[PoT] Niou/Yagyuu: Dangerous Games (2/2)
Nov. 19th, 2006 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firstlightTitle: Dangerous Games (Part 2 of 2)
Characters: Niou, Yagyuu (Yukimura; Oishi, Eiji)
Rating: NC-17 (to be safe as much as anything. Plenty of m/m sex, but not the most explicit thing ever.)
Summary: AU. The city isn't just home to humans; other stranger creatures coexist with them, keeping out of sight, hunting and behing hunted.
Two men meet in a bar. Filth, really. :D Contins sex, violence, not!Vampires, mixed mythologies, and a possibly alarming quantity of fluff at some points, considering the genre.
Part one: here
Niou leaves after a week, without warning. Yagyuu expected nothing else, or so he tells himself. A little companionship was good, for a while, but Niou is solitary. He had needed someone - for whatever mysterious reason of his own - and found Yagyuu. When he didn't need support any more, he moved on. It is simple. As simple as anything with Niou can possibly be.
Yagyuu goes out alone, hunts alone. He does not indulge in melodrama; he experiences no sudden dissatisfaction with his own solitude now that he has had a taste of life shared with another. But when, a month later, he comes home as the sky begins to lighten to see a familiar pale figure waiting just outside the threshold... perhaps there is a certain pleasure, a kind of happiness at seeing Niou again.
"The stray cat returns," he says out loud, earning himself a laugh from Niou.
"Not very polite of you," Niou tells him.
"You are the one who maintains that my politeness is false and therefore irritating," Yagyuu points out smoothly, and welcomes Niou back into his home.
It becomes a routine. Niou will arrive unannounced, stay for a while – not usually more than a week – and then he’ll leave again, with just as little warning. Yagyuu becomes surprisingly used to it.
The fourth time - when Yagyuu finds Niou waiting outside his house, as usual - he invites him inside and says the words to make the invitation permanent, sealing it.
“Why did you do that?” Niou asks.
“Convenience,” Yagyuu murmurs. “Next time you will not have to wait for me if I am out.” It is the first mention of a next time that there has been, from either of them.
“Yeah. Next time,” Niou says, grins. Yagyuu finds himself smiling back in an unusually honest manner and wonders why - but Niou breaks the moment easily, probably deliberately, and everything returns to normal - what passes for normal between them, anyway. Hunger and need, affection reserved for moments in between, expressed in their own somewhat unique way.
The fifth time, Niou climbs into his bed while he is sleeping, wakes him with a hand on his cock and words of greeting whispered into his ear.
“You truly are shameless,” Yagyuu tells him when he is teased into consciousness by Niou’s efforts – but he certainly has no reason to complain about any of what follows.
It is a good relationship for both of them, Yagyuu thinks. Sex, companionship, and none of the claustrophobia of living with someone permanently. But sometimes Niou makes him think of a stray cat, and he catches himself wondering what Niou really wants – it shouldn’t matter, but he is curious. Does Niou want to be taken in, given a home, or is ‘home,’ in his mind, more like ‘cage’?
He should not think about it. Interfering with one another’s lives is no part of the arrangement they have.
But he cannot stop himself wondering - about that, and about other things. The other things are not important. He will not allow them to be important; perhaps one day he will entirely capture Niou, but becoming too serious about the man too soon might cost him what they already have. He can be patient.
The tenth time Niou appears, something like a year after their first meeting, is different. Niou slips in a few hours before sunrise, when Yagyuu is just thinking of sleeping, and though he is not visibly hurt he seems more than a little shaken. Yagyuu looks at him, and waits for him to either compose himself or say what is wrong. He does not expect the latter to happen. They are close in some ways, and they trust one another, but they have never felt the need to talk about what they do when they are apart.
There’s obviously something Niou wants to talk about now, though, and he seems reluctant to just get it out without prompting – so Yagyuu, hoping he’s doing the right thing, shuts the door and lays a hand on his companion’s shoulder.
“Niou? What is it?”
Niou looks uneasy but doesn’t flinch away, which in the body-language of Niou means he isn’t going to try and block Yagyuu out – probably.
“Might’ve fucked things up a bit,” he admits after a moment of indecision. “Hunters or something. They found where I was hiding out.”
Of course. There may not even be real evidence, but Niou’s human form is still distinctive enough to make people interested, strange enough to make them suspect.
“Were you followed here?” he asks, and Niou shakes his head, certain enough about that to dispel the worst of Yagyuu’s fears.
“They’re not nearly good enough for that, but…”
“We have time, then,” Yagyuu tells him, because calm certainty seems to be what Niou needs for the moment. “Rest, and we will consider this problem tonight.” Surely they are beyond the stage where it would be presumption for Yagyuu to concern himself with Niou’s life now, if Niou has come here specifically because he is in trouble.
Niou nods agreement, but once they’re in bed he’s restless, unable to settle and lie still. Yagyuu touches him carefully, as though soothing a wild creature; stroking Niou’s back, gradually drawing him closer. He feels a little uncertain, doubting that this is acceptable behaviour, until Niou begins to touch him back – not objecting, though he tries to change the mood, force Yagyuu to go faster, do more. It doesn’t seem like the time, though. He wants this to be something else, reassuring, not the desperate bordering on violent rush that sex usually is for them. He is beginning to doubt that Niou has really experienced anything else; perhaps he should, if only this once.
They lie together, kiss, touch; that’s all. Yagyuu takes delight in just giving Niou pleasure in little ways, taking advantage of everything he has learned about Niou’s body since they met, and after a while Niou relaxes into it, tentatively tries giving a little of the same back to Yagyuu, which takes Yagyuu by surprise, makes him falter for a moment.
When Niou comes he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to hide his feelings to the last. It’s the first time they’ve been together like this, though Yagyuu has thought about it sometimes, wondered what would be left if there was none of the edge of violence. They can both feel the difference – and it’s almost what Yagyuu was so afraid of a year ago, the two of them bare to one another. But he knows Niou now; it isn’t frightening any more. Niou might not feel the same, though. What he can mostly see in Niou’s face, despite his companion’s attempts to hide it, is confusion.
They don’t say anything about it - they never say anything about it - but Yagyuu watches Niou until he falls asleep, not wanting to move. When Niou is either sleeping or doing a good job of pretending he cleans both of them, presses a kiss to Niou’s forehead, and lies down beside him again.
He’s the one who struggles to sleep after that, but he must have drifted eventually because when he wakes he’s alone in the bed and the sun is low, only faint orange light filtering around the edges of the curtains. He can hear a tap running in the bathroom, so he gets up, even though his body tells him it could use more rest. He was nor worried that Niou might have left so soon, of course, but it is still something of a relief to see him there. He stands in the doorway, watching Niou washing, appreciating the view. Niou is not so thin now, healthier looking, and Yagyuu does not mind admitting that he finds him to be very attractive.
“Staring,” Niou tells him, not looking around.
“Impolite, I know,” Yagyuu agrees mildly. “When did you notice me? I think you have been taking care to pose a little more for the last minute or so.”
“Wanted to give you a good show,” Niou says, glancing back over his shoulder now and grinning. No awkwardness, no resentment; Yagyuu breathes a little easier. No damage done. Things feel better than usual, if anything. Maybe it is alright for their relationship to progress a little.
He steps fully into the room, slides arms around Niou’s damp body from behind. It is unusual for them to be so... restrained, to remain in human form around one another, and it feels uncomfortable - like wearing clothing which is a touch too small. But it is obvious why Niou has chosen to stay like this. If he is being actively searched for, his presence is harder to detect like this. Still visible, but far more subtle.
“I’ve been moving around, but mostly I’ve been near the river,” Niou says, a half-beat before Yagyuu opens his mouth to ask what happened.
“Mm?” he says instead, presses his lips almost absent-mindedly to Niou’s shoulder - a familiar gesture to him, but such casual affection would usually be reserved for when Niou was asleep. Niou doesn’t seem surprised by it, though. His body relaxes back against Yagyuu’s. “People from the ferries?”
Niou shrugs, which Yagyuu supposes is reluctant agreement. It’s an easy hunting-ground. People newly arrived in the city, carried upriver on the boats, and largely unknown. Unwary. He wouldn’t have thought Niou would pick the easy way out, though, so there must be something about the area to interest him.
“Killing?” Yagyuu asks, and Niou hesitates - barely for long enough to be perceived, but they know each other well, at least on this level.
“Not often.”
“Sometimes, then.”
A nod.
“Ah.” He has no moral objection - why on earth would he? He was human once, it’s true, not Other from the first, but that was a long time ago. He was changed not long after the Others first appeared. The problem is that killing draws attention, of various kinds. He suspects that Niou likes attention, on some level or other; likes to act in a way which means he is keeping a step or two ahead of an opponent, likes to outwit people. Dangerous games, as he observed a year ago. “But you must have been careless,” he murmurs, “if you got caught.”
There’s a moment when he thinks Niou will turn around and punch him; the body against his stiffens, begins to draw away. But Niou just laughs, bitter, and relaxes again. “I guess so.”
