Cold Case #74 - Jack the Ripper (Part II)
Title: Cold Case #74 - Jack the Ripper
Chapters: 2/3
Author: yumemirunosekai
Pairing: Kamenashi/Ueda
Rating: R (in general)
Warnings: mindfukery, alternate timeline (when, where, and why, I leave it up to the reader's imagination.) alternate world (sci-fi), psychotic!Kame, heavy psychological themes.
Genre: sci-fi, psychological
Synopsis: And with his skill he’d cut & slash, To take a heart of hardened stone, That led a path to darkened graves, For him to walk once more alone - Pete Marshall (Jack the Ripper)
A/N: For scorch66, the most awesome KameDa writer i have ever come across ^o^ So sorry dear, but the fluff/romance level in this fic is close to non existent. Probably because I just finished watching Silence of the Lambs, soooo….. m(_ _)m Please don’t kill me.
Disclaimer: Nope, last time I checked, still don’t own them.
Part I
///
Kame regrets going to the station infirmary. He’s never going to listen to Nakamaru’s advice ever again.
Some stupid nurse with glittery eyeshadow and too-red lips is on duty, and the way she flutters her eyelashes and sticks her chest out at him makes Kame want to retch.
She takes all the time in the world to clean his hands and bandage them. Her skin is flaky and dry, making Kame’s hair stand whenever she drags her man-fingers across his wrist. Kame needs to focus on something, anything, to stop him from strangling this bitch.
His eyes land on a stack of medical records, and the name scribbled on the topmost one catches his eye.
Kame snatches his hands away, and reaches for the brown file folder.
“Why is this here?” he asks, eyes never leaving the passport sized picture of Ueda, at the top lefthand corner of the document. His face is thin, Kame notes. Angular cheekbones and a sharp chin. Perhaps his hair is a little too flat here, short black locks falling around his forehead messily.
His eyes are sunken (not as badly as the last few days), but it still manages to give Ueda a corpse-like look. But what really draws his attention is Ueda lips. Even looking thin and emaciated doesn’t alter the fact that his lips look like soft pink velvet.
Soft and pliable, soft and pliable.
The nurse peers over at the file. “This? Oh, the poor, poor dear was so sick!” she gushes, and Kame chokes on his saliva at her tone.
“When he passed out and was brought in here, I did a full checkup for him.” The nurse suddenly sighs heavily, looking terribly sympathetic, a feeling Kame is completely foreign to.
“The kid’s malnourished and dehydrated. He’s got bruises, and scars all over as well as unhealed wounds - some infected too. I believe he also has two stomach ulcers., one of them is recent - probably a few days ago, which explains the malnourishment, ‘cause it would have been torture to eat. ” She suddenly cringes. “But worst of all is that he showed signs of- um, tearing at the -” She pauses. “- you know. That place.”
“Signs of rape.” Kame states nonchalantly.
The nurse winces. Kame is just glad she’s stopped her ridiculous flirting.
“Yes,” she replies. “I’ve had an ambulance over to send him to the local hospital for further examination.”
Kame doesn’t wait to be dismissed before he’s out the door and making his way to the carpark, Ueda’s file in his hand.
Perhaps going to the infirmary was a pretty good decision after all.
///
The local hospital is a miserable, miserable place - too sterile and too quiet. The smell of antiseptic and chloroform invade his personal space before Kame passes through the automatic doors. The chipped tiled floors and yellowing wallpaper reminds him of flaking skin, and the flickering fluorescent lights overhead does little to discourage this.
Kame doesn’t even have to ask for Ueda, because he sees a group of doctors in dull white lab coats huddled together by the nurse’ station, talking in low, grim voices.
“What are we going to do with him?”
“The police sent him, but we are only holding him for one night. I’m not wasting good rooms on fucking whores.”
“Shut up! We don’t even know that. Besides, the police didn’t tell us so, and his file is clean.”
