Fic: Stages 3/12
Title: Stages 3/12
Author: white_cross_b
Type: Fiction
Characters: Yohji & Aya
Rating: R
Beta:
whymzycal
Notes: Based on this drama CD
Summary: Yohji had to struggle to hear Knight's next words, they were so soft, and Yohji could hear a hint of pain in his voice. "It's not too late. You can still come back to us. Back to me. No amount of money can be worth the burden of killing."
INTEREST
Yohji never deluded himself into thinking he had a divine purpose, but he couldn't help but think, while he had a target strung up with his wire, that he was a fisher of men. It was a lot like reeling in a fish, after all. He had long desensitized himself to the gruesomeness of the act of killing, but it hadn't been easy at first to make a kill. The first one had been hard, and Yohji had struggled, not having yet developed his upper body muscles to carry an entire person's body weight in his arms and chest. The wire had nearly severed the man's head, and he'd retched afterward, thinking of how the man had fought, how Yohji had reeled him in to his death. It had been slow and had taken too long, and the memory of it had brought the taste of bile to his mouth for several days. So he'd worked out. Hard. And he had gotten strong. Killing was now second nature and not something to be thought of afterward. He cast his net and so men, and more importantly women, were saved.
He kept his attitude as careless as possible. The less he cared, the easier it would be. He was known to turn missions down from time to time, shrugging them off if there were no women to be saved, because then they weren't worth his time. He ignored the inner voice that called him a liar, and he drank and fucked while his teammates risked their lives without him. So if he didn't feel like taking a job, he passed and ignored the disgusted looks he got from the rest of the team. He didn't necessarily need the money. His rent was paid for, his car was paid for, and he had no further expenses other than food and clothes. Yohji did spend big on clothes -- within reason -- but he also got a salary from working in the shop.
Tonight's mission was different. As soon as Yohji learned that Crashers was involved, he signed on. Crashers had been brought in to rescue victims of a kidnapping, but when Kritiker had discovered their demise, it was time to pull out Crashers and bring in Weiß. Yohji was full of smug satisfaction, but Aya showed no emotion at all when he learned of his former team's failure. The targets were also gun runners and drug manufacturers -- it was a no-brainer why Yohji would want to be involved -- and taking over from Crashers was just the icing on the cake. And so he made his catch, cursing the man to a fate in hell, when the ground underneath him shuddered from an unexpected explosion.
What the fuck? he asked himself. Crashers was supposed to have pulled out. I could have just gotten my ass blown up. He pulled the catch on his watch to snap off the length of wire as Omi appeared before him, worry written plainly on his face. Seeing that the targets had been taken out, Yohji's work was done, and he was none too pleased when Omi decided they'd go after Aya.
"Omi, why are you in Weiß? Is it to make friends? You'd be better off picking up a stray dog, then, because frienships don't belong here." Yohji rolled his eyes at Omi's blank look and ushered him off. "I'll go after Aya, and you and Ken stay here. No sense in all of us getting killed." And with a wave, he entered the factory.
Aya seemed to be fine, Yohji discovered, once his vision adjusted to the smoke and ash in the air. He target was on the ground in a pool of blood as Aya stood over him, katana still raised. Yohji quickly reached for his watch when another man appeared out of the darkness, then lowered it in surprise. What the hell was Knight doing here? He stepped back into the shadows and listened. For former teammates, he and Aya weren't so happy to see each other, and Yohji eventually realized why.
"Ran..." Knight began, putting his hand on Aya's arm, but Aya shrugged it off.
"It's Aya now. The Ran that you knew no longer exists." Aya‘s voice was cold, detached.
Yohji had to struggle to hear Knight's next words, they were so soft, and Yohji could hear a hint of pain in his voice. "It's not too late. You can still come back to us. Back to me. No amount of money can be worth the burden of killing."
"It was never about the money, Yuushi. You couldn't help me achieve my goals. Nothing else matters." Aya wiped his blade on the dead man's shirt and slid it back into its sheath, then walked away without another word. Knight stood as if shell-shocked while sirens sounded in the distance, marking the inevitable arrival of police. They'd be here soon. It was time to go. But first...
"He won't come back to you," Yohji said, pulling a cigarette out of his coat and lighting up as he stepped out of the shadows.
Knight started visibly, reaching into his jacket for what Yohji could only assume was a weapon. Idiot. Should have had his weapon on hand from the start. It wasn't a matter of not wanting to kill, it was a matter of survival, and he could wind up dead. "Who are you?" Knight asked.
