Peanut

Title: Peanut
Author: Ningengirai
Pairing: Ken/Farfarello
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: m/m sex.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted in this story do not belong to me but Tsuchiya Kyoko and Koyasu Takehito/Weiss Kreuz. No money is made from this story. This is fanwork.

This story is a gift for Toxictattoo/Jan.

Peanut

He couldn’t believe his eyes when Farfarello walked into the bar as though he owned it. The Schwarz assassin had a natural arrogance about him that managed to simultaneously annoy and intimidate people. It wasn’t just that Farfarello was tall and built like someone who could kick ass on a regular basis – Ken knew this to be the case, yet he doubted anyone else in the bar did – but there was also something cold about the other man. Ken had never seen someone install so much fear in their opponents with a single stare.

Ken had to know. He’d been on the receiving end of such a stare and similar ones numerous times. Just seeing Farfarello walk into the bar made him tense and grip the short glass on the bar in front of him more tightly. Of all the days to meet with his adversary, it had to be the one day in the month Ken had chosen to go out without his weapon or other means of defence.

There were chairs and tables he could use. He could get behind the bar and get one of the many bottles, break it against the sink, use it as a makeshift knife...

Farfarello slid onto the bar stool next to Ken’s and ordered straight whiskey. He didn’t acknowledge the presence of the other man, ignoring the heated, pointed stare Ken gave him. A quick sweep of the Irishman’s clothing revealed no obvious weapons, yet Ken had seen him produce the odd sharp object too often to count on that. None of the other patrons in the bar paid them much attention, the brief silence following Farfarello’s entrance once more replaced by the low murmur of conversation.

Between them, the silence stretched and grew until Ken felt it like a physical itch at the back of his head. He turned to face his drink, wondering what Farfarello wanted here. Where were the others? Were Schwarz waiting outside, ready to barge in and level the place? Was Farfarello going to turn and attack him here, right in the middle of a bar?

The barkeeper brought another drink for the Irishman, adding a small dish of peanuts to the order. Out of the corner of his eyes, Ken watched Farfarello down half the contents of his glass. Still ignored, he finished his own and ordered another. He’d be damned if he let himself be scared away by the silent, oppressive presence at his side. He’d been here first.

A peanut bounced across the counter, slithering against his arm. Ken nearly jumped out of his skin and turned on his stool once more, glaring at Farfarello, who reached for the peanut and popped it into his mouth. Left to watch those pale, elegant fingers, Ken found himself wondering if that had been an attempt to start conversation...or an attempt to start a fight. With Farfarello, anything was possible.

Yet the peanut incident was the first and last contact between them for the next thirty minutes, which felt like an eternity to Ken as he divided his time between watching Farfarello and watching the entrance. His back was a solid sheet of muscle by the time he ordered his third drink and Farfarello started on his fifth.

If he didn’t know better, he’d say Farfarello was trying to get drunk.

He didn’t know better.

“What are you doing here?” Ken finally burst out, turning once more to glare at Farfarello’s profile.

The Irishman stared at the counter, leaving Ken with the impression that he was simply going to ignore the outburst. At long last, he did turn around, one slender, white eyebrow lifted. “What does it look like, Einstein?”

For reasons beyond him, people had always attested Ken a certain kind of underlying stupidity. It wasn’t something he paid a lot of attention to, but coming from one of his worst enemies, the insinuation raked along already raw nerves. “Asshole.”

Something in that rusty-gold eye cooled and shifted. Farfarello looked at Ken for a moment longer and turned back to his drink and the peanuts. “Takes one to know one.”

The barkeeper, overhearing to their conversation, laid a hand on the counter. “No fighting in here, guys. You wanna duke it out, you go…” He trailed off as though his train of thought had derailed itself. With a nervous gesture, the man vanished toward the other end of the bar and busied himself with polishing glasses.

Farfarello looked back down at his drink and snorted.