“You didn’t get caught by the police,” Yagyuu says thoughtfully. There is no official denial that the Others exist - the evidence is too strong - but the police remain poor at dealing with them. “Independent hunters.”
“I told you that last night,” Niou points out, faintly irritable.
“You tell me a great many things,” Yagyuu tells him, smiling - though Niou can’t see it - and tightening his hold on Niou a fraction. “It is sometimes as well to confirm them. Do you know who, by the way? Affiliations and so on?”
“Seishun,” Niou says, and there’s definitely a hint of embarrassment there. It is a name Yagyuu has heard, but only recently, through the papers. A small unit, underfunded, with an unfortunate amount of ambition. People have been waiting for them to get themselves wiped out, but somehow it has not happened yet. “I don’t want to go into the details, honestly. Not important, and fucking embarrassing. They’ll be nicely pissed off at me, though.”
“Oh?” Yagyuu can easily believe that anger would be a common side-effect of spending a great deal of time in Niou’s company, for those he does not take well to - which seems, at times, to include most of the rest of the world.
“Mm,” self-satisfaction creeping back into Niou’s voice. “Took out some of the group they sent after me. Idiots. As though sending inexperienced hunters was going to work.”
Yagyuu does not feel as concerned as he did at first. It will take some time to trace Niou to an area like this one, however angry they are; Yagyuu does not live anywhere near the area Niou was hunting in. Only one of the Others could track them down fast enough to give reason for serious concern, he suspects.
“We can be ready,” he says, and Niou makes a vague noise of agreement, obviously more interested in the possibilities presented by the fact that he and Yagyuu are both decidedly naked and very close together. Yagyuu fancies that much of Niou’s panic in the morning was thanks to shock at being caught at all, and that now he has had time to think he can see that he is not in such a terrible situation after all.
But for now... his own body is hardly indifferent to Niou’s proximity, and when Niou deliberately shifts, rocking against Yagyuu, he feels himself harden further in response. His breath catches when he realises that Niou is touching himself, fingers wrapped loosely around his erection. Somehow, watching, chin propped on Niou’s shoulder, he feels a strange kind of guilty pleasure. He lets his hands stray upwards to Niou’s nipples - is rewarded with the sight of Niou’s hand tightening reflexively on his cock, a surprised noise of pleasure from Niou’s throat.
“Is this really the time?” he murmurs into Niou’s ear, doing his best to keep his voice level, indifferent, perhaps faintly amused - even though Niou must be able to feel the effect he is having.
“Can’t think of a better one,” Niou tells him. “Shit, I’m horny. Let me fuck you, Hiroshi.”
“Yes,” Yagyuu says, once he’s collected his wits enough to answer, because he does want it, and because there’s no real reason why not.
He doesn’t have to see Niou’s face to know that he looks delighted.
Sex on the bathroom floor - they don’t make it any further than that, and Yagyuu isn’t even slightly surprised - is a little cold, a little uncomfortable. But the unfamiliar feeling of Niou pushing into him is thrilling, more than enough to make it worthwhile.
“You’ve never let anyone do this before,” Niou says, leaning in over him, pressing kisses to the back of his neck, nipping at the skin with still-blunt teeth.
“Once,” Yagyuu corrects, shifts to allow Niou to thrust deeper into him, bites his lip to keep quiet at the rush of pleasure the changed angle creates. “Ages ago... ah...”
“Doesn’t matter,” Niou tells him. He sounds fierce, possessive. It’s almost shocking, in a way which makes Yagyuu ache with longing for something which he didn’t know he lacked. “You’re mine now,” Niou adds, hissed, almost too low to hear - but Yagyuu knows he didn’t imagine it, even with Niou fucking him senseless, even over his own harsh breathing. He agrees automatically, only realises afterwards that he has spoken aloud, but it doesn’t matter - it’s true. There is only Niou. Niou doesn’t say and I’m yours, but Yagyuu knows it. He can wait to hear it spoken.
“I want to fight you,” Niou says, afterwards, while Yagyuu is still feeling a touch dazed from the whole experience. As post-coital conversation goes the subject matter leaves something to be desired, but that’s Niou.
“Why?” Yagyuu asks, remembering how close they came on that first night when Niou entered his home.
“Don’t you want to know which of us is stronger? You’re not curious? We’ve never fought. Not really.”
Of course Yagyuu is curious.
“But there is little point like this, and if we fight any other way we may be found more quickly,” he points out, not outright denying the possibility. How much of a risk would it be, and would the reward be worth it?
“That a no?”
“It is a maybe.”
“Fight me.” Niou is insistent. Niou is always insistent.
“Not here.” Not so much of a risk as to be unreasonable, Yagyuu decides. “Downstairs. And I am putting clothes on first.”
Niou laughs, pulls himself to his feet. “Come on, then.”
Yagyuu thinks he can see the reasoning behind it. It is not just a random decision on Niou’s part, or he would have refused. The fact is that if they are to fight together against hunters, they may well do so better if they know what to expect from one another in advance.
That, and they really are both curious.
“No damage,” he warns, and Niou nods agreement. It wouldn’t normally matter, but they do not want anything to seriously slow them down in a real fight.
And they fight, real violence barely held in check. Blows pulled at the last moment. Niou’s judgement is incredible, is ability to predict Yagyuu’s movements almost frightening. He is not outright winning - they seem even, neither of them holding a distinct advantage - but facing him in other circumstances would be both interesting and dangerous. Yagyuu knows that his own advantage lies in speed, and though Niou is slower he seems to know what will happen far enough in advance to hold his own. The temptation is to devote most of his attention to studying the way Niou moves, but if he allows that to distract him too much he knows he will lose.
He loses anyway, as it turns out, but there’s little sting to it, even though he knows he has been fooled by Niou. He finds himself off balance, fighting to stay upright, and it barely takes a push to send him falling backwards onto long-since abandoned furniture in the corner of the room.
Niou catches him before he can wrench his back, and they stay poised like that for a moment, sharp nails at his throat but not quite pressing inward, Niou’s expression smug and - less expectedly - elated. They are both breathing hard.
“My victory,” Niou says, claws shrinking away, features softening.
“This time,” Yagyuu tells him.
He has never been so content to lose. Failure is something he cannot tolerate, ordinarily. But though he is determined that another time he will beat Niou, it isn’t the same. He is not angry.
“Sure,” Niou agrees. “But I’ll make you work for it if you want to beat me.”
Of course he will. Anything else would be entirely meaningless.
“Did you work out what you wanted to know?” Yagyuu asks, refraining from comment on the way Niou has not released him yet, even though they have straightened up and Yagyuu has his balance back.
“Did you?” Niou counters, and finally loosens his hold, hands trailing down Yagyuu’s arms as he withdraws.
“I learned something, at least,” Yagyuu murmurs.
They both learn very fast. He is sure of this. Perhaps fast enough, even.
Niou nods, apparently satisfied.
This becomes their new routine. They hunt less, and more carefully; they spend a great deal more time together in Yagyuu’s home, and more of that time clothed - something Yagyuu perhaps regrets a little, but will certainly not admit to. They train together. There has been little reason for Yagyuu especially to fight frequently in recent years - he views it as an indication that something has gone wrong, and things very rarely go wrong for him - so he spends a lot of time brushing up on things which he has to think too hard about, until the actions feel natural again, almost reflexive. Training in human form, which they limit themselves to most of the time, is faintly frustrating. But it will do.
It feels as though this goes on for a long time, though in actuality it is only a few days. They spend a lot of time watching each other, covertly or openly; and Yagyuu is not overly surprised when Niou uses one of his own moves on him.
“Too slow,” he points out. “Your movements are simply not as fast as mine.”
“Details,” Niou tells him, grinning. “Good enough, for now.”
“Good enough for what?” Yagyuu asks. A possibility has already occurred to him, only an idle thought, but perhaps it would appeal to Niou. Niou likes deception, after all.
“Anything I decide to use it for,” Niou says.
The idea might have occurred to Niou, Yagyuu supposes. There are practical limitations, but it’s intriguing. An idle flight of fancy, something about the way Niou looked when he was moving, just for a moment, as Yagyuu himself would...
He puts the thought aside to be more thoroughly examined later, turns it over in his mind periodically throughout the day, does not voice it or act on it in any way until the following evening. When he does, it is almost an impulse. Niou is there, but distracted, restless, and Yagyuu finds him running fingers through the Niou’s hair, drawing out powers he rarely uses and watching changes begin, little alterations across Niou’s form, spreading outwards from the points his fingers touch. It takes more concentration than he expected, applying this to someone else, but it works. He was not even certain it would.
“What’re you doing?” Niou asks, curious, and Yagyuu pauses when Niou looks up at him, disconcerted by Niou’s expressions on a face which is effectively his own.
“Experimenting,” Yagyuu says, and offers no more explanation.
He knows that Niou has caught up with what is going on when the expressions on that face shift, and he is looking at something frighteningly close to himself.
“Is this entirely necessary?” Niou asks, in a passable impression of Yagyuu’s voice, then lets himself slip, expressions becoming basically Niou again. Yagyuu lets the alterations vanish as well.
