Black and Gold

Hey! For the few of you who actually are reading this…

From here on in, the writing pace may slow down a bit, as I’ve mostly caught up to where I’m really writing, not editing… and the school year is about to start which means I have work to do! But never fear, this fic is primarily because I love the idea of it, and it won’t get abandoned. It’s rough-sketched through the end, even!

----

Johan watched him for several moments and Tenma held his ground, looking back at him just as intently. Finally, he simply leaned in to kiss him deeply, half in answer, half to just avoid talking any more.

Tenma gasped into it, eyes closing. Johan drew back after several moments, watching Tenma try to get his breath back.

Finally he did. And of course as soon as he did, he had to ask, “Is… that your answer?”

Johan just turned away from him, picking up his jacket and draping it over his arm gently. Knowing this would be enough of an answer, and it was the only one he was willing to give Tenma, at the moment. “It’s getting late, doctor. I’d best be going before your lover gets back.”

“He won’t be home tonight. Business out of town.” Tenma burst out quickly, a little breathlessly.

Johan paused, looking back up at him. “Is that an invitation?”

The doctor seemed like he was holding his breath, fidgeting just the slightest bit with the hem of one of his shirtsleeves. He shrugged a little, awkwardly.

“Is it?” He pressed, stepping back towards him.

“Are you staying or not?” he asked, with an irritated sigh.

Johan just smirked a little, setting his jacket back down. “I suppose so. Do you have anything to drink besides beer?”

Tenma shrugged a little. “Sake?”

“Sounds fine.”

---

In the morning light, Tenma looked absolutely peaceful. The lines in his face eased to make him look much younger, lighter. Sunlight flooded the room, even from behind the blinds, turning everything amber and warm.

Johan stared at Tenma, keeping still. He felt alien there – the ghost of a cold moon, absolutely out of place in a summer’s morning. He couldn’t shake the feeling, but also couldn’t make himself leave. It had nothing to do with being in another man’s bed, sleeping with his boyfriend.

The doctor rolled into him with a breathy sigh, smooth warm skin against Johan’s chest and he was lost again, leaning in to kiss the other, even though he was still sleeping, pressing him back into the bed and slowly waking him up.

It was nothing short of incredible, to feel him come alive as Johan touched him. For the first time he felt like he was creating something with his hands, breathing life into Tenma with them and his mouth.

Tenma didn’t have sex, he realized – he loved. He moved with Johan slowly, languidly; arching into him and returning every kiss with a sense of presence that Johan ached to feel himself.

He wondered, as he buried himself in Tenma if the doctor felt what he did. If there was that feeling of finding that he couldn’t explain and couldn’t resist.

He also wondered if Tenma felt the same finding here, lying with limbs entangled all hot and sticky and Johan’s hair tugging through his hair gently, touching his face, reassuring himself that they were here and this was real and not some dream of being normal that he would wake from to a world of boredom and killing.

Tenma’s voice filled up the silence like a bell, suddenly. “You should stop calling me Tenma.” The doctor pressed his lips to Johan’s wrist, turning into his hand.

Johan’s mouth went dry, watching that simple, sweet gesture. “What do you want me to call you?”

“Kenzou. It’s my name, after all.” He smiled a little, dark eyes looking back over at Johan, nuzzling the inside of his wrist gently.

“So is Tenma.” He responded, distracted.

“It’s too formal.” Fingers tracing up his chest, contemplatively. “Considering our situation.”

“Are you leaving Hattori?” The question that had been bothering him since this started, since he had found the pictures. Tenma had to leave him. There was no reason to stay with him, and every reason to leave him.

If he didn’t… Johan’s chest and throat tightened painfully. Jealousy? Protectiveness? Contempt? He didn’t know what he was feeling precisely.

“It seems like I’ll have to.”

The knot inside of him loosened and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “You can stay with me.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise…” He started with a slight hitch in his voice.

“Tenma…” He paused, frowning. “Kenzou. I don’t want you living alone. Not right now.”

Dark eyes looked into his, piercingly, but he held his ground. This was right. He could protect Tenma this way, if only a little.

“..All right.”

“Thank you.” He breathed out the apology quietly. Marveling at how much Tenma got out of him without even trying, how much was honest and laced with emotion.

Tenma simply nodded, accepting the gratitude with a solemnity before he pressed their mouths together, sealing the deal.

----

Yori had been watching him at work. It was the easiest place to hide, to blend in. He would sit with patients, wearing a hat and staring at him. He would sneak into the operation observation rooms and watch his brother perform the most complicated surgeries with a breathtaking grace. He’d even sometimes worn his scrubs, blended in with the other doctors.

It was also the place that Kenzou was always the most distracted.

He seemed more distracted than usual, lately. Yori, of course, knew all about the boyfriend – the idiot who thought he could steal his Kenzou away from him. It was why he had followed him, why he sent the pictures. He had thought he could convince Ken that Hattori didn’t love him. Only Yori did.

I love you more than he does.

It was what he had written Ken, but it seemed that his brother hadn’t bothered to take his words seriously.