"Balinese." Yohji grinned as he could see comprehension dawn on Knight's face.
"Weiß," Yuushi said with obvious distaste.
Yohji gave a mock bow. "At your service," he said. He took a drag from his cigarette as he looked Knight -- or Yuushi, as Aya had called him -- up and down. Blond, obviously wealthy from the way he was dressed, and he'd had a thing with Aya. That made this meeting even more interesting. "Like I said, Aya won't be going back to you. He belongs with us now." He absentmindedly flicked away ash and brought the cigarette to his lips again, taking a drag as he watched Knight scrutinize him closely.
"So, it's you then, is it? Ran's with you now?" he asked.
"You mean, are we fucking? No. But I could if I wanted to," Yohji chuckled. "I'm the one who gave him his new name," he added, though he wasn't sure why he wanted Knight to know.
"Good luck keeping him if you do," Knight replied as he pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. "It was nice to meet you," he said, all manners and grace as he turned to leave.
Liar,Yohji thought to himself. "The pleasure was all mine," he said out loud instead, and that was the truth.
Later that night when they were home safe at the Koneko, Yohji stayed up after the others had gone to bed and booted up the computer. It only took a couple minutes before he was logged into the Kritiker database and had Knight's profile up alongside Aya’s on the screen in front of him. It wasn't hard to see right off what he and Aya had in common, with Yuushi taking care of his blind sister, but what really surprised Yohji was seeing that Aya had actually lived with Knight while he was in Crashers. After a few months with the team, Aya had gone renegade, tracking down and killing staff that were close to Takatori Reiji, before finally being caught in Yohji's wire and being given his choice: Weiß or death. Yohji actually felt sick, knowing that if Aya had chosen not to join Weiß, he would have been called on to kill Aya.
And Weiß would have remained a team of three.
When Yohji went to sleep, he dreamed of Aya caught in his wire, struggling like a beautiful, wild animal -- but it was Yohji who suffered as the wire cut into his hands and blood dripped in the pale moonlight.
***
Italy was a disaster.
After discovering they had killed the wrong man when they took over from Crashers, Weiß had been sent to Italy, where the bastard had sought refuge, to finish their job. Fortuna, Italy's version of Weiß, were instrumental in the takedown of their target, and Yohji becamse smitten with their beautiful, black-haired assassin. He'd made no secret of his attraction to her, but when she admitted to him that she had been born a man, Yohji was gobsmacked. It had fucked up his head, to say the very least. When she lay dying in his arms after taking a bullet meant for Yohji, she asked for only one thing: a kiss. He hesitated before kissing her softly on the lips, as the life in her eyes grew dim. He went mad after that, tracking down her killer and stringing him in his wire, watching him suffer as the wire cut into his throat, depriving him of precious oxygen. It was the first time Yohji had killed freely on his own, with no mission to back him up, and though the rest of the team didn't condemn him for it, he couldn't help but feel he was slipping into a darkness he hadn't known before.
When they boarded the flight back to Japan, he grabbed Ken's ticket and switched it with his own, sitting himself down next to Aya.
"TIffone used to be a man," he said, pushing his sunglasses up further onto the bridge of his nose, not looking at Aya directly.
"So it seems." Aya's voice was quiet amid the roaring sound of the engines as the plane began to taxi down the runway. He looked at Yohji curiously. "Does that bother you?"
"I don't know," Yohji said honestly. "Everything used to be so black and white. Men were men and women were women, and that's what love and sex were all about, men being with women. Was Tiffone a woman in the end, or really still a man?"
"Does it matter either way?" Aya asked. "You still cared about her, or him, didn't you?" He smirked a bit. "Or you at least wanted to get into her pants, right?"
Yohji squirmed a bit in his seat before answering. "Yeah. Yeah, I did." Then he realized what exactly Aya had said. "Hey! It wasn't like that!" he protested, though it sounded lame in his own ears. "Oh, fuck it," he finally said, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. "Yeah, I wanted to get into her pants. So what?!"
Aya shrugged, but said nothing. Yohji eyed him closely. "What is it you like about being with men?" he asked.
Aya was quiet for several long moments, and Yohji was beginning to think he wasn't going to answer at all before he finally spoke. "It's nothing I can put into words," he said. "I've been with men and women, and with men, I don't know." He shrugged. "It was just right."
"Hmmm..." was Yohji's only response. He turned out his overhead light and leaned his seat back, finished with this conversation and tired of thinking about…whatever it was he was thinking about. Fuck it. He was going to sleep the entire way back to Tokyo.