“No,” he says, “but I have been thinking about it, and there may be some advantages. Of course, if you are not interested...”
He has thought about all the reasons this idea fascinates him, and realised that many of them are insane and at least one is faintly narcissistic, by human standards. He has also decided that normal standards simply do not apply to them, and they might as well take advantage of this fact.
Niou just stares at him for a moment, unreadable. Then he shrugs, but there’s a hint of curiosity in his expression and Yagyuu knows he’s caught Niou’s interest.
“Tell me,” Niou says.
It is only a few days later that everything comes to a head, though this is still the longest Yagyuu has ever spent in Niou’s company in one go. They’re watchful, checking activity in the area, and as soon as the enquiries about someone who can really only be Niou begin they make their move, preempting attack. Better to pick their battleground, keep Seishun from cornering them.
It seems that two men have been asking questions.
“Did you really kill five of theirs?” Yagyuu asks when he gets home from investigating the rumours. He can easily believe it.
“Thought it was four,” Niou shrugs. “Maybe one more died after I left. There were only two guys still standing, and one of them was kinda beaten up.”
Yagyuu nods. “Well, in any case, they are getting close. Perhaps we should intercept them tomorrow. It will just be the two of them, I presume; there has been noone else for the past few nights. I have descriptions.”
Perhaps this would have been enough if they had simply been dealing with Niou, Yagyuu thinks. They may both be very good. But they are in his territory, effectively. They cannot conceal their presence because there are people who trust him - in ignorance of his true nature, but still. There are forces at work here that the hunters could not possibly know about. It is a comforting thought; it means they have a much greater chance of getting through this in one piece. Though he is confident that their combined abilities are enough to get them through most things in one piece anyway.
“I think I see them,” Niou says quietly, nudges Yagyuu and nods in the direction of the main road. A man with short dark hair, a slightly weird haircut but not terribly noticeable otherwise; and the other with distinctive red hair only partially covered by a cap, slighter in build than his companion.
“Yes,” Yagyuu agrees. ”This would seem to be as good a place as any. Unless you have any objections.”
The street is quiet, and if they draw the pair back around the corner no-one will see them from the main road. It is early evening and the sun - never the greatest of problems, but sometimes an annoyance - is low enough to offer them no discomfort at all. They can wait longer, but this is a good enough opportunity. There is little point in delaying.
“Let’s do it,” Niou says.
Yagyuu nods and walks away towards the main road, running fingers through messy white hair, Niou’s grin on his face, confident and incautious. He pauses near the road, appears to check his surroundings - and he’s being so obvious, he’s sure, but perhaps it will work - and retreats, not seeming to have found whatever he was looking for. He is fairly sure they have noticed, but he resists the urge to hide and try to listen in on their conversation. Either they follow or they do not.
“They’ve taken the bait,” Niou tells him, hissed words as he walks past the other man’s hiding place. He grins, but gives no other outward response. It takes discipline not to look over his shoulder, not to check and see how close they are; if it gets bad, Niou has his back. Nothing to worry about.
Out of sight of the main road he stops, fumbles in his jacket pocket for cigarettes and matches. He hates smoking, but Niou does it sometimes, and it’s a good enough pretext for stopping, turning, finally ‘noticing’ his company. He pauses, cigarette unlit between his lips, expression mildly surprised but not stunned. Close up there’s no mistaking them. Oishi and Kikumaru, Seishun’s favourite hit-team. The golden pair, some people have called them.
Yagyuu couldn’t care less what they’ve been named. They are in for a shock, regardless.
“Evening,” he says, plucks the cigarette from between his lips and shoves it back in a pocket. “Looking for something?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” the redhead - Kikumaru, he presumes - snaps, eyes narrowing; but his partner lays a hand on his shoulder and he seems to calm down. “We’re here for you.”
“Kind of you to give me warning,” Yagyuu smirks. There’s a knife in each of his coat-sleeves, and drawing them will only take a moment. He does not favour such weapons, but Niou does, and though they can’t know much about Niou they will have heard about his most basic fighting methods - misleading as such information may be. But his aim here is to appear as much like Niou as possible; and to make sure that the pair’s attention is entirely focused on him.
He knows it has worked when they begin to attack, a coordinated effort against him; and they actually are good, he can see that. They are simply not in possession of all the facts.
But none of that shows. He draws quickly, parries, apparently unable to do more than defend himself. Kikumaru, he notes, is using an iron knife. A priority to avoid, then. Hopefully Niou will have noticed. Niou is good at noticing the most important details, of course.
And he has. Kikumaru, who has been concentrating, looking for an opening, grins in triumph - but gets no further, because Niou grabs him from behind, throws him in much the way Yagyuu would - not quite as refined. Effective, though.
Kikumaru hits the wall hard, his head smacking against it - an audible thud. Oishi’s eyes widen. ”Eiji.”
There’s a flash of satisfaction in Niou’s eyes, but it’s quickly hidden; Niou is not himself at the moment, after all. Yagyuu smirks for him, says in his place, “oh, too bad,” sincerity at an all-time low.
Oishi has rushed to his partner’s side, and stands facing them, expression furious. He has every right to be angry on some level, Yagyuu can admit, but morality is a luxury and they can’t afford it; too bad, indeed. Besides, he and Niou were not the ones who started this fight. Oishi does not stand a chance, not by himself; but when Yagyuu goes to take an opening he finds Kikumaru in his way, somehow still standing.
Yagyuu makes a small noise of irritation, and the two of them fall back, taking in the situation. They still have the advantage, Yagyuu is sure. Niou has long since taken on what would be his true form, were it not disguised to look like Yagyuu’s; but Yagyuu has yet to change himself.
“I can still fight,” Kikumaru says. “It’s alright, Oishi.” But Oishi still looks furious. It’s amusing. “Don’t get angry. It’s what they want.”
Kikumaru must be slightly smarter than he looks. Not, Yagyuu thinks, that this is difficult.
Then they’re fighting again, and Yagyuu can’t help but feel a touch irritated at how long this is taking. The gap between them is not great enough yet. Time to increase it a little.
“Be serious, Niou,” Niou says calmly in Yagyuu’s voice - right on cue.
“Heh.” He abandons Niou’s knives as the change takes hold. The lengthening of his claws makes them difficult to hold, and he has natural weapons to work with now; though he’s surprised at how much more effort it takes to keep himself looking like Niou as he changes. It would not even be possible, probably, were they less intimately familiar with one another.
And now... Kikumaru is still agile, but between Niou and Yagyuu there is enough to counter it; Niou’s ability to predict, and Yagyuu’s speed, even if it is not clear who is performing what function right now. A little of both, neither of them fighting quite as they would alone. They can’t forget Oishi entirely, Yagyuu knows, but he’s aware Niou has reached the conclusion that taking out Kikumaru would do a great deal of damage to Oishi.
He takes care to let ‘Yagyuu’s’ movements appear faster than ‘Niou’s,’ and he can see that Kikumaru believes he has caught up to the pace of them, is beginning to think about attacking rather than simply defending against the onslaught.
Almost time.
Yagyuu sees Kikumaru leap towards Niou, sees that Niou is just a fraction too slow to avoid it, sees the knife graze across Niou’s cheek - and that has to hurt, cold iron, a hunter’s weapon, but at least he got mostly out of the way - but he’s already moving at full speed, far faster that Niou pretending to be him. Kikumaru can barely have had time to register him before he’s there, claws tearing into the redhead’s back. he can feel them sliding between ribs (between the fifth and sixth, the tidy part of his mind puts in, and the moment of resistance must be the scapula - but it gives way quickly enough). There is blood running over his hand.
He pulls away in a neat motion and turns to face Oishi, expression very much his own and entirely cold, alterations vanishing. Oishi’s face is shocked, uncomprehending. Yagyuu doesn’t check what damage he has done to Kikumaru; if the man is not already dying, Niou will take care of the rest. Oishi must know it, though the full weight of what has happened will probably not register immediately.
When Oishi finally moves, it is to fight his way past Yagyuu, trying desperately to get to Kikumaru, who is on the ground, as good as lifeless. Yagyuu allows him.
“You sure it’s ok to just let him go?” Niou asks irritably as Oishi struggles away, clutching his companion’s body - perhaps hoping to save him, although it seems somewhat unlikely that he will be in time. “Could finish him. He knows where we are and he knows about you. And there’s not much fight in him now.”
It is a valid point. Yagyuu opens his mouth to agree, but the words are never spoken.
“No,” a new voice says. “He’s not your concern. But he will be taken care of.”
Niou starts, stares over Yagyuu’s shoulder. “Shit,” he hisses, and then, louder, “what the hell are you doing here, Yukimura?”
“I would prefer a more pleasant greeting,” the voice says, and Yagyuu turns to see a man walking towards them. He is sure there was no-one there a moment ago, but now there’s Yukimura - whoever he is.
“You’re not getting one, though, so deal with it,” Niou says, but even if he seems unimpressed it’s more the irritation of someone facing a meddling friend than a mortal enemy.
“I know. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Yagyuu eyes him warily. “I believe that should be my line.”