Perhaps watching him like this was crazy – no, he knew it was. He also didn’t care. He wanted Ken back. Nothing else seemed to matter, not his career, not the rest of his family, not even his own life. Everything else seemed dulled by comparison to the few fleeting moments he had spent with Ken

He would rip the world apart to have it back.

Kenzou handed the pile of charts he was carrying to the nurse – laughing at something the bitch said to him. No doubt she was flirting with him, though he wasn’t interested. Lucky for her he wasn’t.

He looked tired, circles under his eyes, hair in disarray. At some point he had gotten it cut and it made him look younger, more vulnerable. It only sharpened Yori’s adoration for his brother. Somehow he seemed almost untouched by time.

Kenzou was leaving the hospital. It was the end of his shift, something that Yori was glad for. He had only been there for a few hours of it, but still he was tired. He had been working too, enough to keep up appearances and bills.

He watched Ken walk out, and stop to speak with a young, blonde man. Yori had seen him once or twice before – a friend from Germany, he imagined.

But then the man – the boy – was standing and he stepped into Kenzou, too close and Ken’s face, instead of holding that guarded suspicion that he had always seen in their meetings before, held an almost-fond smile.

He didn’t shrug the hand that came to his lower back off. He didn’t even flinch when the blonde pressed a light kiss to his cheek there, in the middle of the goddamned street. Worse, he looked different than Yori had ever seen him. He didn’t have the same shadows in his eyes that he had brought back from Germany or that imperceptible distance that he always carried from his lover.

It also seemed that his cloak of loneliness was falling away, slowly. Kenzou was falling for this brat. It was stunningly clear and it cut him.

It wouldn’t – couldn’t go unanswered.

-----

He had gotten the phonecall from the doctor the previous evening. Hattori had expected it, of course. His spies were excellent.

It was almost a relief to hear that the doctor had been carrying on an affair. It was surely the cause of his distance, lately. Even though he had been to a Friend meeting, Hattori felt it was likely that the doctor had no real idea of what was happening.

He still would have to die, of course. He couldn’t afford to take chances, not as they were drawing so close. He had been prepared to, since this morning. It was, perhaps, the only thing that saved his life, knowing that Tenma would be showing up to pick up his things.

Hattori heard the door open and shut gently and he started just a touch as he finished washing his hands. It was later than he thought it was… or perhaps the doctor was just early. He stepped out of the kitchen, to face Tenma. “Well this is… inconvenient” he said mildly, drying his hands.

Tenma’s face was unreadable. His eyes were flat and guarded in a way that Hattori had never seen before, as he looked at the body that was covered in blood on the floor. It was fascinating – he had wondered about Tenma’s capabilities, but this was beyond what he’d expected. It was almost like he faced a completely different person, one that didn’t seem to care that his brother was lying in a pool of his own blood.

“What happened?” The doctor’s voice was quiet and measured.

“Your brother miscalculated. I suppose he thought you’d be back and I wouldn’t be here.” He allowed a bit of a smile, making no attempt to put warmth into it, tossing the dishtowel on the table.

Tenma grimaced. “He came here looking for me, so you murdered him?”

“Well I suppose if you must put it that way...” He shrugged a little. “I was hoping you wouldn’t find out like this.” He paused, looking at the doctor appraisingly, suspiciously. “Though you seem to be quite calm, considering.”

Tenma looked down at his brother briefly, then shook his head, meeting Hattori’s eyes once more. “I already knew.”

Hattori stopped dead for a moment, disbelief flooding him before he dismissed that foolish statement. What Tenma did or did not know would be immaterial once he was dead. He stepped forward again, one hand dipping into his pocket. Two bodies were just as easy to dispose of as one. Tenma moved back and in a blur pulled out a gun, leveling it at his head.

Hattori stopped short, eyebrows raising, taking a moment to regain a reined in sense of calm. “A gun? Really Tenma-san…”

Tenma held his ground. “Am I going to have to use it?”

He laughed derisively. Tenma was a doctor, and kind. It just seemed like such an empty threat. “Can you?”

“I was trained very well.” Calmly – too calmly.

Hattori tilted his head a little. That solved many mysteries. It was a skill the doctor must have learned while on the run in Germany, and he did look entirely too comfortable holding it. Still, his instincts told him that Tenma was too kind. “Ah.. but can you shoot me?”

Tenma didn’t respond to the mocking question, just keeping the gun trailed on his forehead.

Hattori stayed in place, smiling as if there was no danger. Knowing it unnerved people, that he could still turn this to his advantage. “You do manage to surprise me continually. I didn’t expect you to be this calm, knowing your entire family is dead.”

There was a startled inhalation of breath as Tenma’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“Your brother killed your parents. Or didn’t you know that already?” Hattori smirked a little. The doctor paled slowly as he took in the words, shaking his head a fraction, stepping back towards the door.

Hattori stepped after him, smoothly, not about to let him get away from him. Tenma knew too much.

He was utterly unprepared for the pain that ripped through his shoulder, forcing him half to his knees, into the blood that already was cooling on the floor. He stared up at Tenma, whose hands didn’t shake as he continued to point the smoking gun at him, and whose face was very, very pale.

“If you’re smart, you won’t follow me.”

Hattori couldn’t help the laughter bubbling up in his throat as the door shut between him and the doctor.

He had actually shot.