“It’s not that hard to omit such information. The system is pretty rotten.”
“Please, I’m confidant he’s a prostitute. Everything, from the tearing to the bruises around his waist.”
“That’s hardly evidence. He could have been raped.”
“Perhaps, but he’s showing early signs of syphilis. I’ve given him an injection already, so he should be fine.”
“What? You wasted antibiotics on a whore? Are you mental?”
“Well, we can’t just leave it!”
“I could have.”
“Nevermind that now. Just- he won’t even tell us where he fucking lives. And we need the beds. He can’t stay here.”
“Forget it. We check him out tomorrow. I don’t care where he goes, as long as it’s not here. I don’t want to be breathing the same air as that kid.”
Kame finds himself smiling his usual smile as he rudely interrupts the doctors’ conversation. It takes 60 seconds for him to chew out all 5 doctors, another 20 to convince them to let him take Ueda, and 10 more to sign Ueda out in his name and have one of the doctors direct him to the boy’s room.
Ueda is awake, propped up by large pillows. He’s staring out the window with a blank expression, not realising that someone is watching him. Very intently for that matter. Ueda’s right arm is tightly bandaged, and there are also bandages peeking out from the top of his hospital gown which is cut too wide, or perhaps it’s because Ueda’s just too thin at the moment.
Kame’s eyes fall on a glass of water placed ridiculously far from he bed on top of the dresser near the door. Either the nurses are really lazy, or they are deliberately spiting Ueda, who would have to get up and walk a considerable distance if he needed a drink.
Also, the nurses’ call button that is supposed to be on the bed of the patient is apparently lying at least 10 feet away from Ueda, the wire ripped off the steel bed rail and draped across the EKG machine in a corner of the room, far from reach.
Poor kid.
So many people hate you.
He makes his presence known by stalking in, and his shoes that click against the tiled floor makes Ueda jump violently. When he sees Kame, the panic and fear that flashes across Ueda’s face is obvious. His eyes dart around the room frantically, landing on the call button across the room. He looks as though he was prepared to make a dash for it, but then something akin to defeat shutters over the fear, damping out all previous emotions.
He sighs in defeat and closes his eyes.
Kame watches Ueda in silence, an unreadable expression on his face.
Ueda opens them after awhile, in slight surprise when Kame makes no move to hurt him. Kamenashi can see confusion and distrust reflected in Ueda’s expression as the panic melts away, and he just stares, somehow entranced.
It’s eons before Kame walks close to the bed. Ueda cringes away involuntarily, and immediately there is anger n his features, as though he was furious at himself for allowing Kame to affect him this badly.
It makes sense. Kame did almost snap his arm in half in their previous one on one meeting.
Kame dumps a bag on Ueda’s bed, and the boy yelps quietly. Kame raises a delicate brow.
“It’s not a bomb.” he says flatly.
Ueda turns his gaze upwards to meet his. Kame breaks it before those eyes can drawn him in further. “Get dressed.” he says curtly before walking away from the bed. And as a precaution, just to cull Ueda’s stubborn streak and to remind him of who is in charge here, he adds over his shoulder, “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
He waits for the unmistakable sound crinkling plastic and rustle of fabric before he exits the room completely, closing the door behind him.
///
It’s just a plain white long-sleeved tee and faded jeans, but Kame has to look away when Ueda finally exits his room fully dressed.
“Come on.” Kame says, and as expected, Ueda doesn’t oblige.
“Why?” he asks, almost spitting the words through his teeth.
Kame suddenly feels like laughing. He turns to face Ueda. “Because I’m the one checking you out of the hospital. And since you refused to give the doctors your real address, and the one in your file is of a building demolished 20 years ago, you’re living with me.”
There is a sharp intake of breath.
“No.” Ueda hisses.