“I’m Yukimura. Niou works for me,” Yukimura tells him. “Rather badly, lately. I am going to assume you’re to blame.”
“Maybe,” Niou agrees. “But he’s good, you’ve got to admit that. He’s Yagyuu, by the way.”
“Good or not, I don’t appreciate your inefficiency,” Yukimura says, frowning. “You were to take out Echizen and report back, and instead I find you almost two weeks later, having fun with this man. And I understand that Echizen is still very much alive.”
“If you want the bastard taking out so badly, do it yourself,” Niou growls. “Or send Sanada. I don’t give a fuck what your policy on failing to complete jobs is. I’m having nothing more to do with this one.”
Yagyuu, sidelined for the moment, has no idea what to say and barely any idea what to think. He has been vaguely aware that Niou must be doing something in the time they do not spend together, but to have it thrown in his face with so little warning raises a lot of issues in his mind. Not least being the fact that he had expected Niou to work alone, whatever he was doing; for him to have associates is something of a shock, evidence of misjudgement on his part.
Yukimura makes him uneasy. Whether it is purely because of the surprise he feels at the relationship Yukimura apparently has with Niou is hard to say. Niou and Yukimura are still... arguing... though it seems more like negotiation, really.
“Excuse me,” he breaks in, “but would one of you care to explain what, exactly, is going on?”
He has a fair idea, but still. Niou looks faintly guilty, glances from Yagyuu to Yukimura.
“I’ll give you a while to work out your domestic issues,” Yukimura says, looking faintly impatient. “Yagyuu lives on Duke Street. I will find you there later.”
Yagyuu stares after him with distaste.
“Is he always like that?”
“Nah,” Niou shrugs. “He’s pissed off with me. You’re just in the way.”
They walk home in awkward silence. Despite some half-hearted efforts at getting rid of the blood they’re both still covered in it - and the cut across Niou’s cheek looks ugly, inflamed. The few people they meet stay well clear of them. Yagyuu is vaguely aware of the possibility of damage to his carefully maintained reputation, but that is something to worry about later.
“I didn’t lie to you,” Niou says as soon as the door shuts behind them.
“I know,” Yagyuu tells him. “But I wish to know what is going on.”
“It’s pretty much like Yukimura said. I work for him, kind of.” Yagyuu waits, lets Niou talk. “I do my own thing, you know, mostly. But if he’s got something needs doing... there’s a few of us. It’s not so bad.”
Silence, and it doesn’t seem as though Niou is going to volunteer anything more.
“Angry?” he asks eventually, apparently not able to take the silence in which Yagyuu is trying to work out where this is going.
“Surprised,” Yagyuu says honestly. “I did not have you down as someone who worked as part of an organisation.”
“Me neither,” and Niou almost laughs. “Yukimura’s just... hell. He’s an interesting guy.”
Perhaps not the right thing to say if he wishes to reassure, Yagyuu thinks. “I wonder if I have misjudged you in other respects,” he says out loud. “I certainly hope not.”
There is a moment when he wonders if Niou will take the general meaning or the specific one, but of course he can get at all the emotions Yagyuu tries to mask. The disbelief in Niou’s face, closely followed by amusement, tells him all he needs to know. Nothing like that with Yukimura, then.
“You haven’t,” Niou says. “Not on the important points.”
Yagyuu nods, cautiously optimistic.
“So you were meant to be... killing someone? And that was how Seishun caught you?” Curiosity - he can’t imagine being this nosy about anyone’s business other than Niou’s.
“Some new hunter, yeah. He was coming in on the boats, so I was hanging around there and keeping an eye out. Didn’t know he’d be Other himself. Little bastard, seriously.”
Seishun is hunting them with their own. It’s a frightening sort of thought, especially if he is powerful enough that Niou refuses to go near him again.
“I suppose we are in trouble, then, if Yukimura has not arranged to have Oishi ‘taken care of,’” Yagyuu muses. “Perhaps even if he has. They seem... close. They will want revenge, I think?”
Niou nods. “But I don’t think Yukimura’s going to drop us in this by ourselves. Well, not if you’ll work for him. He’s interested in you.”
Would it be so bad? This, Yagyuu knows, is Niou’s way of inviting him into his life. What is he really doing otherwise? Pretending to be human, working in respectable jobs (albeit ones which keep strange hours), being something he is not.
“I’ll think about it,” he says, if only because he is aware that they are both filthy and tense, and he’d rather think about this once he is not covered in blood and grime any more. At least almost none of the blood is his. “I am going to go and get clean.”
Niou follows him, uncharacteristically silent, and they end up washing together, subdued but still comfortable, able to allow one another that level of intimacy which, for Yagyuu at least, is usually unthinkable. Eventually they find themselves lying side by side on the bed, aware that there are still things which probably should be said but unwilling to break the silence.
It’s Niou who moves first, perhaps as much as an hour later; sits up, looks down at Yagyuu, and says reluctantly, “he really will come and find us, you know.”
“I know,” Yagyuu agrees.
“Will you work for him if he asks?”
“Doing what?” He sits up too, slightly behind Niou, one hand resting easily on his partner’s hip. “I cannot just agree without hearing the terms. You should know that.”
“Cleaning up mess. Cleaning up stuff that might make a mess.”
Yagyuu hums in agreement. “People.”
“And Others.”
“Why?”
But he thinks he can see. Control. Balance. Yukimura seems like someone who enjoys having power.
“To stop things getting out of hand. We’ve got a pretty delicate balance in the city, you know?”
Yes. He knows. It is complex, keeping relative peace between humans and the stranger inhabitants of the city. The idea of employing someone like Niou to keep everything under control is fairly ludicrous, though. He imagines that the contradiction must amuse Yukimura.
“So you and the others... remove anyone who causes too much trouble.”
“Got it in one.”
The group must be a well-kept secret. He cannot imagine that Niou would tell him this without feeling confident that he could be persuaded to join them. Yukimura must share that confidence, though, if he has left the two of them alone for this long.
It is fortunate, really, that he does not find himself averse to the idea of working with Niou, even doing something so strange as this.
“I think this work would be acceptable,” he tells Niou. In truth, there is a part of him to which it appeals greatly. He is still not certain if he will like Yukimura much, but he thinks he can work with him.
“Acceptable,” Niou echoes, deadpan, and then laughs. “Yeah. It’s pretty acceptable, mostly. But sometimes...”
“Why did you come to me when you failed to kill Echizen?”
Niou shrugs. “Yeah. Sometimes it’s not so great. I didn’t want the lecture for failing.”
It doesn’t sound like the truth to Yagyuu. Delaying his return can only have made things worse. “I thought you weren’t lying to me,” he murmurs, pulling Niou closer.
“You got me,” Niou says, sounding amused, though he sobers quickly. “I wanted to see if you’d help me, I guess.”
“And finding out was worth Yukimura’s anger, was it?”
“Yes.”
Yagyuu can’t help but chuckle. “You’re...”
“Strange? Mad?”
“Something like that.”
“I love you too.”
Maybe he does, at that. It’s an interesting idea. But Niou pulls him in for a kiss before he has time to think too much about it.
Yukimura finds them a while later. They’ve managed to get up and clothe themselves, but it is a close thing. (Yagyuu tries not to imagine Yukimura’s expression had Niou answered the door naked, as he threatened to if they were interrupted.)
The first thing Yukimura says is, “it seems that Yagyuu will be joining us, then.”
Yagyuu stares, until a look from Niou prompts him to offer a response.
“Yes,” he agrees, “although I am not certain how you can sound so sure about it.”
“Niou looks too relaxed for there to have been any serious difficulties,” Yukimura tells him, smiling. Yagyuu wonders what to make of the smile. It seems pleasant enough, but there’s more to it. There must be.
“Mm, very relaxed,” Niou murmurs, managing to sound entirely too suggestive. Yukimura ignores the words in a somewhat pointed manner.
“There will be consequences for your actions,” he tells Niou. “Remember that. You seem to have found someone interesting, but that hardly excuses your repeated neglect of duty.”
“And you have standards, this isn’t good enough, and Sanada wants to slap me into the middle of next week, and is probably going to try next time he sees me,” Niou says, remarkably unconcerned. “I’ll live. But,” he adds. taking in Yukimura’s slightly dangerous expression, “I’ll be good.”
“For a limited value of good, I assume,” Yukimura says, echoing Yagyuu’s thoughts.
“It’s the only way I know,” Niou agrees cheerfully.
“I’m well aware,” Yukimura informs him with a smile, and it seems the topic has been dropped for the moment. “Yagyuu, welcome. You’ll meet the rest the day after tomorrow; we are rarely all in one place.”
“You don’t require any more assurances?” Yagyuu asks.
“Niou has many flaws, but he is a good judge of people.”
And Yukimura is gone again, giving Yagyuu no time to respond.
Niou grins at his expression. “If you think we’re strange, wait until you meet everyone else.”
Yagyuu finds himself briefly wondering just what he is letting himself in for but Niou looks so happy, even with Yukimura’s vague threats. They’re together, and hopefully that’s how it’ll stay. They’re not good people - if they’re even people - but maybe they deserve each other.
