[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 30 ~And Then the Things We Can...~
Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma. okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day. Can they work together or will they end up destroying each other?
Author's Note: Okay, there's a paragraph in there that pisses me off. I try to save rather regularly and then there's also the document recovery thing... but I'd just finished a very short paragraph and then, oops, power went off for like a split second. I had saved a few paragraphs back, but the document recovery had more of it... but not that last paragraph I'd literally just typed the final quotation mark on. THAT PARAGRAPH WAS PERFECT and it was the only one I couldn't get back . And by the time I was able to get the computer rebooted and everything opened, I couldn't remember exactly what it said, only the general idea.
So the replacement one pisses me off, but it does at least lead to the same next paragraph fine. Anyway, here we go, past!Kame and the twins.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!!
Warning: This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_ Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
Chapter 30 ~And Then the Things We Can...~
There really must be some magic in that tea. Despite everything that happened, Kame could feel the heat from the tea spread through him, calming him as he sat on the twins’ couch. Shock had set in and none of it seemed real anymore but as he basked in the spreading warmth, it didn’t seem to matter much more anyway.
Akira was in the little kitchen area, talking to Aoi. Or at Aoi. Or however the two of them communicated. Kame wasn’t quite sure, though he probably would figure it out eventually. It really depended on how long they let him stay.
He couldn’t just crash with them forever, could he? He’d run out of money eventually (how much were they going to charge him, anyway?) and whoring it turned out was really a location-specific job. If you weren’t based out of certain areas, it just didn’t work because the customers won’t know where to find you. And Pearl Street was just too dangerous now.
Okay, Pearl Street had always been dangerous. Ryuichi and Hina were proof of that. It was even more dangerous after Kame learned Papa K’s… um… other whores were based there, too, just in a different area of it.
There was nothing to be done for it. And even if there was, it wouldn’t be tonight.
Staring at the bandages Akira put around his wrists, all Kame could think was that his father had won. For the amount of money in the reward offer, there wasn’t a single soul on the street who wouldn’t turn him in. Home was no good for him. The street was no good for him. The twins were a temporary solution at best.
He still had his knife in his pocket. You know, it would only hurt for a minute if he…
“Kame-chan? Are you listening? Kame-chan?”
Just for a minute...
And then none of it would matter anymore…
And his father would never find him…
But then Aoi’s face was suddenly right there, inches from his own. The man didn’t say anything (well, he never did anyway!); instead he tilted his head to the side with a rather quizzical expression on his face. After searching Kame’s face for whatever it was he was looking for, Aoi looked back up at his brother. Glancing over, Kame saw Akira nod and then he felt Aoi’s hands on him.
It was so sudden and, considering everything that happened to him, Kame could have sworn his heart stopped entirely for a moment. But Aoi didn’t try to feel him up or anything like that. Not that Kame could afford to stop him even if he had. He needed them. Anything they wanted, he had to give without complaint.
No, Aoi just started quickly searching Kame’s pockets until he found the switchblade. Grabbing ahold of it, he pulled it out and tossed it across the room to Akira who locked it in a cupboard. Kame hadn’t even realized cupboards came with locks, but now that he was actually looking, several cabinets had them.
Aoi patted him on the top of the head in a friendly, indulging sort of way and then stood back up. He was only gone a few seconds but when he got back he was carrying a pillow and a blanket that he set on the couch next to Kame.
“I know things seem bad right now, but you’re no coward. Aoi and I, we can both see that. I know you can, too, usually. But sometimes we all need to be reminded. Tomorrow will be better, Kame-chan.”
Kame nodded mutely. It was still pretty early in the evening, not even fully dark… but he was exhausted. Not just a little tired, either. Every tiny bit of him felt heavy - body, mind, and soul.
Slipping his shoes off, Kame pulled the blanket over himself on that couch, clutching Snoopy tightly to his chest, and passed smooth on out.
+++
The smell of… wait, was that bacon? Oh, god, how long had it been since he had bacon? His father rarely made it and Kame hadn’t had it at all since he left home. He pushed himself up to sit.