Kame closes his eyes, and counts to one hundred. “This isn’t a choice. You are sick. If the syphilis doesn’t kill you first, the prostitution and stomach ulcers will. You jump back into whoring around in your current condition-” Ueda flinches at this. “- you’ll be lucky if you’re alive by next month.”
Ueda doesn’t speak. He seems to be processing Kame’s words. “I have syphilis?” is his first question.
Kame just focuses on his too-red lips.
Soft and pliant, soft and pliant.
“Yes, but it’s in the early stages, and you have been given treatment.” Kame answers.
Again, Ueda lapses into silence. “I didn’t know you gave a fuck about my health. “ he suddenly says, sneering. “How nice of you.” He spits.
Something must have changed in Kame’s demeanour at this point because the fear is back in Ueda eyes. “No.” Kame says, coolly. “I don’t give a fuck about your health. The only reason I’m telling you this is because I trust you have common sense, to care about your own health, and listen to me. You can either come with me, understanding that I am willing to provide you with a roof above your head and actually let you eat at my table while you recuperate; or,” Kame pauses, his gaze partly crazed now. “you can choose to resist, and I will have you dragged kicking and screaming into my car, in a fucking straightjacket, and I might just decide to make your stay at my place not so pleasant. Either way is fine with me. You choose, Ueda.”
///
5 minutes later, Ueda is seated in the passenger seat of Kamenashi’s Merce as the older man, sporting a strange smile, drives away from the hospital parking lot.
///
Kame lives alone.
His apartment is reasonably large, furnished in detached colours of black and white. Ueda steps in hesitantly after Kame, who locks and bolts the door before setting the alarm. Kame brushes past Ueda into the living room and pulls open the third drawer on a large black filing cabinet with a plain glass top. He slips Ueda’s personal file into the section marked ‘U - Medical’ and closes it with a click.
Ueda is still staring at the living room when Kame turns to look at him.
“What?” Kame asks, when Ueda shivers.
“Nothing.” Ueda admits, shaking his head as his eyes driest across the black leather couch and plain glass coffee table. “It’s just-“ he stops, unsure if he should continue.
“Stop freaking.” Kame says crisply as he makes his way to the bar across the room. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
At this, Ueda looks round with a ‘what the fuck’ expression on his face. Kame ignores it as his fingers work quickly with tipping ice into his glass and filling it with golden liquid. “I don’t bring home my work with me.” Kame says as though it explained everything. “So I won’t do what I do at work here. I don’t want to bring it here.” Kame brings the glass to his lips. He watches Ueda’s confused expression over the rim.
“It?”
Kame doesn’t answer. Whether he heard Ueda or not is unknown.
“So? What were you about to say?”
Ueda waits severals seconds before speaking. “I just wanted to point out, that this place doesn’t look lived in.”
Kame raises a brow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that- nevermind.”
Kame is about to question Ueda further, but he stops when he realises that the boy is having difficulty standing, and he’s slightly hunched over. Kame places his glass down on a coaster and gestures at Ueda to follow him.
“You’ll be sleeping here.”
He leads the way to a sparsely furnished bedroom. There is a kind bed against the wall, a armoire, a full-length mirror in a corner, and strangely enough, a piano.
“Wait,” Ueda says, eyes narrowing. “Isn’t this your bedroom?”
Kame is impressed. “How did you know?”
“Your spare gun is lying on the bedside table.”
Observant indeed, Kame thinks.
“Why am I sleeping here?” Ueda demands, and there is an edge in his tone.
“Where else would you rather sleep? The couch? Forget it.”
Ueda is contemplating everything with a slightly nervous look. “You- You do know I can’t-“
“I’m not prepared to sink that low.” Kame interrupts coldly.
Ueda’s lips.
Too red. Just a little too red.
Soft and pliant, soft and pliant.
Kame bites his tongue.