Life is definitely shaping up to be a lot more interesting in the future, anyway.
“I look forward to it,” he says. And he means it.
Characters: Niou, Yagyuu (Yukimura; Oishi, Eiji)
Rating: NC-17 (to be safe as much as anything. Plenty of m/m sex, but not the most explicit thing ever.)
Summary: AU. The city isn't just home to humans; other stranger creatures coexist with them, keeping out of sight, hunting and behing hunted.
Two men meet in a bar. Filth, really. :D Contins sex, violence, not!Vampires, mixed mythologies, and a possibly alarming quantity of fluff at some points, considering the genre.
Part one: here
Niou leaves after a week, without warning. Yagyuu expected nothing else, or so he tells himself. A little companionship was good, for a while, but Niou is solitary. He had needed someone - for whatever mysterious reason of his own - and found Yagyuu. When he didn't need support any more, he moved on. It is simple. As simple as anything with Niou can possibly be.
Yagyuu goes out alone, hunts alone. He does not indulge in melodrama; he experiences no sudden dissatisfaction with his own solitude now that he has had a taste of life shared with another. But when, a month later, he comes home as the sky begins to lighten to see a familiar pale figure waiting just outside the threshold... perhaps there is a certain pleasure, a kind of happiness at seeing Niou again.
"The stray cat returns," he says out loud, earning himself a laugh from Niou.
"Not very polite of you," Niou tells him.
"You are the one who maintains that my politeness is false and therefore irritating," Yagyuu points out smoothly, and welcomes Niou back into his home.
It becomes a routine. Niou will arrive unannounced, stay for a while – not usually more than a week – and then he’ll leave again, with just as little warning. Yagyuu becomes surprisingly used to it.
The fourth time - when Yagyuu finds Niou waiting outside his house, as usual - he invites him inside and says the words to make the invitation permanent, sealing it.
“Why did you do that?” Niou asks.
“Convenience,” Yagyuu murmurs. “Next time you will not have to wait for me if I am out.” It is the first mention of a next time that there has been, from either of them.
“Yeah. Next time,” Niou says, grins. Yagyuu finds himself smiling back in an unusually honest manner and wonders why - but Niou breaks the moment easily, probably deliberately, and everything returns to normal - what passes for normal between them, anyway. Hunger and need, affection reserved for moments in between, expressed in their own somewhat unique way.
The fifth time, Niou climbs into his bed while he is sleeping, wakes him with a hand on his cock and words of greeting whispered into his ear.
“You truly are shameless,” Yagyuu tells him when he is teased into consciousness by Niou’s efforts – but he certainly has no reason to complain about any of what follows.
It is a good relationship for both of them, Yagyuu thinks. Sex, companionship, and none of the claustrophobia of living with someone permanently. But sometimes Niou makes him think of a stray cat, and he catches himself wondering what Niou really wants – it shouldn’t matter, but he is curious. Does Niou want to be taken in, given a home, or is ‘home,’ in his mind, more like ‘cage’?
He should not think about it. Interfering with one another’s lives is no part of the arrangement they have.
But he cannot stop himself wondering - about that, and about other things. The other things are not important. He will not allow them to be important; perhaps one day he will entirely capture Niou, but becoming too serious about the man too soon might cost him what they already have. He can be patient.
The tenth time Niou appears, something like a year after their first meeting, is different. Niou slips in a few hours before sunrise, when Yagyuu is just thinking of sleeping, and though he is not visibly hurt he seems more than a little shaken. Yagyuu looks at him, and waits for him to either compose himself or say what is wrong. He does not expect the latter to happen. They are close in some ways, and they trust one another, but they have never felt the need to talk about what they do when they are apart.
There’s obviously something Niou wants to talk about now, though, and he seems reluctant to just get it out without prompting – so Yagyuu, hoping he’s doing the right thing, shuts the door and lays a hand on his companion’s shoulder.
“Niou? What is it?”
Niou looks uneasy but doesn’t flinch away, which in the body-language of Niou means he isn’t going to try and block Yagyuu out – probably.
“Might’ve fucked things up a bit,” he admits after a moment of indecision. “Hunters or something. They found where I was hiding out.”
Of course. There may not even be real evidence, but Niou’s human form is still distinctive enough to make people interested, strange enough to make them suspect.
“Were you followed here?” he asks, and Niou shakes his head, certain enough about that to dispel the worst of Yagyuu’s fears.
“They’re not nearly good enough for that, but…”
“We have time, then,” Yagyuu tells him, because calm certainty seems to be what Niou needs for the moment. “Rest, and we will consider this problem tonight.” Surely they are beyond the stage where it would be presumption for Yagyuu to concern himself with Niou’s life now, if Niou has come here specifically because he is in trouble.
Niou nods agreement, but once they’re in bed he’s restless, unable to settle and lie still. Yagyuu touches him carefully, as though soothing a wild creature; stroking Niou’s back, gradually drawing him closer. He feels a little uncertain, doubting that this is acceptable behaviour, until Niou begins to touch him back – not objecting, though he tries to change the mood, force Yagyuu to go faster, do more. It doesn’t seem like the time, though. He wants this to be something else, reassuring, not the desperate bordering on violent rush that sex usually is for them. He is beginning to doubt that Niou has really experienced anything else; perhaps he should, if only this once.
They lie together, kiss, touch; that’s all. Yagyuu takes delight in just giving Niou pleasure in little ways, taking advantage of everything he has learned about Niou’s body since they met, and after a while Niou relaxes into it, tentatively tries giving a little of the same back to Yagyuu, which takes Yagyuu by surprise, makes him falter for a moment.
When Niou comes he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to hide his feelings to the last. It’s the first time they’ve been together like this, though Yagyuu has thought about it sometimes, wondered what would be left if there was none of the edge of violence. They can both feel the difference – and it’s almost what Yagyuu was so afraid of a year ago, the two of them bare to one another. But he knows Niou now; it isn’t frightening any more. Niou might not feel the same, though. What he can mostly see in Niou’s face, despite his companion’s attempts to hide it, is confusion.
They don’t say anything about it - they never say anything about it - but Yagyuu watches Niou until he falls asleep, not wanting to move. When Niou is either sleeping or doing a good job of pretending he cleans both of them, presses a kiss to Niou’s forehead, and lies down beside him again.
He’s the one who struggles to sleep after that, but he must have drifted eventually because when he wakes he’s alone in the bed and the sun is low, only faint orange light filtering around the edges of the curtains. He can hear a tap running in the bathroom, so he gets up, even though his body tells him it could use more rest. He was nor worried that Niou might have left so soon, of course, but it is still something of a relief to see him there. He stands in the doorway, watching Niou washing, appreciating the view. Niou is not so thin now, healthier looking, and Yagyuu does not mind admitting that he finds him to be very attractive.
“Staring,” Niou tells him, not looking around.
“Impolite, I know,” Yagyuu agrees mildly. “When did you notice me? I think you have been taking care to pose a little more for the last minute or so.”
“Wanted to give you a good show,” Niou says, glancing back over his shoulder now and grinning. No awkwardness, no resentment; Yagyuu breathes a little easier. No damage done. Things feel better than usual, if anything. Maybe it is alright for their relationship to progress a little.
He steps fully into the room, slides arms around Niou’s damp body from behind. It is unusual for them to be so... restrained, to remain in human form around one another, and it feels uncomfortable - like wearing clothing which is a touch too small. But it is obvious why Niou has chosen to stay like this. If he is being actively searched for, his presence is harder to detect like this. Still visible, but far more subtle.
“I’ve been moving around, but mostly I’ve been near the river,” Niou says, a half-beat before Yagyuu opens his mouth to ask what happened.
“Mm?” he says instead, presses his lips almost absent-mindedly to Niou’s shoulder - a familiar gesture to him, but such casual affection would usually be reserved for when Niou was asleep. Niou doesn’t seem surprised by it, though. His body relaxes back against Yagyuu’s. “People from the ferries?”
Niou shrugs, which Yagyuu supposes is reluctant agreement. It’s an easy hunting-ground. People newly arrived in the city, carried upriver on the boats, and largely unknown. Unwary. He wouldn’t have thought Niou would pick the easy way out, though, so there must be something about the area to interest him.
“Killing?” Yagyuu asks, and Niou hesitates - barely for long enough to be perceived, but they know each other well, at least on this level.
“Not often.”
“Sometimes, then.”
A nod.
“Ah.” He has no moral objection - why on earth would he? He was human once, it’s true, not Other from the first, but that was a long time ago. He was changed not long after the Others first appeared. The problem is that killing draws attention, of various kinds. He suspects that Niou likes attention, on some level or other; likes to act in a way which means he is keeping a step or two ahead of an opponent, likes to outwit people. Dangerous games, as he observed a year ago. “But you must have been careless,” he murmurs, “if you got caught.”
There’s a moment when he thinks Niou will turn around and punch him; the body against his stiffens, begins to draw away. But Niou just laughs, bitter, and relaxes again. “I guess so.”
“You didn’t get caught by the police,” Yagyuu says thoughtfully. There is no official denial that the Others exist - the evidence is too strong - but the police remain poor at dealing with them. “Independent hunters.”