Ken, rapt, wondered if there was some unspoken law that dictated people be afraid of Farfarello. Hunched at the counter with his attention obviously on his drink and snack, the Irishman emanated a quiet calm laced with vicious spikes. That the man was dangerous was obvious, yet Ken had never seen Farfarello so silent and sullen on top of being dangerous. He knew him as a ferocious fighter, someone who took pleasure in causing other people pain and suffering.

This poisonous calm was more unnerving than seeing Farfarello burst into fight.

Finishing his drink, Ken wondered about ordering another, of if he should just pack it in for the night and head home while he still had all limbs attached to his body. Unless Farfarello randomly choked on a peanut, Ken had no illusions about how he would fare in a hand-to-hand fight against the other man.

He’d seen Farfarello bite the throat of a Kritiker agent...

“Stop fretting,” Farfarello said softly, one hand wrapped around his glass. “You’re making me nervous.”

“I wouldn’t be fretting if you weren’t here.”

“Last time I checked, there was no sign at the door that prevented me from entering.”

“Last time I checked, Schwarz didn’t wander into random bars to have a drink.”

Gentle laughter was part of the answer. Farfarello looked over at Ken, a truly amused expression on his face. “When was the last time you did check?”

Ken opened his mouth, found nothing he could say would be sufficient, and snapped his jaw shut. That Farfarello walked into this bar, of all places, had already been a shock; that the Irishman now appeared to be bantering added insult to injury. Ken risked a glance at the other patrons, but he was alone in a sea of middle-aged businessmen sharing a late-night drink before heading home to cramped quarters and sleeping families. The one or two individuals who looked like they could hold up well in a fight lay snoring softly with their heads cradled on their arms. A tired waitress cleaned a table, staring off into space as she collected empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays.

If he started a fight, here and now, he’d be on his own. Ken knew that as well as he knew that he’d never get out of here alive if he did. Farfarello did indeed seem intent on just having a drink, but Ken didn’t know him as someone who let an enemy walk away unscathed, much less alive.

Farfarello shook his head, turning back to his drink. Strong, long fingers dipped into the peanut dish. Inadvertently, Ken found himself watching the Irishman’s hands…hands he knew to shed blood at every opportunity. He couldn’t reconcile the image of Farfarello, fighting, with the man now sitting next to him.

“It’s all about perception,” Farfarello said, addressing the wall behind the bar. “What you see and what I am isn’t the same.”

“What I’ve seen of you doesn’t make me want to know anything else about you.” Ken frowned, looking at the Irishman’s profile. In the soft light, Farfarello’s face lost much of its demonic appearance. With his white hair and round face, he looked like any twenty-year-old punk hanging out at a bar. “You’re a killer who -”

“- kills just like you do.” There was acid sharpness in Farfarello’s voice, cutting to the bone. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you’re the better person here just because you kill the bad guys. They have mothers and fathers, too. Death is death.”

He didn’t even think about responding to that one. How had Farfarello known what Ken was thinking? Glancing around, Ken wondered if maybe the rest of Schwarz weren’t around, after all. After Omi’s run-in with the orange-haired German, Ken had rethought his stance on several things, among them their adversaries’ rather absurd abilities.

Yet there was no one around, unless Schuldig lurked outside. Shaken, Ken turned and studied Farfarello once more. Was the Irishman more than just a killing machine? Could he read thoughts like his orange-haired companion?

Hey, asshole. I’m thinking about you.

Ken was almost disappointed when Farfarello didn’t appear to pick up on the thought, serenely watching Ken watch him. He felt uneasy under that snake’s stare, as if his skin was suddenly several numbers too small for the rest of his body.

“We’re the same,” Farfarello said finally. He flipped a peanut into the air and caught it in his mouth. “That’s what you don’t get.”

“We’re nothing even remotely alike!”

