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endoftheworldpaul · 5 years

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It's still technically Wednesday for me so looks like we got another close call update!

@dbhrarepairs Here's my submission for day 3, wrong blind date.

Both Convin and Elijah/Leo bc I shouldn't brainstorm when I'm tired.

If you would rather read on AO3, you can click here!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20611682

Again, I apologize, but I'm having serious troubles with getting the read more break in here if anyone has tips I'm willing to listen Google isn't helping.

EDIT: I FIGURED IT OUT. Well, really, I just went on my laptop bc mobile, for all its benefits for my schedule, is super confusing when it wants to be.

Usually, Nines is rather reliable. Always prepared, always punctual, always one step ahead of everyone else.

Just not this week. Finals week had, as always, was hellish for most students. Even Nines felt some of the end of the year panic. And by some, it was more along the lines of going into an over-studying craze.

One problem that accompanies what his close friends have dubbed The Dark Ages is that he takes on too many extra projects in a failing attempt to distract himself.

One such project is promising four very confused and stressed friends to set them up on blind dates. Four friends that, he decided, needed something new to distract from the stresses of life.

Friend number one—Gavin Reed, a police officer closing in on his second year out of police academy—was the one who unintentionally gave Nines the idea to play matchmaker.

On a cold Friday evening, their weekly "chill day," Gavin was complaining about his coworkers, as usual.

"So, there's this new guy, a transfer from Dearborn, who is so fuckin' annoying. Dude spends his entire fucking break, I shit you not, to gush about his wife. Just got married. Who cares? Lotsa people get married, why should it be such a big deal? So I say to him, "Why don't you spend less time rambling on about the missus, and more time solving fucking crimes?" And the asshole has the gall to tell me that I'd change my mind if I could keep someone around for more than a week! What a dick right?"

While Nines loved spending time with Gavin, he made conversations interesting and he was honest, he got into moods and would, for lack of a better word, be a huge bitch about things he didn't agree with.

Nines shot a glance towards Gavin, taking in his position sprawled out on Nines' couch, one leg dangling off the edge, fiddling with his phone. "I suppose the only option would be to prove him wrong then. Show that you can 'keep someone around for more than a week' and rub it in his face, good ol' Gavin Reed style." He scowled, "But who would be this mystery date?"

Gavin looked up from his phone, shooting Nines a confused glance. "Well, I 'spose it could be one of those friends of yours. You've got like a million, it can't be that hard to find someone who'll like me. Even if I am kind of a dick!"

Nines hummed in confirmation, mentally creating a list of potential dates for Gavin. He had a lot of pros and cons lists to make.

Friend number two—Connor Stern, a newer acquaintance of his—was the catalyst for the second half of what would eventually turn into Nines' biggest embarrassment.

Connor had been more forthright with his date searching. On one of their shopping trips, devised when they found out they both lived at the same apartment complex as well as frequently shopped at the same local grocery store, he had suddenly enquired as to whether or not Nines could find someone he could go on a date with.

"I suppose, since it's been so long that I've tried dating, that I should consider pursuing romantic relationships. Now that I am about to graduate from the academy, I have more time to do so. So you have anyone in mind whom you think I could form a serious connection with, whether it be more friendly or more romantic?"

At first, Nines was a little surprised. But he quickly overcame that because a wave of excitement washed over him. Since he began planning a blind date for Gavin three days prior, Nines had closely analyzed the personalities of all of his companions. In doing so, he had gotten closer to narrowing down who Gavin's date would be. To find Connor a potential date, all he would have to do is make minor adjustments to his list of complementary personality traits and hobbies.

He gave Connor a small smile in confirmation. "I think I can come up with a person or two."

After narrowing down his list of potentials for Connor, he had to ask friends if they would be available in the set few days Connor had confirmed he would be free.

Option one, a close friend and classmate, North Dufay, stated that she had to take over for a friend who was on vacation at the taekwondo studio she worked at.

Option two, local street artist Markus Manfred, was also unavailable. His father was accompanying him to an art gallery showing in Paris, where both artists would present new works.

That left one person. The third friend roped into Nines' disaster of a plan, Elijah Kamski, genius and programmer, and massive introvert. It had been at least three years, half of the time Nines has known him, since he had even attempted to socialize with anyone outside of his immediate friend group. Jumping from one project to the next, he had a habit of ignoring any of Nines' attempts at getting him to redirect his attention elsewhere and relax. Nines hoped that, by introducing him to someone new who would match his wit and appreciate his devotion to his goals, it would encourage him to pursue other minor hobbies and allow him to de-stress.

Connor, who was sarcastic and determined, seemed like a perfect match.

Finding Gavin a date took a little more thinking than it did for Connor; he had a less approachable personality. Grumpy and irritable, many of Nines' friends would be unable to withstand sharp jabs and brutal honesty long enough to get to see his protectiveness and ambition.

North might've been a good option, but she had prior engagements. Tina might've gotten along well with Gavin, but they had dated in high school and agreed that being friends was better for both of them. At first, Chloe seemed like she might be a good match, but she had recently come out as aromantic and asexual, so Nines ruled her out.

The only option left was the chaotic ball of energy that was Leo Manfred, Markus' half brother. When he was younger, Leo had been in a bad situation, but finding supportive friends and a good therapist that encouraged him to redirect his anger to something more productive had helped him find a purpose in life, create goals.

Now a full time student, well on his way to becoming a psychologist, he was likely to enjoy Gavin's sass and dorky jokes.

People paired up, all Nines had to do was organize the details of the dates. For Connor and Elijah, he decided that a less crowded, but not isolated café just off of the main streets would be perfect. Or, was that where he had planned Gavin and Leo's date? No, he was mostly sure that he had made reservations for them at a local restaurant by Gavin and Tina's shared apartment. He didn't have time to worry about it at the moment; he had a final to study for.

Connor had the feeling that something was going to go wrong. Nines hadn't told him his date's name to prevent him from looking him up on social media platforms and form any opinions on him before their actual date. He was just told that his date was about average height, with dark hair, often wore glasses, and had horrible posture.

So of course, when someone matching that exact description walked through the door six and a half minutes after their scheduled meet up time, he hesitantly waved.

The man, indeed wearing glasses, seemed slightly out of breath. He hadn't seemed to try to dress up, dressed in a faded gray, long sleeved sweater and wrinkled blue jeans.

Flopping down into the chair across from Connor, his date sighed, stuck a hand out to shake, and blurted out "I'm so sorry I'm late! My roommate let my cat outside accidentally and I had to chase her down the street so that I could get her home and by the time I did, I had lime fifteen minutes max, and I still had to shower and stuff and then i realized that my dryer broke in the middle of this last load so most of my clothes are either soaked or horribly wrinkled and I couldn't find a shirt that made my eyes look really good and I forgot to put my contacts in and… yeah. I'm so fuckin' sorry, I wanted to try to impress you but I'm doing a kind of shit job at that huh?"

Connor blinked a few times, trying to absorb the story his date, who still had yet to introduce himself, threw at him. He tried to smile reassuringly, and shook the still outstretched hand. "Well that seems like a horrible afternoon. It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Connor. You're also a friend of Nines' then I suppose?"

"Oh yeah! Yeah I am. Uh, I'm Gavin. It's nice to meet you." Gavin shifted in his seat. "Sorry again for being late. It really isn't normal for me, I swear."

"Well it happens every one in a while. It's sweet that you care about your cat so much that you would go out of your way to looking for her like that. What's her name, if you don't mind me asking?"