“I told you that last night,” Niou points out, faintly irritable.
“You tell me a great many things,” Yagyuu tells him, smiling - though Niou can’t see it - and tightening his hold on Niou a fraction. “It is sometimes as well to confirm them. Do you know who, by the way? Affiliations and so on?”
“Seishun,” Niou says, and there’s definitely a hint of embarrassment there. It is a name Yagyuu has heard, but only recently, through the papers. A small unit, underfunded, with an unfortunate amount of ambition. People have been waiting for them to get themselves wiped out, but somehow it has not happened yet. “I don’t want to go into the details, honestly. Not important, and fucking embarrassing. They’ll be nicely pissed off at me, though.”
“Oh?” Yagyuu can easily believe that anger would be a common side-effect of spending a great deal of time in Niou’s company, for those he does not take well to - which seems, at times, to include most of the rest of the world.
“Mm,” self-satisfaction creeping back into Niou’s voice. “Took out some of the group they sent after me. Idiots. As though sending inexperienced hunters was going to work.”
Yagyuu does not feel as concerned as he did at first. It will take some time to trace Niou to an area like this one, however angry they are; Yagyuu does not live anywhere near the area Niou was hunting in. Only one of the Others could track them down fast enough to give reason for serious concern, he suspects.
“We can be ready,” he says, and Niou makes a vague noise of agreement, obviously more interested in the possibilities presented by the fact that he and Yagyuu are both decidedly naked and very close together. Yagyuu fancies that much of Niou’s panic in the morning was thanks to shock at being caught at all, and that now he has had time to think he can see that he is not in such a terrible situation after all.
But for now... his own body is hardly indifferent to Niou’s proximity, and when Niou deliberately shifts, rocking against Yagyuu, he feels himself harden further in response. His breath catches when he realises that Niou is touching himself, fingers wrapped loosely around his erection. Somehow, watching, chin propped on Niou’s shoulder, he feels a strange kind of guilty pleasure. He lets his hands stray upwards to Niou’s nipples - is rewarded with the sight of Niou’s hand tightening reflexively on his cock, a surprised noise of pleasure from Niou’s throat.
“Is this really the time?” he murmurs into Niou’s ear, doing his best to keep his voice level, indifferent, perhaps faintly amused - even though Niou must be able to feel the effect he is having.
“Can’t think of a better one,” Niou tells him. “Shit, I’m horny. Let me fuck you, Hiroshi.”
“Yes,” Yagyuu says, once he’s collected his wits enough to answer, because he does want it, and because there’s no real reason why not.
He doesn’t have to see Niou’s face to know that he looks delighted.
Sex on the bathroom floor - they don’t make it any further than that, and Yagyuu isn’t even slightly surprised - is a little cold, a little uncomfortable. But the unfamiliar feeling of Niou pushing into him is thrilling, more than enough to make it worthwhile.
“You’ve never let anyone do this before,” Niou says, leaning in over him, pressing kisses to the back of his neck, nipping at the skin with still-blunt teeth.
“Once,” Yagyuu corrects, shifts to allow Niou to thrust deeper into him, bites his lip to keep quiet at the rush of pleasure the changed angle creates. “Ages ago... ah...”
“Doesn’t matter,” Niou tells him. He sounds fierce, possessive. It’s almost shocking, in a way which makes Yagyuu ache with longing for something which he didn’t know he lacked. “You’re mine now,” Niou adds, hissed, almost too low to hear - but Yagyuu knows he didn’t imagine it, even with Niou fucking him senseless, even over his own harsh breathing. He agrees automatically, only realises afterwards that he has spoken aloud, but it doesn’t matter - it’s true. There is only Niou. Niou doesn’t say and I’m yours, but Yagyuu knows it. He can wait to hear it spoken.
“I want to fight you,” Niou says, afterwards, while Yagyuu is still feeling a touch dazed from the whole experience. As post-coital conversation goes the subject matter leaves something to be desired, but that’s Niou.
“Why?” Yagyuu asks, remembering how close they came on that first night when Niou entered his home.
“Don’t you want to know which of us is stronger? You’re not curious? We’ve never fought. Not really.”
Of course Yagyuu is curious.
“But there is little point like this, and if we fight any other way we may be found more quickly,” he points out, not outright denying the possibility. How much of a risk would it be, and would the reward be worth it?
“That a no?”
“It is a maybe.”
“Fight me.” Niou is insistent. Niou is always insistent.
“Not here.” Not so much of a risk as to be unreasonable, Yagyuu decides. “Downstairs. And I am putting clothes on first.”
Niou laughs, pulls himself to his feet. “Come on, then.”
Yagyuu thinks he can see the reasoning behind it. It is not just a random decision on Niou’s part, or he would have refused. The fact is that if they are to fight together against hunters, they may well do so better if they know what to expect from one another in advance.
That, and they really are both curious.
“No damage,” he warns, and Niou nods agreement. It wouldn’t normally matter, but they do not want anything to seriously slow them down in a real fight.
And they fight, real violence barely held in check. Blows pulled at the last moment. Niou’s judgement is incredible, is ability to predict Yagyuu’s movements almost frightening. He is not outright winning - they seem even, neither of them holding a distinct advantage - but facing him in other circumstances would be both interesting and dangerous. Yagyuu knows that his own advantage lies in speed, and though Niou is slower he seems to know what will happen far enough in advance to hold his own. The temptation is to devote most of his attention to studying the way Niou moves, but if he allows that to distract him too much he knows he will lose.
He loses anyway, as it turns out, but there’s little sting to it, even though he knows he has been fooled by Niou. He finds himself off balance, fighting to stay upright, and it barely takes a push to send him falling backwards onto long-since abandoned furniture in the corner of the room.
Niou catches him before he can wrench his back, and they stay poised like that for a moment, sharp nails at his throat but not quite pressing inward, Niou’s expression smug and - less expectedly - elated. They are both breathing hard.
“My victory,” Niou says, claws shrinking away, features softening.
“This time,” Yagyuu tells him.
He has never been so content to lose. Failure is something he cannot tolerate, ordinarily. But though he is determined that another time he will beat Niou, it isn’t the same. He is not angry.
“Sure,” Niou agrees. “But I’ll make you work for it if you want to beat me.”
Of course he will. Anything else would be entirely meaningless.
“Did you work out what you wanted to know?” Yagyuu asks, refraining from comment on the way Niou has not released him yet, even though they have straightened up and Yagyuu has his balance back.
“Did you?” Niou counters, and finally loosens his hold, hands trailing down Yagyuu’s arms as he withdraws.
“I learned something, at least,” Yagyuu murmurs.
They both learn very fast. He is sure of this. Perhaps fast enough, even.
Niou nods, apparently satisfied.
This becomes their new routine. They hunt less, and more carefully; they spend a great deal more time together in Yagyuu’s home, and more of that time clothed - something Yagyuu perhaps regrets a little, but will certainly not admit to. They train together. There has been little reason for Yagyuu especially to fight frequently in recent years - he views it as an indication that something has gone wrong, and things very rarely go wrong for him - so he spends a lot of time brushing up on things which he has to think too hard about, until the actions feel natural again, almost reflexive. Training in human form, which they limit themselves to most of the time, is faintly frustrating. But it will do.
It feels as though this goes on for a long time, though in actuality it is only a few days. They spend a lot of time watching each other, covertly or openly; and Yagyuu is not overly surprised when Niou uses one of his own moves on him.
“Too slow,” he points out. “Your movements are simply not as fast as mine.”
“Details,” Niou tells him, grinning. “Good enough, for now.”
“Good enough for what?” Yagyuu asks. A possibility has already occurred to him, only an idle thought, but perhaps it would appeal to Niou. Niou likes deception, after all.
“Anything I decide to use it for,” Niou says.
The idea might have occurred to Niou, Yagyuu supposes. There are practical limitations, but it’s intriguing. An idle flight of fancy, something about the way Niou looked when he was moving, just for a moment, as Yagyuu himself would...
He puts the thought aside to be more thoroughly examined later, turns it over in his mind periodically throughout the day, does not voice it or act on it in any way until the following evening. When he does, it is almost an impulse. Niou is there, but distracted, restless, and Yagyuu finds him running fingers through the Niou’s hair, drawing out powers he rarely uses and watching changes begin, little alterations across Niou’s form, spreading outwards from the points his fingers touch. It takes more concentration than he expected, applying this to someone else, but it works. He was not even certain it would.
“What’re you doing?” Niou asks, curious, and Yagyuu pauses when Niou looks up at him, disconcerted by Niou’s expressions on a face which is effectively his own.
“Experimenting,” Yagyuu says, and offers no more explanation.
He knows that Niou has caught up with what is going on when the expressions on that face shift, and he is looking at something frighteningly close to himself.
“Is this entirely necessary?” Niou asks, in a passable impression of Yagyuu’s voice, then lets himself slip, expressions becoming basically Niou again. Yagyuu lets the alterations vanish as well.
“No,” he says, “but I have been thinking about it, and there may be some advantages. Of course, if you are not interested...”