A small shrug, followed by another peanut sailing through the air, conveyed Farfarello’s thoughts on the subject more adequately than words could. Gritting his teeth, Ken rolled the empty glass between his palms. He hadn’t come here to get drunk, but now it felt like a good idea. Fuck Farfarello, fuck their enmity, fuck whatever the Irishman thought he was or wasn’t. He wasn’t going to let the other man dictate his thoughts on himself or the subject matter.

The barkeeper brought him another drink and quickly returned to the other end of the bar again. Ken drank slowly and watched the soft lights dance over the surface of the amber liquid that had the same colour as Farfarello’s eye.

...fuck. There was no way he could not think about the man while sitting in so close quarters with him.

Glancing over, Ken again found himself watching the Irishman. Dressed in black from head to toe as though he needed to draw more attention to the white of his hair and the pallor of his skin, Farfarello was a stark image of contrasts, as though someone had had only four colours when they put together that what was Farfarello. Black, white, yellow and faint pink, the latter apparent only in the thin, scarred lines on his face.

Ken had never seen Farfarello bleed. The first time he’d seen him, he’d wondered if Farfarello was alive or a ghost.

Another peanut bounced across the counter, glancing off Ken’s hand and spinning on the glossy wood.

Ken slammed his hand down on the small, round nut as Farfarello reached for it, catching the tips of the other man’s fingers under his palm. “That’s mine now.”

“Including my fingers?”

He pulled his palm away and grabbed the peanut, quickly popping it into his mouth. For a moment, he’d thought Farfarello was going to deck him in the face for slamming his fingers against the counter, yet the Irishman remained calm and unflustered even as his arm was still stretched out between them, pale fingers spread against the dark wood of the counter.

Like a pale spider, Ken thought, looking at the fingers and chewing. His gaze fell on the barkeeper, who stood at the other end of the bar and now visibly relaxed, a dishrag wrung between his hands. A patron seated a few stools away frowned at them, obviously annoyed by the short, loud slam of skin against wood. Ken glared at him, yet his glares didn’t have the same affect as Farfarello’s.

“Ken Hidaka, heroic slayer of random peanuts.” Farfarello’s voice was soft but held an amount of mockery that went straight to Ken’s head. He turned slowly and watched something shift and flare to life in the other man’s single eye. “Do you feel better now that you’ve actually won over me in this?”

Whether or not it were the drinks he’d had or the unduly amount of stress and tension on what was supposed to be his night off, Ken didn’t know. His fingers curled into a fist, his arm moved on its own, snapping out to take a swing at the Irishman. He did know it was a fool’s gamble, knew his fist would never make it into that pale face…

His knuckles glanced off the side of Farfarello’s cheek with a meaty smack. More peanuts scattered and bounced over the counter as Farfarello’s elbow hit the small dish, sending it spinning over the edge to the floor, where it shattered with a crash of porcelain. Carried forward by the motion, Ken suddenly ended up very closely to Farfarello as the other man leaned forward, single eye ablaze and an angry twist to his lips. Farfarello’s hand wrapped around Ken’s collar, pulling him further forward, and he thought about teeth once more, tearing into his throat or worse, into his face.

The head butt sent Ken sprawling on his back on the floor, the bar stool digging into his stomach. Pain bloomed along his forehead and nose as he lay blinking and panting, a sudden burst of adrenaline flooding his veins. His mouth felt dry, throat burning and stomach heaving as the several drinks he’d had made themselves noticed in a sickening lurch.

He was not going to throw up in front of Farfarello.

The Irishman slid from his stool, noiselessly and quickly. He was ignorant toward the leaden silence even Ken was aware of in his sprawled state, and scowled down at him. “Bastard.”

“Takes one to know one?” Feeling strangely victorious, Ken scrambled to his feet to put some distance between himself and Farfarello. He couldn’t believe he’d actually gotten a hit in, and the elevation lasted even in the face of the death glare burning a hole into his face as they stood and stared at each other. “Isn’t that what you said?”