“Told you that would work,” Akira practically giggled. Seriously? A grown man giggling? Not that he could throw stones, what with his stuffed animal.
“What worked? Is that bacon?” Kame asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Aoi just flashed a crooked smile and Akira nodded. “Yeah, we don’t make it very often but, well, bacon makes everything better. Or so I’ve been told. Yurina loves the stuff.”
“Yurina?” Kame asked, eyes fixed on the frying pan. “Oh, is that your sister? The one in jail?” The one Ryuichi got in trouble? But he didn’t say that part, mostly because he didn’t want to mention or even think one minute more about that boy. Ever.
“Un...”
Awkward silence.
But as Kame folded his blanket, he noticed that the twins had set up one of those card tables along with three chairs. Well, it was the next day, after all. The three of them would have to have The Talk. The one where the twins tell him how it’s going to be and he accepts it all without hesitation, period.
That terrified him.
Best focus on the bacon. And the table. And the floor. And anything else that wasn’t the conversation he was about to have.
Besides, he was starving. He hadn’t really thought about it, but he had absolutely nothing to eat yesterday and he couldn’t remember if he’d had dinner the night before or not. Stupid drugs…
It was all kinds of rude, but Kame just snatched up a handful of the stuff and started to cram it down his throat as fast as he could get it chewed. Oh, he didn’t take all of it. He just… he was so hungry and he really, really didn’t want to talk. He didn’t need to talk, right? He just needed to listen?
Aoi and Akira were not fooled. They divided up the rest of the bacon and the onigiri (of course, Kame snatched one of those as well; it wasn’t a proper breakfast without one, right?) and the whole lot of them ate in silence.
And then the food was gone and there was no avoiding it.
“You’re so scared of us still?” Akira asked softly. “You were past that. I know this life isn’t what you want for yourself and we have no illusions about what you are to us even though we’ve paid you to sleep with us. But you at least recognized that we aren’t going to hurt you or force you to do anything without your consent. Why are you so afraid now?”
Kame couldn’t return his gaze and stared at the floor, mumbling something about choices or the lack thereof.
“Kame, look at me.”
Damn it, what was it about Akira’s voice? When he gave an order, even if you didn’t want to follow it, somehow it still got through to you and you’d find yourself obeying before you even realized. It wasn’t even a hard or mean voice! That, at least, would make sense! It was a soft yet very firm voice.
That man could do so much with just the power of the tone of his voice…
And so Kame was looking at him, straight on.
“What are you truly afraid of?” Akira asked him, locking eyes with Kame. Damn, that made it much harder to tear his gaze away and back to the floor. It also made it damn near impossible to lie. Akira would be able to tell. Kame was sure of it.
“I… need a place to stay. I need… I can’t work Pearl Street anymore. I c-can’t… I can’t work at all. There’s… there’s… just no place I can work. My money won’t last forever, if that’s even what you… And… and… since I… I really need your help… there’s… I can’t say ‘no’ to you…” and Kame tried so hard to keep his voice from shaking, though it wasn’t really working, “Not on anything. Ever… And I… don’t know what… you will make me do but I know what you l-like and…” He sort of trailed off. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say any of it. It was too much. “But… I will… whatever you… I will d-do it…”
Aoi’s hand on Akira’s arm, a brief shared glance, and then Akira said, “After what’s happened to you, do you really think we’d ask something like that of you? We’re not like Ryuichi or some of the others you met on the street! I know people don’t approve of our lifestyle. I know they think we’re cruel deviants with no moral compass whatsoever. I thought… well, haven’t you seen it’s not true?
“But… this is different, right? I don’t have a choice. You know I have no choice… it’s… you can do anything you want to me, anything at all and I can’t… I can’t stop you because I have no choice… you can just take what you want… That’s how things work. Isn’t it?” Kame was speaking faster and faster, glancing back and forth between Akira and Aoi in desperation.
The look on Akira’s face was full of sadness as he softly said, “Oh, Kame…” and the man shook his head. “It isn’t always like that, Kame-chan. It shouldn’t ever be, but the world isn’t perfect. It’s… well, it’s not right that life has taught you that.”