He has thought about all the reasons this idea fascinates him, and realised that many of them are insane and at least one is faintly narcissistic, by human standards. He has also decided that normal standards simply do not apply to them, and they might as well take advantage of this fact.
Niou just stares at him for a moment, unreadable. Then he shrugs, but there’s a hint of curiosity in his expression and Yagyuu knows he’s caught Niou’s interest.
“Tell me,” Niou says.
It is only a few days later that everything comes to a head, though this is still the longest Yagyuu has ever spent in Niou’s company in one go. They’re watchful, checking activity in the area, and as soon as the enquiries about someone who can really only be Niou begin they make their move, preempting attack. Better to pick their battleground, keep Seishun from cornering them.
It seems that two men have been asking questions.
“Did you really kill five of theirs?” Yagyuu asks when he gets home from investigating the rumours. He can easily believe it.
“Thought it was four,” Niou shrugs. “Maybe one more died after I left. There were only two guys still standing, and one of them was kinda beaten up.”
Yagyuu nods. “Well, in any case, they are getting close. Perhaps we should intercept them tomorrow. It will just be the two of them, I presume; there has been noone else for the past few nights. I have descriptions.”
Perhaps this would have been enough if they had simply been dealing with Niou, Yagyuu thinks. They may both be very good. But they are in his territory, effectively. They cannot conceal their presence because there are people who trust him - in ignorance of his true nature, but still. There are forces at work here that the hunters could not possibly know about. It is a comforting thought; it means they have a much greater chance of getting through this in one piece. Though he is confident that their combined abilities are enough to get them through most things in one piece anyway.
“I think I see them,” Niou says quietly, nudges Yagyuu and nods in the direction of the main road. A man with short dark hair, a slightly weird haircut but not terribly noticeable otherwise; and the other with distinctive red hair only partially covered by a cap, slighter in build than his companion.
“Yes,” Yagyuu agrees. ”This would seem to be as good a place as any. Unless you have any objections.”
The street is quiet, and if they draw the pair back around the corner no-one will see them from the main road. It is early evening and the sun - never the greatest of problems, but sometimes an annoyance - is low enough to offer them no discomfort at all. They can wait longer, but this is a good enough opportunity. There is little point in delaying.
“Let’s do it,” Niou says.
Yagyuu nods and walks away towards the main road, running fingers through messy white hair, Niou’s grin on his face, confident and incautious. He pauses near the road, appears to check his surroundings - and he’s being so obvious, he’s sure, but perhaps it will work - and retreats, not seeming to have found whatever he was looking for. He is fairly sure they have noticed, but he resists the urge to hide and try to listen in on their conversation. Either they follow or they do not.
“They’ve taken the bait,” Niou tells him, hissed words as he walks past the other man’s hiding place. He grins, but gives no other outward response. It takes discipline not to look over his shoulder, not to check and see how close they are; if it gets bad, Niou has his back. Nothing to worry about.
Out of sight of the main road he stops, fumbles in his jacket pocket for cigarettes and matches. He hates smoking, but Niou does it sometimes, and it’s a good enough pretext for stopping, turning, finally ‘noticing’ his company. He pauses, cigarette unlit between his lips, expression mildly surprised but not stunned. Close up there’s no mistaking them. Oishi and Kikumaru, Seishun’s favourite hit-team. The golden pair, some people have called them.
Yagyuu couldn’t care less what they’ve been named. They are in for a shock, regardless.
“Evening,” he says, plucks the cigarette from between his lips and shoves it back in a pocket. “Looking for something?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” the redhead - Kikumaru, he presumes - snaps, eyes narrowing; but his partner lays a hand on his shoulder and he seems to calm down. “We’re here for you.”
“Kind of you to give me warning,” Yagyuu smirks. There’s a knife in each of his coat-sleeves, and drawing them will only take a moment. He does not favour such weapons, but Niou does, and though they can’t know much about Niou they will have heard about his most basic fighting methods - misleading as such information may be. But his aim here is to appear as much like Niou as possible; and to make sure that the pair’s attention is entirely focused on him.
He knows it has worked when they begin to attack, a coordinated effort against him; and they actually are good, he can see that. They are simply not in possession of all the facts.
But none of that shows. He draws quickly, parries, apparently unable to do more than defend himself. Kikumaru, he notes, is using an iron knife. A priority to avoid, then. Hopefully Niou will have noticed. Niou is good at noticing the most important details, of course.
And he has. Kikumaru, who has been concentrating, looking for an opening, grins in triumph - but gets no further, because Niou grabs him from behind, throws him in much the way Yagyuu would - not quite as refined. Effective, though.
Kikumaru hits the wall hard, his head smacking against it - an audible thud. Oishi’s eyes widen. ”Eiji.”
There’s a flash of satisfaction in Niou’s eyes, but it’s quickly hidden; Niou is not himself at the moment, after all. Yagyuu smirks for him, says in his place, “oh, too bad,” sincerity at an all-time low.
Oishi has rushed to his partner’s side, and stands facing them, expression furious. He has every right to be angry on some level, Yagyuu can admit, but morality is a luxury and they can’t afford it; too bad, indeed. Besides, he and Niou were not the ones who started this fight. Oishi does not stand a chance, not by himself; but when Yagyuu goes to take an opening he finds Kikumaru in his way, somehow still standing.
Yagyuu makes a small noise of irritation, and the two of them fall back, taking in the situation. They still have the advantage, Yagyuu is sure. Niou has long since taken on what would be his true form, were it not disguised to look like Yagyuu’s; but Yagyuu has yet to change himself.
“I can still fight,” Kikumaru says. “It’s alright, Oishi.” But Oishi still looks furious. It’s amusing. “Don’t get angry. It’s what they want.”
Kikumaru must be slightly smarter than he looks. Not, Yagyuu thinks, that this is difficult.
Then they’re fighting again, and Yagyuu can’t help but feel a touch irritated at how long this is taking. The gap between them is not great enough yet. Time to increase it a little.
“Be serious, Niou,” Niou says calmly in Yagyuu’s voice - right on cue.
“Heh.” He abandons Niou’s knives as the change takes hold. The lengthening of his claws makes them difficult to hold, and he has natural weapons to work with now; though he’s surprised at how much more effort it takes to keep himself looking like Niou as he changes. It would not even be possible, probably, were they less intimately familiar with one another.
And now... Kikumaru is still agile, but between Niou and Yagyuu there is enough to counter it; Niou’s ability to predict, and Yagyuu’s speed, even if it is not clear who is performing what function right now. A little of both, neither of them fighting quite as they would alone. They can’t forget Oishi entirely, Yagyuu knows, but he’s aware Niou has reached the conclusion that taking out Kikumaru would do a great deal of damage to Oishi.
He takes care to let ‘Yagyuu’s’ movements appear faster than ‘Niou’s,’ and he can see that Kikumaru believes he has caught up to the pace of them, is beginning to think about attacking rather than simply defending against the onslaught.
Almost time.
Yagyuu sees Kikumaru leap towards Niou, sees that Niou is just a fraction too slow to avoid it, sees the knife graze across Niou’s cheek - and that has to hurt, cold iron, a hunter’s weapon, but at least he got mostly out of the way - but he’s already moving at full speed, far faster that Niou pretending to be him. Kikumaru can barely have had time to register him before he’s there, claws tearing into the redhead’s back. he can feel them sliding between ribs (between the fifth and sixth, the tidy part of his mind puts in, and the moment of resistance must be the scapula - but it gives way quickly enough). There is blood running over his hand.
He pulls away in a neat motion and turns to face Oishi, expression very much his own and entirely cold, alterations vanishing. Oishi’s face is shocked, uncomprehending. Yagyuu doesn’t check what damage he has done to Kikumaru; if the man is not already dying, Niou will take care of the rest. Oishi must know it, though the full weight of what has happened will probably not register immediately.
When Oishi finally moves, it is to fight his way past Yagyuu, trying desperately to get to Kikumaru, who is on the ground, as good as lifeless. Yagyuu allows him.
“You sure it’s ok to just let him go?” Niou asks irritably as Oishi struggles away, clutching his companion’s body - perhaps hoping to save him, although it seems somewhat unlikely that he will be in time. “Could finish him. He knows where we are and he knows about you. And there’s not much fight in him now.”
It is a valid point. Yagyuu opens his mouth to agree, but the words are never spoken.
“No,” a new voice says. “He’s not your concern. But he will be taken care of.”
Niou starts, stares over Yagyuu’s shoulder. “Shit,” he hisses, and then, louder, “what the hell are you doing here, Yukimura?”
“I would prefer a more pleasant greeting,” the voice says, and Yagyuu turns to see a man walking towards them. He is sure there was no-one there a moment ago, but now there’s Yukimura - whoever he is.
“You’re not getting one, though, so deal with it,” Niou says, but even if he seems unimpressed it’s more the irritation of someone facing a meddling friend than a mortal enemy.
“I know. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Yagyuu eyes him warily. “I believe that should be my line.”
“I’m Yukimura. Niou works for me,” Yukimura tells him. “Rather badly, lately. I am going to assume you’re to blame.”