“I said a lot, but you haven’t been listening to me.” With a declaratory gesture, Farfarello dug into a pocket and snorted as Ken automatically assumed a defensive stance. “Relax, strong man.”

Ken bared his teeth at the other man and thought, Strong enough to get you.

His victorious feeling didn’t last long, however. Several patrons of the bar had gotten up from their chairs at the sudden noise and commotion, and the men now hovered closer to the pair facing off at the counter. The barkeeper had fled to the other end of the bar once more, fumbling with a telephone and throwing hectic glances back over his shoulder.

Farfarello pulled a wad of crumbled bills from his pocket and dropped one onto the counter. He turned without another word and stalked toward the entrance, oblivious to the hostile glares directed at him as he made his way past the patrons, some of which stood with their hands clamped around bottles, glasses and chair backs.

After a moment of hesitation, Ken followed in the Irishman’s wake. He had to get out of here if he didn’t want to have to deal with the cops. Grabbing his jacket, he caught the door before it fell shut, the cold night air hitting him like a train as he stepped outside. Farfarello was already down the street, walking at a quick pace toward the next corner.

By all rights, Ken should have taken his victory for what it was. By all rights, he should have turned on his heel and walked the opposite direction.

“Hey! Wait!”

Farfarello stopped and turned around. He didn’t wear a jacket and Ken saw the Goosebumps on his bare arms as he sprinted down the street and came to a halt in front of the Irishman. Under the cold light of the streetlamp, the bruise on Farfarello’s face stood out like a beacon, even as it was small.

“What did you mean, I wasn’t listening to you?”

“You asking me about it makes it a moot point,” Farfarello said, the gentleness of his voice belying the anger on his face. “Go home, Weiss.”

Ken wasn’t as stupid as people liked to think he was; he frequently used this misconception as cover to find out more than he’d be given credit for. Farfarello, though, left him swimming. This was the first time Ken had heard him speak more than a threat and the equivocal words made no sense to him. All he knew was that there were things Farfarello hadn’t said. “No.”

“No?” An expression of amusement once more dominated Farfarello’s face.

“No.” Ken crossed his arms over his chest, lifting his chin at the other. “Not before you’ve told me what this was all about.”

“I walked into a bar to have a drink and met my arch enemy – what more do you need to know?” Shrugging dismissively, Farfarello turned around. “For that matter…you can stand here till you grow roots. I’m going home.”

“No, you’re not.”

The line of Farfarello’s shoulders tensed visibly. He’d turned around, ready to leave, and now looked back over his shoulder, eyebrows lowered, his mouth a thin line. “Did I just hear you right?”

“You did.” Nodding an affirmative, Ken stepped closer. “You’re not going home.”

Alcohol did lower inhibitions, Ken knew. But did alcohol also make one suicidal? Perhaps. Whatever it was, Ken watched his own hands with a certain kind of horrified fascination as they reached out and wound into the thin material of Farfarello’s shirt, yanking the man closer. Their bodies collided, strength against strength, neither man giving an inch.

Ken didn’t want inches. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, only that he didn’t want – couldn’t let Farfarello walk away now. Some minor and still sane part of his brain screamed itself hoarse with warnings and was ignored even as it pointed out, quite distinctively, that this was madness, this was wrong.

Farfarello was mad. Perhaps this made it right.

Perhaps it didn’t matter.

“You have two seconds to let go of me,” Farfarello said calmly. He hadn’t reacted to Ken’s yanking and calmly, coldly met his gaze. “I will kill you if you don’t.”

“You can kill me when it’s official.” Ken licked his lips, mind racing furiously yet producing no way out of this. What had he been thinking? Had he been thinking? “This doesn’t count.”