Author: white_cross_b
Type: Fiction
Characters: Yohji & Aya
Rating: R
Beta:
whymzycal
Notes: Based on this drama CD
Summary: Yohji had to struggle to hear Knight's next words, they were so soft, and Yohji could hear a hint of pain in his voice. "It's not too late. You can still come back to us. Back to me. No amount of money can be worth the burden of killing."
INTEREST
Yohji never deluded himself into thinking he had a divine purpose, but he couldn't help but think, while he had a target strung up with his wire, that he was a fisher of men. It was a lot like reeling in a fish, after all. He had long desensitized himself to the gruesomeness of the act of killing, but it hadn't been easy at first to make a kill. The first one had been hard, and Yohji had struggled, not having yet developed his upper body muscles to carry an entire person's body weight in his arms and chest. The wire had nearly severed the man's head, and he'd retched afterward, thinking of how the man had fought, how Yohji had reeled him in to his death. It had been slow and had taken too long, and the memory of it had brought the taste of bile to his mouth for several days. So he'd worked out. Hard. And he had gotten strong. Killing was now second nature and not something to be thought of afterward. He cast his net and so men, and more importantly women, were saved.
He kept his attitude as careless as possible. The less he cared, the easier it would be. He was known to turn missions down from time to time, shrugging them off if there were no women to be saved, because then they weren't worth his time. He ignored the inner voice that called him a liar, and he drank and fucked while his teammates risked their lives without him. So if he didn't feel like taking a job, he passed and ignored the disgusted looks he got from the rest of the team. He didn't necessarily need the money. His rent was paid for, his car was paid for, and he had no further expenses other than food and clothes. Yohji did spend big on clothes -- within reason -- but he also got a salary from working in the shop.
Tonight's mission was different. As soon as Yohji learned that Crashers was involved, he signed on. Crashers had been brought in to rescue victims of a kidnapping, but when Kritiker had discovered their demise, it was time to pull out Crashers and bring in Weiß. Yohji was full of smug satisfaction, but Aya showed no emotion at all when he learned of his former team's failure. The targets were also gun runners and drug manufacturers -- it was a no-brainer why Yohji would want to be involved -- and taking over from Crashers was just the icing on the cake. And so he made his catch, cursing the man to a fate in hell, when the ground underneath him shuddered from an unexpected explosion.
What the fuck? he asked himself. Crashers was supposed to have pulled out. I could have just gotten my ass blown up. He pulled the catch on his watch to snap off the length of wire as Omi appeared before him, worry written plainly on his face. Seeing that the targets had been taken out, Yohji's work was done, and he was none too pleased when Omi decided they'd go after Aya.
"Omi, why are you in Weiß? Is it to make friends? You'd be better off picking up a stray dog, then, because frienships don't belong here." Yohji rolled his eyes at Omi's blank look and ushered him off. "I'll go after Aya, and you and Ken stay here. No sense in all of us getting killed." And with a wave, he entered the factory.
Aya seemed to be fine, Yohji discovered, once his vision adjusted to the smoke and ash in the air. He target was on the ground in a pool of blood as Aya stood over him, katana still raised. Yohji quickly reached for his watch when another man appeared out of the darkness, then lowered it in surprise. What the hell was Knight doing here? He stepped back into the shadows and listened. For former teammates, he and Aya weren't so happy to see each other, and Yohji eventually realized why.
"Ran..." Knight began, putting his hand on Aya's arm, but Aya shrugged it off.
"It's Aya now. The Ran that you knew no longer exists." Aya‘s voice was cold, detached.
Yohji had to struggle to hear Knight's next words, they were so soft, and Yohji could hear a hint of pain in his voice. "It's not too late. You can still come back to us. Back to me. No amount of money can be worth the burden of killing."
"It was never about the money, Yuushi. You couldn't help me achieve my goals. Nothing else matters." Aya wiped his blade on the dead man's shirt and slid it back into its sheath, then walked away without another word. Knight stood as if shell-shocked while sirens sounded in the distance, marking the inevitable arrival of police. They'd be here soon. It was time to go. But first...
"He won't come back to you," Yohji said, pulling a cigarette out of his coat and lighting up as he stepped out of the shadows.
Knight started visibly, reaching into his jacket for what Yohji could only assume was a weapon. Idiot. Should have had his weapon on hand from the start. It wasn't a matter of not wanting to kill, it was a matter of survival, and he could wind up dead. "Who are you?" Knight asked.