“Maybe,” Niou agrees. “But he’s good, you’ve got to admit that. He’s Yagyuu, by the way.”
“Good or not, I don’t appreciate your inefficiency,” Yukimura says, frowning. “You were to take out Echizen and report back, and instead I find you almost two weeks later, having fun with this man. And I understand that Echizen is still very much alive.”
“If you want the bastard taking out so badly, do it yourself,” Niou growls. “Or send Sanada. I don’t give a fuck what your policy on failing to complete jobs is. I’m having nothing more to do with this one.”
Yagyuu, sidelined for the moment, has no idea what to say and barely any idea what to think. He has been vaguely aware that Niou must be doing something in the time they do not spend together, but to have it thrown in his face with so little warning raises a lot of issues in his mind. Not least being the fact that he had expected Niou to work alone, whatever he was doing; for him to have associates is something of a shock, evidence of misjudgement on his part.
Yukimura makes him uneasy. Whether it is purely because of the surprise he feels at the relationship Yukimura apparently has with Niou is hard to say. Niou and Yukimura are still... arguing... though it seems more like negotiation, really.
“Excuse me,” he breaks in, “but would one of you care to explain what, exactly, is going on?”
He has a fair idea, but still. Niou looks faintly guilty, glances from Yagyuu to Yukimura.
“I’ll give you a while to work out your domestic issues,” Yukimura says, looking faintly impatient. “Yagyuu lives on Duke Street. I will find you there later.”
Yagyuu stares after him with distaste.
“Is he always like that?”
“Nah,” Niou shrugs. “He’s pissed off with me. You’re just in the way.”
They walk home in awkward silence. Despite some half-hearted efforts at getting rid of the blood they’re both still covered in it - and the cut across Niou’s cheek looks ugly, inflamed. The few people they meet stay well clear of them. Yagyuu is vaguely aware of the possibility of damage to his carefully maintained reputation, but that is something to worry about later.
“I didn’t lie to you,” Niou says as soon as the door shuts behind them.
“I know,” Yagyuu tells him. “But I wish to know what is going on.”
“It’s pretty much like Yukimura said. I work for him, kind of.” Yagyuu waits, lets Niou talk. “I do my own thing, you know, mostly. But if he’s got something needs doing... there’s a few of us. It’s not so bad.”
Silence, and it doesn’t seem as though Niou is going to volunteer anything more.
“Angry?” he asks eventually, apparently not able to take the silence in which Yagyuu is trying to work out where this is going.
“Surprised,” Yagyuu says honestly. “I did not have you down as someone who worked as part of an organisation.”
“Me neither,” and Niou almost laughs. “Yukimura’s just... hell. He’s an interesting guy.”
Perhaps not the right thing to say if he wishes to reassure, Yagyuu thinks. “I wonder if I have misjudged you in other respects,” he says out loud. “I certainly hope not.”
There is a moment when he wonders if Niou will take the general meaning or the specific one, but of course he can get at all the emotions Yagyuu tries to mask. The disbelief in Niou’s face, closely followed by amusement, tells him all he needs to know. Nothing like that with Yukimura, then.
“You haven’t,” Niou says. “Not on the important points.”
Yagyuu nods, cautiously optimistic.
“So you were meant to be... killing someone? And that was how Seishun caught you?” Curiosity - he can’t imagine being this nosy about anyone’s business other than Niou’s.
“Some new hunter, yeah. He was coming in on the boats, so I was hanging around there and keeping an eye out. Didn’t know he’d be Other himself. Little bastard, seriously.”
Seishun is hunting them with their own. It’s a frightening sort of thought, especially if he is powerful enough that Niou refuses to go near him again.
“I suppose we are in trouble, then, if Yukimura has not arranged to have Oishi ‘taken care of,’” Yagyuu muses. “Perhaps even if he has. They seem... close. They will want revenge, I think?”
Niou nods. “But I don’t think Yukimura’s going to drop us in this by ourselves. Well, not if you’ll work for him. He’s interested in you.”
Would it be so bad? This, Yagyuu knows, is Niou’s way of inviting him into his life. What is he really doing otherwise? Pretending to be human, working in respectable jobs (albeit ones which keep strange hours), being something he is not.
“I’ll think about it,” he says, if only because he is aware that they are both filthy and tense, and he’d rather think about this once he is not covered in blood and grime any more. At least almost none of the blood is his. “I am going to go and get clean.”
Niou follows him, uncharacteristically silent, and they end up washing together, subdued but still comfortable, able to allow one another that level of intimacy which, for Yagyuu at least, is usually unthinkable. Eventually they find themselves lying side by side on the bed, aware that there are still things which probably should be said but unwilling to break the silence.
It’s Niou who moves first, perhaps as much as an hour later; sits up, looks down at Yagyuu, and says reluctantly, “he really will come and find us, you know.”
“I know,” Yagyuu agrees.
“Will you work for him if he asks?”
“Doing what?” He sits up too, slightly behind Niou, one hand resting easily on his partner’s hip. “I cannot just agree without hearing the terms. You should know that.”
“Cleaning up mess. Cleaning up stuff that might make a mess.”
Yagyuu hums in agreement. “People.”
“And Others.”
“Why?”
But he thinks he can see. Control. Balance. Yukimura seems like someone who enjoys having power.
“To stop things getting out of hand. We’ve got a pretty delicate balance in the city, you know?”
Yes. He knows. It is complex, keeping relative peace between humans and the stranger inhabitants of the city. The idea of employing someone like Niou to keep everything under control is fairly ludicrous, though. He imagines that the contradiction must amuse Yukimura.
“So you and the others... remove anyone who causes too much trouble.”
“Got it in one.”
The group must be a well-kept secret. He cannot imagine that Niou would tell him this without feeling confident that he could be persuaded to join them. Yukimura must share that confidence, though, if he has left the two of them alone for this long.
It is fortunate, really, that he does not find himself averse to the idea of working with Niou, even doing something so strange as this.
“I think this work would be acceptable,” he tells Niou. In truth, there is a part of him to which it appeals greatly. He is still not certain if he will like Yukimura much, but he thinks he can work with him.
“Acceptable,” Niou echoes, deadpan, and then laughs. “Yeah. It’s pretty acceptable, mostly. But sometimes...”
“Why did you come to me when you failed to kill Echizen?”
Niou shrugs. “Yeah. Sometimes it’s not so great. I didn’t want the lecture for failing.”
It doesn’t sound like the truth to Yagyuu. Delaying his return can only have made things worse. “I thought you weren’t lying to me,” he murmurs, pulling Niou closer.
“You got me,” Niou says, sounding amused, though he sobers quickly. “I wanted to see if you’d help me, I guess.”
“And finding out was worth Yukimura’s anger, was it?”
“Yes.”
Yagyuu can’t help but chuckle. “You’re...”
“Strange? Mad?”
“Something like that.”
“I love you too.”
Maybe he does, at that. It’s an interesting idea. But Niou pulls him in for a kiss before he has time to think too much about it.
Yukimura finds them a while later. They’ve managed to get up and clothe themselves, but it is a close thing. (Yagyuu tries not to imagine Yukimura’s expression had Niou answered the door naked, as he threatened to if they were interrupted.)
The first thing Yukimura says is, “it seems that Yagyuu will be joining us, then.”
Yagyuu stares, until a look from Niou prompts him to offer a response.
“Yes,” he agrees, “although I am not certain how you can sound so sure about it.”
“Niou looks too relaxed for there to have been any serious difficulties,” Yukimura tells him, smiling. Yagyuu wonders what to make of the smile. It seems pleasant enough, but there’s more to it. There must be.
“Mm, very relaxed,” Niou murmurs, managing to sound entirely too suggestive. Yukimura ignores the words in a somewhat pointed manner.
“There will be consequences for your actions,” he tells Niou. “Remember that. You seem to have found someone interesting, but that hardly excuses your repeated neglect of duty.”
“And you have standards, this isn’t good enough, and Sanada wants to slap me into the middle of next week, and is probably going to try next time he sees me,” Niou says, remarkably unconcerned. “I’ll live. But,” he adds. taking in Yukimura’s slightly dangerous expression, “I’ll be good.”
“For a limited value of good, I assume,” Yukimura says, echoing Yagyuu’s thoughts.
“It’s the only way I know,” Niou agrees cheerfully.
“I’m well aware,” Yukimura informs him with a smile, and it seems the topic has been dropped for the moment. “Yagyuu, welcome. You’ll meet the rest the day after tomorrow; we are rarely all in one place.”
“You don’t require any more assurances?” Yagyuu asks.
“Niou has many flaws, but he is a good judge of people.”
And Yukimura is gone again, giving Yagyuu no time to respond.
Niou grins at his expression. “If you think we’re strange, wait until you meet everyone else.”
Yagyuu finds himself briefly wondering just what he is letting himself in for but Niou looks so happy, even with Yukimura’s vague threats. They’re together, and hopefully that’s how it’ll stay. They’re not good people - if they’re even people - but maybe they deserve each other.
Life is definitely shaping up to be a lot more interesting in the future, anyway.
“I look forward to it,” he says. And he means it.