Gavin gasped and frantically pulled his phone out, unlocking it. "Her name is Dana and she's a menace! Look, she's so fluffy!" He shoved his phone at Connor, who takes in the fluffy black mass, staring up at him through the photo. Her bright green eyes reflect a tiny image of Gavin, holding his phone to take the photo and squinting in concentration. Cute.

Connor smiles. "Well, that is the most gorgeous menace I've ever seen. She looks so soft."

"Oh she is. If I don't brush her every day, she gets violent." Connor snorts. "Ha, yeah it's funnier when you're not on the receiving end of her tiny little dagger-teeth. I should probably stop gushing about my cat; you'll think I'm crazy soon! So, uh, how did Nines describe me? Because he described you as, and I quote, a kind of tall, dark haired twink with a nice smile."

Connor chuckled. "It seems like the stress is really getting to him if he could only describe me as a twink with a nice smile. He was a lot more bland when describing you. He said you're average height, with glasses and dark hair and a horrible posture. Which, I mean, at least he's been pretty accurate with his descriptions, even if they do seem rushed."

Humming in agreement, Gavin asked, "Hey, what do you do? You got a job or you studying or what?"

"Oh I'm currently in the police academy. I wanna be a lieutenant someday."

Gavin wiggled in his seat. "Oh shit, I'm a cop too! I escaped the academy two years ago."

"Really? Oh that's amazing! Maybe we'll get to work together on cases. It would be nice to have made a friend or something when I graduate from the academy. So what do you do now? What's it like, being a serious police officer like that?"

They continued chatting for the next two hours, occasionally buying each other snacks and drinks. Connor was hesitant to end the date, suggesting they walk to the park or go watch a movie.

They spent most of the afternoon together, before Gavin offered to walk Connor home. Standing on the sidewalk by the front doors, Gavin slowly took hold of Connor's hands and stood on his toes to kiss Connor's nose.

"I had a lot of fun, I'd love to see you again" Gavin murmured.

A blush crept up Connor's cheeks. "Well it's a good thing I'm free next Saturday, because I do too."

"Oh, well that's good." Gavin sighed. "I'm gonna hafta leave soon, or else Dana'll throw a fit. I'll see you Saturday okay? Is seven good? I got a half brother who can hook me up with some fancy reservations if you'd like."

Connor squeezed Gavin's hand before hesitantly letting go. "Sounds like a date. I can't wait. Goodbye Gavin."

"G'bye."

Elijah was hesitant to go on Nines' blind date. In a hurry, he only said that his date was a smart kid, a couple years younger than Elijah himself, with dark brown, curly hair.

He didn't want the guy to think too highly of him or else he might want to schedule another date, and Elijah didn't have time for that. So, he decided to show up "accidentally" almost half an hour late. Pushing the café door open, his gaze immediately landed on a grumpy looking guy, maybe twenty-ish, who was slumped over his phone in a booth in the far back.

Shambling over to the grumpy kid, he asked "Are you Nines' friend? I'm here for the blind date."

Grumpy guy glanced up at him, grumbling a "Yeah that's me. You a little late there dude."

Slouching into the other side of the booth, Elijah quoted the excuse he planned out. "I'm sorry. My car wouldn't start, so I had to get a ride from a friend. Maybe I can buy you like a coffee or a sandwich to make up for it?"

"Well, you don't have to bribe me. If you're offering though, maybe a blueberry muffin and a caramel macchiato. And also a name?"

Elijah raised his eyebrows. This kid was more blunt than he was expecting. It was… nice. "Hmm I suppose that it makes sense to give you my name. Elijah." He paused. "Kamski." Some people knew who he was. It wasn't that surprising for a programmer as young as he is to catch the attention of mainstream media if they're successful, which he was.

"Leo. Manfred." Manfred, Manfred. Why did that name sound so familiar? "Are you gonna get my stuff or were you lying about that part?"

If he had wanted to make a better impression, he might've actually laughed at that. Instead, all he did was not and stand up, heading toward the counter. As he was walking, he glanced around the café, observing a small family, a couple teenagers working on homework, and Gavin? On a date. Hmm. That's something to tease him about later.

Returning to the table, he expected Leo to still be on his phone, but instead he was casually observing him. Might as well pass the time by talking. That usually pushes people away pretty fast. "You have a job? Studying?"

Munching on his muffin, Leo hummed. "Mhm. Psychology." Maybe this kid is smart. "Don't worry though, I promise I only psychoanalyze on the second date." Oh. He's actually funny. Maybe this won't be as bad as he thought.

Elijah allowed himself to smile a little at that. "Well, well, well, looks like I have something to look forward to." Elijah what are you doing? Did you just insinuate that you would like to go on a second date with this guy?

Leo chuckles and sets his muffin back down on its plate. "Well you still gotta impress me first. Bribery doesn't work with everyone. If this were the second date, though, I'd have a hell of a lot to say about the lying and avoidance of revealing personal details. But, like I said, that'll have to wait 'til the second date."

Definitely smart. More smart-ass though. That was more appealing than Elijah was expecting it to be.

He sighed. "Well, since you caught me, I suppose I'll have to share something for the class. I'm a programmer. I'm currently working on developing AI tools that will recognise voices to activate or shut down household items, like a stove that shuts off to protect young children from lighting their homes on fire."

"That sounds pretty cool actually. Gotta babyproof the fancy smart-technology. I was expecting you to be something lame, like a very antisocial plumber or a dentist or something, but you're not that boring I guess."

This time Elijah couldn't stop himself from laughing. Maybe, just maybe, he'll let himself enjoy this date. "'Not that boring I guess' is a compliment of the highest caliber, coming from someone as attractive as you." Why not go full flirt, if he wants this to go well.

"Keep talking like that and I'll be swooning into your arms in no time. Seriously though, be careful, I'm starting to like you. That would be horrible, wouldn't it?" Leo raised an eyebrow.

Elijah smiled a little. "I guess it wouldn't be that bad. I think I'm starting to like you too." He snuck a piece of Leo's muffin, then hummed in delight. "That is a phenomenal muffin. You've just been hoarding it all for yourself over there? You are a cruel and unjust monster. Gimme more."

Snickering, Leo smacked Elijah's arm away from the plate. "Only nice dates who ask nicely get to share muffins."

Elijah sighed. "Well I suppose if it's for a muffin of this quality, it will be worth it. I would like some muffin."

Leo didn't budge.

"...Please?"

At this, Leo broke off a large chunk of the muffin and handed it to Elijah. "Well, since you asked so politely, I guess I'm required to give you some now. It's good date behavior. Gotta be good if I want ya to stick around I 'spose." He smirked. Then he glanced at his watch, a rather shiny silver. "Oh shit, I gotta go. I'm house-sitting for my half-brother and I gotta feed his birds."

Elijah hesitated in saying goodbye, even as Leo rushed to clean up. Suddenly standing, he blurted out, "Maybe we can schedule that second date?"

Leo paused, looking up at him. For a few seconds, Elijah thought he was going to decline the offer, but then he straightened his spine, smiled softly, and said, "Meet me at that Italian restaurant off of Main, next Tuesday? 6:30?"

"It's a date. I'll see you then. I'll accompany you to your car." The both of them walked side by side, just close enough that every once in a while, their knuckles would brush up against each other. Parting with a wave, Elijah started planning what he would do to show his thanks to Nines for forcing him to do this dumb blind date thing, because it seemed that it wasn't as dumb as he originally thought.

When Nines ran into Connor in the hallway, he had to see how the date went. "So, what did you think of Elijah?"

Connor froze, turned to look at Nines, brow furrowed, and asked, "Who the fuck is Elijah?" Uh oh.