Farfarello’s lips were hard against his own, tightly shut. There was no reaction at first, so Ken pressed forward, bodies flush against one another with Farfarello all but stationary and wooden. Ken worried at Farfarello’s mouth, seeking a way in, his hands rising to cup the back of the Irishman’s head, hips pushing forward aggressively. Tension and agitation took their toll, leaving Ken breathing hard and wanting. He pulled back, teeth bared once more. “Tell me this wasn’t what you wanted. Tell me this wasn’t what you came for.”

Farfarello said nothing. His single eye was narrowed, the gaze calm and cold still. Yet Ken wasn’t one to be discouraged easily, especially not now that he felt he was finally on to something, finally on an even ground. Pulling at Farfarello again, he kissed him once more, and was finally allowed entrance into that mouth. Strong hands pulled up the sides of Ken’s body, fingers digging in as if to test the solidity of muscle.

They kissed for a long moment, and ignored the police car that drove past them and came to a stop before the bar. One of them moved – Ken later wouldn’t know which one of them – and stepped to the side, the other following, bodies still pressed close.

Farfarello tasted of rage, and whiskey, and peanuts.

It was a taste Ken could live with.

They managed to get off the sidewalk, stumbling down the street in lip lock. At one point, they walked side by side, their shoulders touching, neither of them speaking a word. Ken fumbled in his jacket pocket, produced his keys and nearly dropped them in his haste to get his door unlocked, all the while feeling Farfarello’s gaze on him like a solid touch. They kicked a soccer ball out of the way as they moved inside, the lights off, the door slamming behind them. Ken’s jacket hit the floor, followed by Farfarello’s shirt and two sets of boots.

Beneath his apartment, Youji and Omi. Above his apartment, Aya. Ken, tumbling onto the bed in a sprawl with Farfarello under him and panting, almost laughed. Almost. The sound turned into a breathy, hoarse moan as Farfarello’s hands cupped and squeezed him roughly, mapping flesh that wanted to be buried deeply in heat. He pinned Farfarello’s arms to the bed, amazed that he could, and ground himself down against the other man’s hips, jeans sliding across leather. Pillows and sheets were dragged off the mattress, sliding in an untidy mess to the floor. One of Farfarello’s hands twisted itself out of Ken’s grip, fingernails dragging down Ken’s back in four burning lines.

It was a fight all over again, but this time, there would be no winner. This time, they’d both lose, or at least draw even.

Ken could live with that, too.

Pants yielded to mere brute force, belt buckles forced open and leaving imprints on both their flesh. Attacking the side of Farfarello’s neck, Ken wrapped his fingers around the hard, hot cock pressing against his stomach, pulling up slowly in a hard grip, his thumb rubbing a circle over the wet, velvety tip. Farfarello’s groan sent a shiver down his spine, edging him on down the road to nowhere. He fisted him, slowly, watching that now suddenly animated face as it went through different stages of arousal, all of them devastating to Ken’s control, all of them contributing to his own wants and needs spiralling through his body like a tornado gone spinning madly, leaving destruction in its wake.

There was no time for gentle. Ken didn’t have the patience, and he wasn’t sure if Farfarello knew what gentle meant. Lips met once more, the kiss now heated and liquid as they grappled on the bed, cock against cock, breath into breath. Ken’s hand found its way into the bedside drawer, fingers closing around the familiar tube, one of the many pleasures no one needed to know about. Ken the soccer player, Ken the hothead, Ken the buddy; Ken was sick of the many denominators others gave to him. His teeth raked down Farfarello’s chest, over a peaked nipple, leaving more bruises on that pale flesh. He wiggled his way between Farfarello’s legs, lifting one over his shoulder, and realized their pants were in the way.

Farfarello chuckled, and with a quick motion, folded himself in half and turned over. In the greyish light streaming through the window, pierced with the occasional yellow and red as a car drove by down outside, Farfarello’s body turned into a study of muscle stretched taut over bone, all angles and nothing smooth or soft about him safe his face.

“I’m not going to let you leave,” Ken murmured, pressing himself to Farfarello’s back, the tube clutched in one hand, his free arm winding around the Irishman’s middle. “I’m not going to let you go.”