"Balinese." Yohji grinned as he could see comprehension dawn on Knight's face.
"Weiß," Yuushi said with obvious distaste.
Yohji gave a mock bow. "At your service," he said. He took a drag from his cigarette as he looked Knight -- or Yuushi, as Aya had called him -- up and down. Blond, obviously wealthy from the way he was dressed, and he'd had a thing with Aya. That made this meeting even more interesting. "Like I said, Aya won't be going back to you. He belongs with us now." He absentmindedly flicked away ash and brought the cigarette to his lips again, taking a drag as he watched Knight scrutinize him closely.
"So, it's you then, is it? Ran's with you now?" he asked.
"You mean, are we fucking? No. But I could if I wanted to," Yohji chuckled. "I'm the one who gave him his new name," he added, though he wasn't sure why he wanted Knight to know.
"Good luck keeping him if you do," Knight replied as he pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. "It was nice to meet you," he said, all manners and grace as he turned to leave.
Liar,Yohji thought to himself. "The pleasure was all mine," he said out loud instead, and that was the truth.
Later that night when they were home safe at the Koneko, Yohji stayed up after the others had gone to bed and booted up the computer. It only took a couple minutes before he was logged into the Kritiker database and had Knight's profile up alongside Aya’s on the screen in front of him. It wasn't hard to see right off what he and Aya had in common, with Yuushi taking care of his blind sister, but what really surprised Yohji was seeing that Aya had actually lived with Knight while he was in Crashers. After a few months with the team, Aya had gone renegade, tracking down and killing staff that were close to Takatori Reiji, before finally being caught in Yohji's wire and being given his choice: Weiß or death. Yohji actually felt sick, knowing that if Aya had chosen not to join Weiß, he would have been called on to kill Aya.
And Weiß would have remained a team of three.
When Yohji went to sleep, he dreamed of Aya caught in his wire, struggling like a beautiful, wild animal -- but it was Yohji who suffered as the wire cut into his hands and blood dripped in the pale moonlight.
***
Italy was a disaster.
After discovering they had killed the wrong man when they took over from Crashers, Weiß had been sent to Italy, where the bastard had sought refuge, to finish their job. Fortuna, Italy's version of Weiß, were instrumental in the takedown of their target, and Yohji becamse smitten with their beautiful, black-haired assassin. He'd made no secret of his attraction to her, but when she admitted to him that she had been born a man, Yohji was gobsmacked. It had fucked up his head, to say the very least. When she lay dying in his arms after taking a bullet meant for Yohji, she asked for only one thing: a kiss. He hesitated before kissing her softly on the lips, as the life in her eyes grew dim. He went mad after that, tracking down her killer and stringing him in his wire, watching him suffer as the wire cut into his throat, depriving him of precious oxygen. It was the first time Yohji had killed freely on his own, with no mission to back him up, and though the rest of the team didn't condemn him for it, he couldn't help but feel he was slipping into a darkness he hadn't known before.
When they boarded the flight back to Japan, he grabbed Ken's ticket and switched it with his own, sitting himself down next to Aya.
"TIffone used to be a man," he said, pushing his sunglasses up further onto the bridge of his nose, not looking at Aya directly.
"So it seems." Aya's voice was quiet amid the roaring sound of the engines as the plane began to taxi down the runway. He looked at Yohji curiously. "Does that bother you?"
"I don't know," Yohji said honestly. "Everything used to be so black and white. Men were men and women were women, and that's what love and sex were all about, men being with women. Was Tiffone a woman in the end, or really still a man?"
"Does it matter either way?" Aya asked. "You still cared about her, or him, didn't you?" He smirked a bit. "Or you at least wanted to get into her pants, right?"
Yohji squirmed a bit in his seat before answering. "Yeah. Yeah, I did." Then he realized what exactly Aya had said. "Hey! It wasn't like that!" he protested, though it sounded lame in his own ears. "Oh, fuck it," he finally said, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. "Yeah, I wanted to get into her pants. So what?!"
Aya shrugged, but said nothing. Yohji eyed him closely. "What is it you like about being with men?" he asked.
Aya was quiet for several long moments, and Yohji was beginning to think he wasn't going to answer at all before he finally spoke. "It's nothing I can put into words," he said. "I've been with men and women, and with men, I don't know." He shrugged. "It was just right."
"Hmmm..." was Yohji's only response. He turned out his overhead light and leaned his seat back, finished with this conversation and tired of thinking about…whatever it was he was thinking about. Fuck it. He was going to sleep the entire way back to Tokyo.