#dbh #dbh rarepair day 3 #dbh rarepair week #dbh connor #connor rk800 #gavin reed #Convin #elijah kamski #leo manfred #leo x elijah #leo manfred x elijah kamski #eli n gav are half brothers #everybody's human

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hollowistheworld · 5 years

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Never Say Never Say Never

Read on AO3 Support Me on Ko-Fi

Sabo misses one New Year's party and apparently he misses all the important family updates.

A lot of people wanted to know how Sabo felt about this dating thing, so here’s a quick one-shot of him finding out.

“Koala,” Sabo protested in a tone that was definitely not a whine, “I have to go. Do you know how much of a douche it’ll make me if I’m late to my own brother’s birthday dinner?”

Koala added another laptop charger to the bundle already in his arms. “No one in your family has ever been on time for anything. You’ll live.”

Sabo scowled at her, though it didn’t matter because she’d already gone back to rummaging around in the cabinets. “I thought deep cleans were supposed to be done in the spring.”

“It’s the new year, Sabo. I’ve put up with all of this garbage for too long. You said you’d help me clear it out, and now you’re going to.”

Sabo frowned down at the steadily growing pile of wires and cords and boxes and who knew what else that kept appearing from their apparently bottomless cabinets. “I didn’t think you meant on the first. It’s a holiday, you know.” He was not pouting.

“Only for white collar workers.” Koala reemerged and added several more cords to Sabo’s arms. “There. Finally. What, were they breeding in there?”

“They must have been. I don’t think we have a phone that goes with that one,” Sabo said, nodding vaguely to one of the charger cords.

Koala waved him off. “Go see which of those don’t work and then you can go.”

“I don’t remember you getting promoted over me, Koala.”

She raised an eyebrow and held eye contact with him for an impressively long time. Sabo could withstand one of her stares better than anyone else she knew. Sometimes he could even outlast her.

Not today though, apparently. “Alright, alright,” he said, surrendering. “What are you doing?”

She gestured at the main computer. “Clearing all the useless files off of this thing. So be glad I gave you the easy job, okay?”

Sabo stuck his tongue out at her and went to find an outlet to start testing the cords in.

It wasn’t too bad, once he started working at it. Half the cords could be tossed out without being tried; they were frayed or cracked or had tooth marks (from what, Sabo couldn’t even guess). A few were a pain, sending him on a wild goose chase for something to plug them into, but he was still done in under forty-five minutes, leaving him with plenty of time to meet Luffy and Ace at Sanji’s restaurant, as long as he got a decent cab driver. He'd mostly said he might be late in the hopes of convincing Koala to let him skip out on helping her clean.

“I’m leaving, Koala!” he shouted back into the store, front door already half open, not intending to give her a chance to find something else for him to do.

“I expect you to come in early tomorrow to help me finish!” she yelled back, and Sabo shut the door in a hurry, already planning to insist he’d been gone before she’d said it.

He loved his job, and he loved Koala, but he wasn’t going to spend one second more cleaning than he absolutely had to. That wasn’t why he’d joined up.

Knowing Koala would likely blow a gasket if she was bothered by someone who didn’t know how to read a CLOSED sign, Sabo locked the door behind him and made sure the sign announcing the store as DRAGON ELECTRONICS was turned off before turning to find a cab.

He’d probably have been more willing to help Koala clean if they’d been cleaning stuff up in the important parts of the store. Down in the basement - which was actually a much nicer workspace than the store above - shredding documents they no longer needed and couldn’t risk anyone finding, organizing files that had been left scattered across desks for far too long, or checking that the computers were still up to date and secure.

Sabo didn’t know how the electronics store itself, which was just a cover for an entirely different sort of business, could possibly have generated so much clutter in just a year. It rarely even got more than two customers in a day, though those customers had an uncanny ability to walk in at the worst possible times. Listening to people complain about their computers catching viruses from visiting sites they had no business visiting was a drag at the best of times; it was worse when they had ten minutes to get out of the building before their chance to get corrupt-rich-bastard-of-the-month taken down vanished.

Sabo shook his head to clear it. He had to be careful about thinking about work while outside of work, or he ran the risk of saying something he shouldn’t in front of Ace and Luffy - and once Luffy knew a secret it was only a matter of time before the word spread. He could be persuaded to keep his mouth shut if one could impress the seriousness of the secret on him, but Sabo would prefer to just avoid the problem altogether.

Ace, meanwhile, would probably burst a blood vessel if he ever found out that Sabo’s ‘boring IT desk job’ was a cover for what could generously be called a vigilante gig. His big brother instincts tended to only kick on in extreme situations, but Sabo was willing to bet committing felonies would be enough to set them off. And Ace would notice if Sabo let something slip that he hadn’t meant to, unlike Luffy, who could be easily distracted.

Sabo was just grateful that Garp rarely came up to visit for anything besides Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, and a summer camping trip. He’d kick Sabo’s ass through half the city if he knew what Sabo really did for a paycheck.

So Sabo carefully but quickly, with the efficiency that came from years of practice, boxed up all of his thoughts about work that went beyond ‘Koala’s making me help her clean the store and it’s a nightmare’. By the time the cab stopped at the curve Sabo was fully back into the persona of ‘the best behaved brother’, a position he had worked hard to maintain. He would also argue he deserved it even with his job - he may have been breaking the most laws of the three of them, but he had better intentions than either of his ‘chaos storm’ brothers, as Dadan had used to call them. And everyone always said that he was the most polite.

Sabo entered the restaurant and made his way to the usual table, where Ace and Luffy were already sitting, Luffy staring towards the kitchen with laser focus.

“Look at you two, being on time for once,” Sabo teased with a grin.

Ace was frowning at Luffy rather than joining him in staring at the kitchen in anticipation, which struck Sabo as odd. All three of them tended to hyper-focus on food, and it was generally a bad sign when something could distract them from it.

“Marco gave us a ride,” Ace told him, still eyeing Luffy, tone distracted. “He had to come out this way anyway, to talk to Doma about one of the dogs.”

“So he dragged your asses out of the house kicking and screaming, I take it?”

Ace finally looked at him, grinning a little. “Luffy went kicking and screaming. I can be easily bribed.”

Sabo knew it. Marco didn’t seem to have a lot of interest in getting Ace to do much of anything most of the time, but when he was interested Ace rarely lasted more than a few minutes against him. Sabo figured that was probably a good thing - if Ace was allowed to run out the full gambit of his stubbornness his partner would probably murder him in cold blood. And he’d deserve it.

Sabo slid into the booth next to Ace, sidling up closer to his brother than he usually did. Being close to any of the three brothers during a meal was dangerous - every one of them had bitten at least one person who had gotten too close to their food over the course of their lives. Most often, it had been each other. Luffy was lucky to not have scars in the shape of Ace’s teeth marks.

But food hadn’t arrived yet, so Sabo was safe for a little while longer. And Luffy was thoroughly distracted by the prospect of dinner incoming, so he was unlikely to eavesdrop.

Not that Luffy was much good at eavesdropping anyway. Eavesdropping required at least a little bit of subtlety, and Luffy and subtle didn’t have so much as a passing acquaintanceship.

“What’s going on?” Sabo asked in a low voice, just loud enough for Ace to hear over all the background noise of the restaurant.

“Huh?”

Sabo rolled his eyes. “You’re looking at Luffy like he’s grown an extra head. What’d he do?” Sabo would have thought they were immune to Luffy’s oddities by now. Sabo had over a decade’s worth of exposure, and Ace had twice that. What could Luffy pull out of his hat that wasn’t some variation on something they’d seen a hundred times before?

Ace shook his head. “You are not going to believe this.”

There wasn’t much Sabo wasn’t ready and willing to believe in. “Try me.”