Farfarello said nothing, again, just rocked back on his knees as Ken pulled him up, carefree and careless in his want. Pants shoved down to his thighs, he transformed once more, turning from a creature grey and prone to a creature coaxing and inviting. Ken fumbled with the tube and flung it to the side, his knees forcing Farfarello’s legs further apart. He leaned forward, buried his face between the muscular half-globes of Farfarello’s ass, and greeted the small, muscled entrance with a hot tongue and eager lips.

The surprised, indulgent sound coming from Farfarello made Ken soar. He slowed down on purpose, stealing a moment of time, wanting to hear more of those sounds as he worked his tongue and squirmed it past the initial resistance, his cock hard and slick now between idly moving fingers.

Ken the creature of many nicknames and open secrets. This was one of the secrets reserved for an elected few; funny that it should be Farfarello to know this one.

He rose to his knees at last, guiding himself into the tight, gripping heat of the waiting body before him. One hand settling on Farfarello’s hip, the other sliding up Farfarello’s back and leaving a trail of slick to arrive dry and gripping at the back of the Irishman’s neck, Ken exhaled loudly and pushed, and pulled, and saw white explode behind his eyes as Farfarello’s body closed around him with heat and tightness.

He fucked him hard, slaps of skin against skin mingling with harsh breaths and groans and moans as they settled into a fast, even pace. Staring blindly at the dark square of his window above the bed, Ken lost himself in the pleasure, feeling it begin to pull him out of his skin. He changed pace, then, slowing down, grinning mindlessly at the annoyed growl coming from the Irishman, and wrapped both arms around Farfarello’s middle to pull him into his lap as he sat down on his heels. His hands slid over Farfarello’s chest, one up, one down, one loosely wrapping around Farfarello’s throat while the other wrapped tightly around Farfarello’s cock. Chest to back, he bit into Farfarello’s shoulder as the other man rode him, deep and hard enough to taste the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.

He came with a barely suppressed shout, hips rocking up against Farfarello’s ass in a last, aggressive motion, jerking uncontrollably as he poured a night’s worth of frustration and tension into the hot, hard body pressed against his. Farfarello’s fingers wrapped around his wrapped around Farfarello’s cock; in the breathless silence that followed, Ken licked at the bite mark on Farfarello’s shoulder and pressed his face against the Irishman’s back as he felt hot liquid run over his fingers and Farfarello shudder against him.

They stayed silent, only their combined breathing and the hammering of hearts against ribs between them. Farfarello pulled Ken’s hand off his cock and licked it clean, teeth sharp against calloused fingers.

Ken fell asleep with the grey light striped over their bodies, limbs tangled in a sated sprawl, sweat cooling on their skin.

He woke an indeterminate amount of hours later, to someone pounding on his apartment door. Needing a moment to find his bearings, he dimly heard Youji’s voice through the door, making some kind of joke Ken didn’t understand and couldn’t laugh about. Next to him, the bed was empty. His cock felt tender and raw, which contributed to the feeling of laziness he couldn’t quite shake until Youji’s pounding turned annoying and threatened to take down his door.

“All right, all right! I’m awake!” he yelled, adding a growled expletive for good measure. The bed as well as the space surrounding the bed was a mess. His eyes fell on the tube of lubrication and he smirked, spending another moment in bed to reminisce about the cause of that mess. “Go the fuck away, Youji. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

He turned onto his back and stretched, his muscles protesting every motion. The air inside his apartment smelled of sweat and musk and sex, not altogether a bad smell to wake up to. Something poked him in the back, and after a moment of fumbling, Ken’s fingers closed around the small, round object. A peanut.

He stared at it, held between his fingertips. Round, smooth, shaped like...Ken popped it into his mouth, and smirked.

The next time Farfarello kicked the ball into his court, he’d be sure to be quicker on the uptake.