Ueda clamps his lips shut in a tight line. And suddenly looks ashamed. “Sorry.” he mumbles, and Kame is taken aback at how docile he sounds. “It’s just that when guys ask me to share their bed, it normally for-“
There is an awkward silence that hangs in the air. Kame just sighs. “Understandable.” he says. “You are a whore after all.”
Again, Ueda cringes at the word. “It’s not like I wanted to be.” he sighs. Kame chooses to disregard the funny feeling of bubbling acid in his gut and moves forwards to grip Ueda by the arm. His arm is so thin. So terribly thin. Kame drops him on the bed unceremoniously, butt first.
Ueda is about to protest the manhandling, when Kame hooks his arm around Ueda’s legs and heaves his bare feet onto the silky sheets. Ueda shudders at the feeling of rich textile against his skin.
“Get some sleep.” Kame says. “I’m sure you had none in the hospital. I’ll bring in your dinner later, and if don’t don’t finish it, I’m stuffing it down your throat.”
Ueda is staring at him again with that stupid look. “Stop looking at me like that.” Kame hisses, and roughly yanks the sheets from under Ueda, making him fall onto his back against the soft pillows with a loud yelp. With surprising gentleness, Kame proceeds to tuck Ueda in. In complete shock, Ueda lets him.
Ueda stops him as he prepares to leave the room. Kame pauses at the threshold and peers over his shoulder.
“Why?” Ueda asks.
And there we go. The long awaited question.
Kame smiles a smile that sends a thousand pins and needles up Ueda’s spine.
“Because I’m not finished with you yet.”
///
Kame takes Ueda to the station early next morning, where he is cornered by Koki and Nakamaru. Kame has to lock them out of the interrogation room before he rounds on a very panicky Ueda.
By the time he’s finished, Ueda had vomited at least three times.
He still refuses to admit that he’s the killer.
Kame hates this stubbornness. Why won’t he admit it?
Koki almost has a seizure when he finds out the hospital released Ueda into Kame’s care. “YOU LET HIM GO WITH A FUCKING PSYCHO.” Is what the man yells into the phone after dialling up the Emergency Ward.
But since Kame is the only one willing to look after Ueda, and the kid has no family and no one to look care for him, Koki reluctantly agrees that it’s for the best, not without several threats of, ‘If I see a single scratch on the kid, you can kiss you job goodbye.’
Back at his place, Ueda throws a flying fit, and it’s hours before he calms down. When he does, Kame is unable to get close to him without the having the boy quaking in fear and dry retching into the carpet. It kinda burns to see Ueda like that. Kame always feels kinda sorry for him when they return home. But no matter what Kame does to him, he still refuses to break.
A fucking month of dragging him back and forth, and yet Ueda doesn’t crack. His ulcers aren’t any better, probably because of all the vomiting, but being under Kame’s ‘care’ has helped fill in what used to be all skin and bones.
Somehow, Ueda seems to become numb to Kame’s treatment. It is as though he’s gradually getting used to the routine of getting brutally interrogated every day, 7 to 5, then being taken back home, where Kame feeds him and soothes his wounds. It’s weird.
Kame wonders if he’s damaging Ueda’s psyche one day when the boy walks up to him one morning as he prepares to swallow his usual dose of alcohol in coffee, and looks at him with this blank expression and asks, “Hey, do you hear a bug flying around?”
Kame doesn’t know what to make of this. He drops the matter when Ueda doesn’t bring the question up again, until Monday of the following week, when he asks the same question while Kame is busy cleaning up the kitchen sink that seems to be stained in dark brown dirt for some reason.
“No. I don’t. Now shut up and stop shitting with me.” Kame finally says, not looking up from his task. “And are you the one using up all the hand-soap?” he adds, when he catches sight of the heap of empty soap bottles in the dustbin next to the sink.
Ueda looks at him weird.
“.…Yes…”
“Well, don’t do it.” Kame says.
Ueda doesn’t answer, but after that day, the soap bottles stop disappearing, and Ueda never brings up the weird question ever again.
///
Part III