Ace shook his head harder. His expression was complicated - Ace’s expressions often were - but Sabo had had years and years to learn how to read them. There was fondness, exasperation, a little bit of annoyance, and a lot of disbelief. “Luffy’s dating someone.” He kept his voice low, so that Luffy - now chatting to one of the waiters who had made the mistake of passing too close to their table while collecting empty glasses - wouldn’t hear him, but the words seemed to burst out of him all the same.

Sabo raised an eyebrow. “Dating someone?” he repeated. That didn’t seem likely at all. Luffy had never once expressed an interest in dating. He was scornful of soulmate bonds, and beyond that he’d always seemed vaguely skeptical of the idea of romance or crushes. He’d certainly never showed any interest in trying it out for himself.

Ace nodded. “You remember that doctor with the gang tattoos?”

Sabo considered once more telling Ace that he was in no position to be judging other people’s tattoos, but decided it wasn’t really the time. “Yeah, the one whose dog we watched at Christmas, right?”

“That’s him.”

“What about him?” Sabo glanced at Luffy - if Sanji didn’t hurry up with dinner he was going to break into the kitchen - and back at Ace. “Luffy’s not…?”

“Yeah. Announced it last night. This morning. Whatever. At the party.”

Ace and Luffy had spent last night - New Year’s eve - at Whitebeard’s place, at one of their impressive parties. Sabo hadn’t gone, desperate to catch up on his sleep after a string of bad luck had nearly landed Hack in prison. And then he'd been nice and come in to help Koala with the cleanup from all that, and she'd tricked him into helping her clean up the literal mess of the storefront. See if he every volunteered to help her with something again.

“How long has that been going on?”

Ace shrugged one shoulder. “Not that long. At Christmas I - Luffy, where do you think you’re going?”

Luffy had sprung up from the table. “I’m gonna go find Sanji.”

There was no time to protest. Luffy could really move when he wanted to, even if he wasn’t actually running. He was halfway across the restaurant before Sabo or Ace had finished hearing what he’d said.

Ace waved him off. “He’s lucky he’s got a friend who’s a cook. Anyone else would have banned him ages ago.”

Sabo laughed. “Pretty sure he is banned from every restaurant between here and our place.”

“Probably. Anyway, as I was saying - I ran into the guy at Chopper’s birthday party. Law was getting fucking smashed at the bar, having a crisis about soulmates.” He looked at Sabo expectantly.

Sabo looked back, confused, for a few long seconds, and then his eyes widened. “Luffy’s that guy’s soulmate?” It shouldn’t have surprised him so badly, really. Just because Luffy didn’t have a soulmate didn’t mean anything about someone else having him for one. But it was still strange to even imagine.

It wasn’t personal towards Trafalgar Law. Sabo would have felt equally shocked no matter who Ace had said it was. With the possible exception of Zoro. Sabo could have believed Zoro had Luffy for a soulmate, he thought. But the idea of anyone else made his brain buck a little.

“Yeah. Not even two weeks after Trafalgar gets done telling me about how he can’t ever see himself dating his soulmate he’s sitting on our fucking couch holding Luffy’s hand, with Luffy’s damn name written on his arm.”

Sabo paused a second, distracted from the point. “It’s Luffy’s name? That’s his soulmate mark?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” Sabo laughed a little. “God, that’s so cliche.”

Ace smirked, and it broadened until he was laughing too. “Christ , I know, right? Poor guy. He said it didn’t start as Luffy’s name, but can you imagine going through life with something that boring for your soulmate mark and then that comes hurtling into your life?” When he said ‘that’ he gestured towards the kitchen, where Luffy was no doubt making a nuisance of himself.

The two of them laughed, trying to be quiet at first, then realizing Luffy wasn’t there to overhear and demand to know what was so funny, and they grew louder and louder until they were doubled over the table, clutching their sides and getting funny, judgmental looks from the other restaurant patrons.

Sabo recovered first, wheezing and hiccuping back to sanity in fits and bursts. “Okay, okay,” he managed, struggling not to start laughing all over again at the sight of Ace still giggling to himself. “Does Luffy at least seem happy with him?”

Ace shrugged. “Dude, it’s Luffy. He seems happy with everyone.”

That was a fair point. “Happy dating him. Like, Law’s not being… I don’t know, weird about it? He’s not trying any shit about how Luffy has to do whatever he wants because he’s his soulmate?” It was hard to imagine Luffy allowing somebody to be a dick to him for any reason, soulmate mark included, but Sabo was his older brother. He was supposed to worry about things like that.

“Not that I saw.” Ace took a drink of water and reached for the table’s pitcher to refill his glass. “I don’t even know if Luffy knows they're soulmates.”

“Should we tell him?”

Ace shrugged again, but with a more serious look on his face this time. This was one of the things he’d been thinking about while he’d been staring at Luffy. “I don’t know. You’re better at this relationship crap. What do you think?”

“How am I the one who’s good at relationships? Apparently, I’m the only single one.”

Ace made a broad, vague gesture with one arm. “Not just dating. You’re better with people. It’s why you’re in retail.”

Sabo was nowhere near good enough with people to really be in retail, but he didn’t say so to Ace. “This just started last night?” he asked instead.

“Yeah, far as I know. And like I said, Trafalgar was having his life crisis at Christmas time, so it couldn’t have been much longer than that anyway.”

Sabo glanced back towards the kitchen. Luffy had reappeared, walking backwards, as though he had to guide Sanji to their table. “Let’s give him a couple of days. If he doesn’t tell Luffy about it, we’ll know he’s a bastard, and we’ll send his ass back to kingdom come.”

“And if he does tell Luffy?”

“Then we’ll play it by ear. Come on, this is Luffy we’re talking about. If Law pisses him off we’ll be able to hear him complaining about it from space.”

Luffy reached the table, Sanji and dinner in tow, and Sabo slid a safe distance away from his brother. It wasn’t surprising that Ace was so concerned. In addition to his - their whole family’s - complicated tangle of emotions regarding soulmate bonds, Ace just didn’t trust other people very easily, particularly not where his brothers were concerned. He was always worrying about the sort of people Luffy was hanging out with, if they were trustworthy, if they might take advantage of Luffy’s friendly, trusting nature.

Sabo worried about that sometimes, but mostly he tended to worry about what he considered to be more realistic concerns - like Luffy falling off a building while parkouring around town and splitting his head open on the concrete. Maybe dating a doctor would be for the best.

“So, Luffy,” Sabo said as the three of them began digging into their dinners. “I hear you have a boyfriend?”

Despite having his mouth full, Luffy grinned.

#one piece #monkey d. luffy #sabo #Portgas D. Ace #my writing #opfanfic

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imagining-supernatural · 5 years

Text

Chapter 2: History Class

Cracks In The Dam Series – Reader’s POV

She’s a quiet engineering and physics major trying to forget the demons of her past, and he’s the campus playboy trying to turn over a new leaf. Their friendship is unlikely, but just might be forged to withstand the cracks in the dams they’ve built to protect themselves. (BuckyxReader college au)

Word Count: 1900

You know how you always seem to have that one class each semester that just makes you give up three minutes into the first day? History was that class for me. I was halfway through the semester and barely holding onto a D. Maybe if I paid attention in class instead of sketching new ideas in my notebook, I could bring that grade up, but honestly, who cares? It’s history. I just need a D to pass.

“Another exciting day learning about fifteenth century history,” someone says, plopping down in the chair next to me. The husky scent of his cologne and faint tinge of cigarette smoke gives away his identity before I even look up.

“Oh lovely. Another stimulating conversation with Bucky.”

He chuckled and leaned back in the chair. “It’s been long two days without me. I know it’s hard, doll.”