Another silence as the twins looked at him and he looked at them.
Finally, Kame said, “So, then…”
“Well, the way I see it, you need a place to stay and a job.”
Kame nodded.
“Would you like to work at our club?”
Wait… that was the place where the people who liked the same stuff as the twins went to indulge, right? But they had said (well, Akira had said) they couldn’t use him there. So, he was right? This really was different?
But his face must have given something away because Akira suddenly interrupted his thoughts with, “Oh, no, not like that! I mean, as a waiter. I’ll make sure the members know you’re not on the menu. Well, unless you want to arrange something of your own with someone. But that’s completely up to you. We won’t mind a bit of side business as long as you’re discreet. That part is very, very important.”
“It is?” Kame asked.
“Well, there are laws against selling sex. You know that. You have to know that; you’ve been on the street for months so I’m sure you learned how to spot cops, right? But we get around the law through a technicality. We don’t sell sex specifically, we sell membership to a club. Having a membership card means you can come to the club building any time you want during business hours and that you can use the place for whatever you want to do as long as it doesn’t break our rules. The only things we actually sell on location are food and drinks.
“Even so, we try to stay below the radar of the police and the politicians. They don’t like us, what we do or what we think. They think we’re perverted deviants who want nothing more than to corrupt their children and ruin society. So we don’t want to give them a reason to pay attention to us.”
Kame took a moment to let it all sink in. “So… I won’t have to…”
“No. Nobody would be allowed to touch you, not without your say-so.”
He knew it made him look weak, but he didn’t care. He let the tears flow. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”
“We’ll take a suitable piece of your pay check for rent to cover extra expenses since we’ll be feeding three people instead of two, but it won’t be a huge amount. And I suppose you’re going to need a place to keep the money you earn. There’s a few different ways to handle that but we’ll sort that bit out later. I take it you are fine, sleeping on the couch? It’s all we really have, unless you wanted to sleep with us…”
“I…” and there it was. He wanted to say no, but they were being so damn reasonable… Still…
Akira interrupted his thoughts with, “It’s okay, Kame-chan. You don’t have to do it. But we do desire you and I don’t much see the point in denying it.”
Nervously, Kame said, “Then… I say no… for now.”
And they didn’t immediately boot him from the building.
Things really were looking up.
Though he wondered if it was a bad thing that he had no regrets whatsoever regarding Ryuichi’s fate…
“So, then, do you find the terms acceptable? The job and all? I think you’d make a fantastic waiter. I know you don’t see it because you haven’t been given the chance to, but I believe in the right circumstances, you’ll be very charismatic and people will open up to you.”
Those annoying tears of gratitude were still falling. At least he wasn’t sobbing or anything like that. “Well, I don’t know if that’s true… but yes, I’d like the job and the couch is fine and… if you give me some time, maybe in the future we could…”
“The future will tend to itself. Take care of the here and now, Kame. It’s the one time and place we have any hope of controlling. The future is built on the foundation of the present and the past can’t be changed no matter how much we regret. I don’t care if you’re dominant or submissive or somewhere in between… this moment is where you truly grasp your own destiny.”
Was it really true? Kame couldn’t recall ever controlling his own destiny. Then again, stabbing his father with the chopsticks and running away… wasn’t that exactly the sort of thing Akira was talking about? He took that moment and made a choice and changed his life. It was true that whoring on Pearl Street wasn’t the consequence he would have hoped for, but it happened because of the path he chose.
Kame was sure there were things we couldn’t control, but maybe… maybe there were things that we could.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 31 ~The Immediate Aftermath~
A/N: I really, really think I like the twins. I mean, Ryuichi didn't have too high of an opinion of them, but I think that feeling was returned ten-fold. We can only hope they are what they seem to be. Their passion means they have to be good at some things (like reading people) and those same skills can make a man seem like something he's not, if he wishes to. But if they are what they seem, at least Kame's finally met some good people. They're criminals who work in identity theft and forgery in addition to their BDSM club, but they seem like good guys, right?