

No.

Why not?

Because I can hit back, now.

Huh. That’s true. And I’ve got more control over who fucks us.

Sorry, did you say something?

Nothing. We talked more back then, didn’t we?

Yeah, we did.

We shared a lot more things back then.

. . . yeah, we did.

You’re going to leave Weiss, aren’t you?

I can’t. I haven’t got anywhere to run to. Nowhere that they won’t find me.

Nowhere like that nook in the attic.

No.

Do you remember our deal, Ken?

I remember that I’m in charge of the violence. I don’t remember what you’re in charge of.

I’m going to start taking control more often from now on.

No! Weiss don’t know y— Er. Was I saying something?

Nope, Ken. Nothing at all.

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TBC

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