“Why don’t you go sit with your harem?” I was referring to the group of girls he usually sat with in the back of the lecture hall. “I’m sure they need your attention more than I do.”

“Probably.” No shame. Not even an ounce of shame. No embarrassment. No sense of humility. How do people find him—

Okay. Fine. He’s attractive. But how do people stand to be around him?

My watch vibrates, letting me know I have a text, and I look down at it to see that Tony texted me. Thankful for the distraction, I grab my phone out of my backpack and open the conversation.

Tony: Jarvis thinks I have a concussion and keeps wanting to call an ambulance. Tell him I’m fine.

“God, it’s like babysitting a five-year-old,” I mumble. He’s nearly twice my age, but Tony Stark is just a giant baby underneath his playboy exterior. I suppose rather than an uncle, he’s more like an annoying older brother.

“That the dude from your date on Friday?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t a date.”

Canary: You designed Jarvis. He knows you better than you do. If he thinks you have a concussion, go to the damn hospital.

Canary: What did you do, btw?

“Not a date. Right. Dressed like you were? Doll, that dress you wore was probably more than my last paycheck.”

Setting my phone down, I gave all of my attention to the dark-haired man beside me. “Why so interested in my love life, Barnes? Your one-night stands getting boring?”

He leaned forward, arms crossed on his desk, and gave me a smirk with that damn twinkle in his eye. “Why so defensive, Y/L/N? Jealous that your best friend found her true love and you struck out on Friday night?”

“Oh, God, don’t remind me about Nat and Steve. They’re disgusting. Literally they’re always making out on the couch or in my kitchen or… ugh.” I’m happy for Nat, but still. Boundaries, girl!

Tony: It’s Bubba’s fault. I tweaked the thrusters and tested them out and that stupid machine didn’t spot me like he should have.

Tony: If I had a concussion, would I be able to type grammatically correct sentences? Checkmate.

“Boy trouble?” Bucky wiggled his eyebrows and I just shot him a dirty look.

“Boss trouble. Gimme a sec.” Rather than text him back, I dialed his number and waited for him to pick up. I didn’t even give him time to say hello when he answered. “Go to the damn hospital, Tony.”

“No time, Cannie. We’ve got that—”

“I will drag your stupid ass to the hospital myself. If I’m going to be on my A-Game this week, you need to be too. I need your brain. It’s the whole reason I have a job. I’m going to tell Jarvis to call that ambulance.”

“They’ll just tell me I can’t do the presentation and—”

“For fucks sake, man. I’ll do the presentation. Your brain is your best asset and no-no, don’t say anything. I regret that word choice already. You need to make sure you didn’t fuck up and ruin it.”

“Grammatically correct sentences.” He said pointedly. “I’m fine.”

“I’ll believe it when a doctor tells me that.” I hung up and immediately called the line that Tony set up for me to directly connect to Jarvis. “Jarvis, I’m overriding whatever stupid command Tony gave you and telling you to call a goddamn ambulance.”

“Miss Y/L/N, I cannot approve an override without—”

“Override code: Please and thank you.”

There was a moment of silence before Jarvis approved the code and called an ambulance. I just loved that AI. I swear, he was more human than most humans sometimes.

By the time I finished with all of that drama, Bucky was watching me with a puzzled grin on his lips. “I’ve never heard anyone talk to their boss like that.”

“You’ve never met my boss. You’d understand.”

Just as Bucky was about to say something else, the professor drew everyone’s attention to begin another boring lecture. As usual, my attention span lasted roughly thirty seconds before I was bored to tears and turned to a clean page in my notebook.

Tony said he was messing with the thrusters? I could only imagine the kind of scene that played out when he tested them. Get footage from Jarvis, I wrote in the margin of the page before starting playing around with the thruster design.

For the presentation on Friday, we would definitely have to go with the original design. There was no way I was going to trust one of Tony’s tweaks less than a week before the biggest presentation of my life. This might not be as big of a deal for him, but this was my first real presentation. If I could nail this in front of the entire board of Stark Industries, the CIA, and select individuals from the US Armed Forces, then I was set for life. I would have my choice of jobs. I could do whatever I ever imagined after graduating next year.

I just couldn’t let Tony screw this up.

But since I knew him, I knew that he was going to play around with the design until he got bored with it, so I had to keep up with him. Maybe I could even come up with some ideas he hasn’t yet. Beat the great Stark to a breakthrough. That was the dream…

My watch vibrated again and I glanced down to see the message scrolling past the screen.

Jarvis: Mr. Stark has been admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He is not happy. I will keep you updated on his whereabouts so you will be able to find him when you are finished with your classes for the day.

“Big baby,” I whispered under my breath.

Warm breath on my shoulder drew my attention to Bucky, who was leaning over to look at my notebook. “You a fashion designer or something?”

“Or something,” I muttered. He was entirely too close to me, so I shoved him lightly. “Dude, personal space.”

The rest of class went by uneventfully. Bucky kept trying to distract me and I kept squinting at my notes on the project. There was something I could do with it. Something I hadn’t thought about yet. I just knew it.

Before I knew it, class had passed and everyone was suddenly moving, shoving their notebooks and laptops into their bags. As if snapped out of a daze, I looked around.

“Well, that was a fascinating lecture, as usual,” Bucky drawled, stretching his arms back and over his head. Why guys always took up so much space was a mystery to me.

“I sure hope none of that is gonna be on the test,” I mumbled, gathering my things.

Bucky stayed by my side and, uncharacteristically, stayed quiet until we were out of the classroom. Ever since Nat, my best friend, started dating Steve, his best friend, Bucky and I found ourselves together all too often. So I knew that he rarely shut up.

“You know,” he started, and I nearly groaned. So close. So close to a full sixty seconds without speaking. That would have been a record. “I could help you out with this class.”

“You? Really?”

His brow furrowed minutely and there was a wounded expression that flashed across his eyes. It was so brief that I nearly didn’t catch it. “Hey now, just because I’m hot and sexy as hell doesn’t mean I can’t be smart too. You should know.”

That made me scoff. “Right.”

But… if Bucky really could help me out in this class… I was teetering right on the edge of failing. I really didn’t want to retake this class next semester…

“No strings?”

“What kind of strings would I attach, Y/L/N?”

We stepped out into the cool fall air and I stopped just before going down the stairs to the building. Bucky imitated me and I eyed him for a long few moments, trying to discern his true intentions. Why did he offer to help me? What did he have to gain?

“Okay,” he gave in with a hidden smile. “Fine. One string.”

“Ha! I knew it!” There was always something.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and paused for a moment, as if trying to figure out how to word his stipulation. “One string: friendship. That’s it. I promise. I’ll help you, but you have to admit that we’re friends.”

That was not at all what I had been expecting. “Why?”

He huffed a small laugh and there might have actually been a spattering of blush on his cheeks. “Alright, this is going to make me sound like a complete douche, but it’s the truth. I swear.”

“Spit it out, Buck.”

“I like this,” he motioned to the space between us. “Because you’re not into me. Besides Nat, you’re the only other woman who doesn’t try to get my attention or get into my pants. It’s refreshing.”

“Poor Bucky,” I crooned. “It must be so hard to have all the women falling over themselves for you. Being the resident sex-god must just be the worst.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know, I know. Douchey, right?”

I shook my head and started walking towards the library. “It’s conceited, is what it is. I can guarantee you that Nat and I are not the only women who don’t want to sleep with you. You just never notice the girls who don’t pay any attention to you.”

“You’re probably right,” he surrendered. “But about our deal, whattaya say, friend? Besides, we’re gonna spend a lot of time together anyway, with Nat and Steve dating. Might as well just accept the inevitable.”

My watch vibrated just as I started to respond and I glanced down to see a short message from Tony seconds before another text came through from Jarvis.

Tony: I hate you.

Jarvis: Mr. Stark has a mild concussion but is otherwise in excellent health. He is going back home.

Turning my attention back to Bucky, I gave him a small smile. “Let’s see how the first study session goes.”

“Tomorrow at one? Grab some lunch while we’re at it?” With a victorious grin, he started walking backwards away from me.

“I have to work all day. I can do Wednesday at one though.”

“I’ll meet you at your place with food, then. See ya later, friend!”

Watching him walk away, I wondered what the hell I’d just gotten myself into.

Series Taglist Open. Add Yourself HERE

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#buckyxreader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #marvel oneshot #buckyxreader fluff #tony stark #bucky barnes #tonyxplatonic!reader #college au

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dailygermancest · 6 years

Note

Hello! I would like to ask if you have any well written Germancest fanfictions to suggest. I've already read all the ones by PrinceOfElsinore, Lilienpasse (did I spell that right?) drcalvin and iruhe. Please help? Thanks so much!

This ask has been sitting in my inbox for so long and I’m so sorry that I’m just getting to it. I had to consult with my Germancest Council to amass this list.

I’ll also be adding this list (and updating it!) to a sidebar link.

Note: Read anything by:

Iruhe

RatFlavored

Prince_of_Elsinore

Lilienpasse

Lynne_monstr

Germanbrothers

Dorkery

drcalvin

---------

A Second Chance by Iruhe

Status: Complete

Rating: M

Summary: It is the Golden Twenties in Berlin. One fateful day, Gilbert approaches his brother, who he has not seen in the past decade, for help in apprehending his lover’s murderer. However, emotional baggage exists between the brothers. Ludwig has unresolved feelings for Gilbert, who remains conflicted about his relationship with his brother. Will they reconcile as the murderer draws ever nearer, or will it all fall apart? Inspired by Babylon Berlin.

Whatever the fuck she wants to call it by RatFlavored

Status: Complete

Rating: M

Summary: Ludwig goes on chatroulette and encounters someone unexpected.

A Winter Story by Prince_of_Elsinore

Status: Ongoing

Rating: None

Summary: Their parents’ impending divorce forces Ludwig to spend Christmas alone with his brother Gilbert, who has moved from Brooklyn to rural New England to keep chickens and write. Ludwig doesn’t understand his brother’s choices and feels they’ve drifted apart; but maybe they have more in common than he thought.

Apples to Apples by lynne_monstr

Status: Complete

Rating: T

Summary: The day was going exactly according to schedule until Gilbert started eating that apple.

Berlin by ZaliaChimera

Status: Complete

Rating: M

Summary: Berlin, a city divided between Babylon and Rome, and the slow descent towards darkness.

Black Hearted Love by TheOtherSarahJane

Status: Complete

Rating: E

Summary: Gilbert gives Ludwig his first blowjob. Shameless PWP.

Blut und Tränen by BillywickStatus: IncompleteRating: MSummary: There's something wrong with his brother, but Ludwig can't put his finger on it. What dark secret won't Gilbert share with him? And why is the world suddenly afraid of Germany again? Is everyone going nuts? (in which for once, there's nothing wrong with Gil but Ludwig is otherwise convinced)

Cigarettes and Silk Stockings by dorkery

Status: Complete

Rating: M

It wasn't that he couldn't see her, it was that he couldn't see her.Part of the fem!Prussia history arc, in which Germany discovers his libido around Prussia post-reunification.

Cheat Code by lynne_monstr

Status: Complete

Rating: E

Summary: When Prussia gets the idea to help Germany de-stress by playing a round of video games, Germany gets an idea of his own and they end up playing an entirely different game.

Count the hours, little flower by dorkery

Status: Complete

Rating: E

Summary: Letting a blossoming young woman who had just discovered her sexuality into his bed was not the smartest thing Prussia could have done.

Das Rote Dreieck by Prince_of_Elsinore

Status: Discontinued

Rating: None

Summary: “You know where you are with triangles. And you know you’re not going anywhere.” One is a political prisoner at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The other is a camp administrator. One year after they meet, their positions have changed considerably.

Die Kreuze auf dem Kissen by drcalvin

Status: Complete

Rating: E

Summary: Over the course of a year, Germany’s feelings for Prussia goes from brotherly to something more disturbing. But when his brother refuses to be possessed, Germany might have to give up control to get his desires.

Die Träumer by Prince_of_Elsinore

Status: Complete

Rating: D

Summary: “He sometimes wondered how things might have been different, how his relationship with Gilbert might be different, if their parents had stayed together.” Modern day human Germancest AU in Berlin. The city is changing, and so is the relationship of two estranged brothers.

Dynamo by germanbrothers

Status: Complete

Rating: T

Summary: Ludwig is the Captain of the Berlin Badgers, a professional Quidditch team. And as such, he does not have time to coach random strangers who approach him in bars. Unless, of course, those strangers happen to have an extraordinary amount of talent.

Hey Baby, Do You Want to Touch My...Missiles? by dorkery

Status: Complete

Rating: M

Summary: Mm yeah, that's just how the GDR rolls, baby.Filled for the Hetalia Kink Meme. Original request: "Prussia/Germany - Seduction: Cold War. While at a meeting, East Germany begins seducing West Germany in the hall, telling him to come over to the 'fun side' of the Iron Curtain. West Germany is completely into his former brother's dirty talk until his allies come looking for him.

Hidden Depths by lynne_monstr

Status: Complete

Rating: T

Summary: The background image on Germany’s laptop as been changed.

Inadvertent Misdemeanors by lilien passe (lilienpasse)

Status: Ongoing

Rating: M

Summary: Harried med-student Gilbert is awoken one night by a clumsy burglar. He rushes to the defense of his ancient television, only to find that the intruder is less a burglar and more an incredibly lost drunk. Gil/Lutz and others. Thank tumblr for the breaking and entering AU prompt.

Jitters by lilien passe (lilienpasse)

Status: Complete

Rating: T

Summary: It's the day of his wedding, and Gilbert is a complete mess. Best man Elizaveta has her hands full trying to keep him calm. Gilutz.

My Manipulated Misfortune by CreamPuffBunny

Status: Complete

Rating: M

Summary: Ludwig is a young doctor at a human testing facility. He meets a patient named Gilbert and is assigned to him. Upon seeing the dark acts that go on behind closed doors, Ludwig will have to make a choice between his career or his humanity.

Obsession by Prince_of_Elsinore

Status: Complete

Rating: E

Summary: Ludwig Beilschmidt is happy to be attending the same university as his lifelong companion, best friend, and older brother, Gilbert. But as college experiences start expanding Ludwig's horizons, his perceptions of himself--and his brother--begin to change in unusual ways. How much can the brothers' bond withstand, though? Just when they seem closer than ever, so much threatens to force them apart…

October Twenty Fourth by lilien passe (lilienpasse)

Status: Complete

Rating: T

Summary: Gilbert is in the hospital. Ludwig visits him every day. As Gilbert slowly succumbs to his illness, he begins to lose his grip on reality, and Ludwig begins to lose all hope. Gil/Lutz.

Oh Happy Apple, This is Thy Sheath by lynne_monstr

Status: Complete

Rating: T

Summary: This certainly wasn’t what he expected from a routine trip to the market.

Re_Born by KivaEmber

Status: Incomplete

Rating: T

Summary: Prussia disappeared with his nation - and woke up in limbo.

Scrapbook by KivaEmber

Status: Incomplete

Rating: T

Summary: Collection of Re_Born universe drabbles.

Tempus Vernum by CreamPuffBunny

Status: Complete

Rating: M

Summary: A mystical war between fairy kind is soon to erupt. Ludwig, a human monk belonging to the ‘Order of Nature’, is one of the very few who can see actual fairies. After a chance meeting with Gilbert, a Winter Elemental Fairy and mischievous rogue, Ludwig is trapped in the fairy realm acting as a human delegate between the warring courts of Light King Roderich and Dark King Arthur. Instantly attracted to Gilbert, the two form a secret (but dangerous) relationship that is considered a taboo among fairy kind. But Ludwig is not the only being who has their eyes set on Gilbert. With the battle of Light verses Dark coming to a head, will Ludwig be able to bring about peace and save Gilbert? Will he keep Gilbert for himself in the human world or give up that right to become of the fairy folk?

The Last Days of the Beilschmidts: the true account told through original documents by Prince_of_Elsinore

Status: Hiatus

Rating: T

Summary: In 1932, the Beilschmidt residence burned to the ground and its last resident vanished without a trace. Newly uncovered documents reveal the incredible story of the final months of the house of Beilschmidt, and the mysterious stranger who came to stay.

Two Litres of Tesco’s Finest by ZaliaChimera

Status: Complete

Rating: T

Summary: England's sleep is interrupted by the very inconsiderate nations in the room next door and he is forced into a rather illuminating conversation with his oldest acquaintance.

Note: GerPru is the side pairing.

Submission by Prince_of_Elsinore

Status: Ongoing

Rating: E

Summary: Sequel to “Obsession.” AU. Ludwig and Gilbert Beilschmidt are normal brothers. Close, but normal. At least, that’s what they pretend. But they share a secret that could destroy their family, friendships, reputations, and even their relationship with each other. And trying to keep up the façade of normalcy every day takes a toll. How much can their love for each other withstand?

The Black and they Grey by TianShan

Status: Complete

Rating: E

Summary: “Summer 1992. America calls Prussia with an interesting idea for his upcoming visit to America's house with Germany. Prussia comes up with an interesting way to pitch it to Germany. Germany has a headache.

Germany's headache goes away by the end of it.

Basically 25 pages of Germancest. Dom!Prussia, Sub!Germany, leather boots, riding crops, iron crosses, and, hey, the internet is for porn, right? (I tried to make Prussia go to the gulag. Prussia did not want to go to the gulag. Prussia wanted to sexually dominate Germany. Can't blame him.)”

The Inspector's Insects by Prince_of_Elsinore

Status: Complete

Rating: None

Summary: "Something is creeping up the stairs, creeping, crawling, through your hairs, and up your neck and over your chin: close your lips, don't let it in. There's no use in running away when the Inspector comes to play." Your best hope is to act Dead.

The Prince and His King by TheOtherSarahJane

Status: Complete

Rating: G

Summary: During Gilbert’s yearly excursion into the attic, he stumble across some mementos from Ludwig’s childhood.

For the hour-long writing challenge held by germanbrothers on tumblr back in April.

The Way The World Works by dorkery

Status: Complete

Rating: M

Summary:Filled for the Hetalia Kink Meme. Original request: "Germany gets busier and Prussia does what he can."

This is NOT how we do things around here by dorkery

Status: Complete

Rating: E

Summary: Do you know what Germany likes?Breasts.

Underlying Assets by lynne_monstr

Status: Complete

Rating: E

Summary: Germany had always prided himself on being a responsible leader and nation. Except now all he can think about is the racy lingerie hiding under Prussia’s suit. He was going to kill Prussia. Just as soon as he took care of more important matters.De-anon from the kink meme.

Weight Room Etiquette by lynne_monstr

Status: Ongoing

Rating: M

Summary: Prussia can barely move after a heavy weightlifting session and Germany takes full advantage. But tired or not, Prussia isn't one to make anything easy. (Or: Prussia and Germany at the gym. On the floor. On the mats. On the weightlifting benches.)Now with added car sex.And more!

White Crimson by CreamPuffBunny

Status: Complete

Rating: M

Summary: Guilty of heresy, former knight Gilbert is arrested for leading a rebel army against the king’s new religious order. Ludwig, a retired soldier and nihilist, is the executioner set to carry out the death of the beloved heresiarch. While the trials take a long time to prepare, the two men begin to grow closer to one another and their ideals start to change.

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antoine-roquentin · 6 years

Link

At some point during the fighting in Libya a few years ago, Nato planes attacked pro-Gaddafi forces near an oilfield in the north-east. A number of smart bombs hit a storage facility belonging to the oil company for which I worked. The facility contained thousands of barrels of chemicals, worth millions of dollars, which are used in the process of drilling for oil. Most of the barrels were destroyed outright but a good number remained intact. Exposed to the extreme heat of the explosion and subsequent fires, the chemicals inside the surviving barrels were altered permanently. At around the same time, as the fighting in and around the field intensified, Libyan employees of my company (the expats having cut and run a long time ago) worked frantically to move high explosives and detonators used in the oil extraction process to a safe location so that none of the various factions involved in the conflict could get their hands on them. For some reason, the employees made the decision to leave the live explosives in the bunker and take the detonators – the piece of kit they judged most useful to any would-be bombers. In their haste, they left the bunker compound gates open and the door to the bunker unlocked.

Since the attack on Gaddafi and its aftermath, the Libyans working for my company had got used to having to act on their own initiative, often in danger and under extreme pressure as the fighting took hold of the country. But then, during a lull in hostilities, the employees responsible for dealing with the chemicals and explosives decided it was time to update HQ on what had happened. They also had a more serious problem on their hands. As well as using chemicals and explosives, oil companies deploy radioactive materials in their quest for oil. Nuclear probes are inserted into potential wells in order to determine whether they are suitable candidates for further exploration. These probes also happen to be the perfect size to use as the core of a dirty bomb. As a consequence, in all jurisdictions in which they are used they are heavily regulated. But in Libya there was no longer any regulation. My company’s store of nuclear materials was kept in a bunker designed to withstand the force of a massive explosion and was normally heavily protected by specially trained troops. Now the bunker lay completely unguarded. It seemed that the warring factions hadn’t yet discovered its existence but the employees believed that it was only a matter of time before this bunker, too, was overrun and plundered. What should they do to make the materials safe? Should they try and smuggle them out of the country? Should they keep them in the bunker and pour concrete over them? As the compliance lawyer with responsibility for the region, I was invited to join a conference call to discuss these questions, along with the operations manager for the oilfield and the regional head of security, an ex-special forces officer on secondment to London from US HQ.

Also on the call was the new country manager for Libya. While operations managers – the people who deal with the practicalities of getting the oil out of the ground – work out in the field, the country manager sits in the city, near the seat of decision-making power over the award of contracts. In companies like mine, country managers are powerful people, as much imperial proconsul or colonial governor as businessman. They can run the business in their countries as they wish. The only thing that matters is that they return a profit. The country manager for Libya was a company high-flier, who was sent in to Tripoli as soon as Gaddafi had fallen in the expectation of rich pickings, and who now spent his days shuttling from one hotel to another in fear of assassination. It was clear that he hadn’t had any involvement in the matters under discussion and he remained silent as the rest of us trawled through possible solutions to the various problems.

Sitting in a bland conference room in London, listening to disembodied voices relaying facts over the phone, it felt as though we were participating in some crisis simulation exercise. Almost casually, we came to some conclusions: the barrels of chemicals could stay where they were. Nothing could be done with the remaining stock. There was nothing we could do about the explosives either. In the fog of war, people make strange decisions and at least the detonators had been removed and were under company control. It was the best we could hope for. We decided that the risks of smuggling the nuclear materials out of the country and into Egypt were too great and that the employees should bury them somewhere in the Libyan desert.

Then, as the call drew to an end, the country manager spoke up. ‘I want to talk about something,’ he said. ‘I want to talk about the theft of company property.’ He was angry. One of the employees had taken advantage of the chaotic conditions to steal a number of company trucks. ‘And now that it is more stable over here,’ the country manager continued, ‘he’s holding the trucks to ransom. He’s refusing to give them back. His tribe wants money for them. They might attack our base.’ He told us that he had personally been out into the desert to bargain with the employee and his tribe. Negotiations were ongoing, but he insisted he was going to solve the problem. ‘I call the ball,’ he said. He was convinced that this misconduct was only the tip of the iceberg. ‘I want you to come and see what is going on here,’ he told me. ‘I want you to come and look into matters. They need it.’ After the call, he made an official request for a compliance audit – a review of the fraud and corruption risk in a country – for Libya, and coming from a well-connected hi-pot, his request went to the top of the organisation. The company, worried that it might be losing more money than it should be, in a market so bad that the smallest profit would be considered a miracle, agreed with him and sent me to Libya.

I flew into Tripoli in the first week of Ramadan. As I walked through the baggage collection hall looking for my luggage, the first thing I noticed were the groups of sub-Saharan Africans being shepherded through the airport by North African minders. After an hour of searching, it became clear that my luggage wasn’t going to turn up, so I made my way to arrivals, where I was collected by a driver and a security contractor employed by our company – a former NCO in a Scottish infantry regiment who served in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a corporate mercenary. He was hired to act as a bodyguard for expats but his only remaining client, he told me, was the country manager. ‘But now he never leaves his hotel room when he’s here and spends as much time out of the country as he can.’

We drove to the contractor’s quarters, a small, dusty lock-up in the suburbs. Sitting outside at a camping table, he gave me a neat PowerPoint presentation on his laptop about the security situation in Libya. ‘Frankly speaking,’ he said, ‘it’s a bit shit.’ Libya was dangerous. Tripoli was dangerous – not as dangerous as Benghazi but still dangerous. Random, lethal violence was to be expected. There were no police officers, no official law enforcement of any kind – only tribal militia, who ruled the roost. He told me to be careful of ambushes while being driven around the city.

‘What should I do if I get ambushed?’ I asked.

‘Well, standard operating procedure in the army is to shoot your way out. Don’t be static. Push on, fight back.’ I pointed out to him that I was an unarmed middle-aged lawyer who would be sitting in the back of a rickety saloon car when the moment came. He shrugged. ‘As I say, it’s a bit shit.’

After the briefing, we went on to my hotel, which is used by diplomats, journalists and those on (mostly oil-related) business. At one end of the driveway that swept past the hotel entrance, there was a traffic barrier operated by armed guards. No such obstacle existed at the other end. Men in various degrees of military dress stood outside the entrance, smoking or talking together in the lobby. I was greeted by the receptionist, who spoke in a broad Dublin accent. He (and his identical twin, also on duty at reception) was a young Irishman with a Libyan father who had decided to come and experience the free Libya and was now wishing he hadn’t. Then I headed for my company’s office. The car that took me there, like most of the others in Tripoli, had small cubes of sponge stuck to its doors to prevent bumps while driving on roads that were no longer policed and where traffic rules were now purely a matter of convention rather than enforceable norms. As we drove along the Corniche, the deep blue of the Mediterranean on one side, I noticed that most of the old traffic rules were still being obeyed. In an environment in which robbery, kidnap and death were commonplace, people still seemed to want to give way at roundabouts.

My company’s offices were in one of a cluster of tall tower blocks overlooking the sea, a once prestigious address. The tower blocks were set in a deserted concrete courtyard. The entrance lobby’s cool, airy silence was a contrast to the intense heat and white light of the afternoon outside. I took the lift up and was let into the office, where I was shown into an empty room with a desk. I spoke with the first of the people who had been asked to come for interview. As with every compliance audit, on my list of interviewees were those exposed to higher than usual risk of corruption – including members of the sales team, anyone in a leadership role, and anyone who had contact with government or public officials. I also talked to those who were in a position to prevent corruption or spot it if it occurred, such as members of the finance department or human resources. Some of the employees had made great efforts to attend. One of the sales directors had come from Benghazi, and the various operations managers – those who were in charge of actually drilling for oil in the field – had travelled in from their desert bases and rigs.

At first, the interviews followed a script in which I asked a list of set questions relevant to the interviewee’s role. But soon, picking up on a remark or an answer, I would take the opportunity to broaden the conversation. Formality would dissipate and people would start to talk more generally about the company and the wider environment in which they lived and worked. Some common themes emerged. No matter whether they were for or against Gaddafi (and it soon became apparent which side someone was on), most people thought that having him back would be better than the current situation. There were shootings and kidnappings. House break-ins were rife and everyone had a Kalashnikov at home for defence against burglars. One woman I spoke to had just returned to work after having her teeth knocked out with the butt of a gun in a robbery. A man told me that a range of weapons from handguns to SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles were openly for sale in the street just a few minutes’ walk away from the office. But there was one thing that united the pro and anti-Gaddafi factions in the office: their hatred of the country manager. Echoing the security contractor, they told me that he rarely appeared in the office and never visited the oilfields. He was arrogant, incompetent and a coward.

I asked several of the interviewees about the theft of trucks by the employee and got a story very different from the one given by the country manager. They told me that in the middle of the fighting, the employee, rather than let the assets of a company for which he had worked for many years be stolen or destroyed, had decided he would drive a number of the company’s vehicles to a safe location and hide them, with the intention of returning them when the situation became more stable. As soon as the country manager arrived he made a big show of going out into the desert to demand the return of the trucks. But the employee had refused to return them without a reward.

‘What did he want in return for the trucks?’ I asked one of the interviewees.

‘He wanted a certificate of thanks for his behaviour.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes. And the country manager wouldn’t give it to him.’

‘But he would have given all of the trucks back if we had given him a certificate?’

‘Yes. The country manager refused and told him he was in breach of the code of conduct.’ I could see why the country manager had taken to changing hotels on a regular basis.

In a series of calls and emails over the first few days of my visit, the country manager gave me the slip, making various excuses as to why he hadn’t been around to speak to me. Finally I arranged to meet him in the lobby of my hotel: we were to go for dinner at a restaurant close to the magnificent Arch of Marcus Aurelius. As we sat at a table outside, making small talk and waiting for the call to prayer to end the day’s fast, it occurred to me that the company couldn’t have made a more inappropriate match than this one between the country manager and the failed state of Libya. A dapper, American-educated corporate droid, he was a prisoner of management speak: he had ‘reached out to’ employees, he told me; they hadn’t ‘embraced the new reality’. He didn’t seem able to adjust to the fact that he was operating in a warzone, dealing with people who were suffering, many of whom had demonstrated great loyalty to a company that abandoned them at the first sign of trouble. He was keen to tell me that he was now close to resolving the truck issue. ‘You can’t trust these people,’ he told me. ‘They just don’t get it.’ Then his phone rang. ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to take it.’ This hunted, scared individual suddenly inflated with pride as he talked. After a few minutes, the call ended.

‘That was the CEO. He wants me to head up a new project team when I get out of this fucking place.’ Somewhere in the city there was the crack of a rifle, sounding like a cheap firework set off in the street. And his face said: if I get out of this place.

The next morning, I was sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for my car to the office when a man approached me. He was dusty and tired and wearing shabby street clothes. He introduced himself and immediately handed me a memory stick. His name was Ahmed and he told me that Yusuf, one of the operations managers I had met and whom I recalled as a physically huge but softly spoken man, coated with the grime of the oilfield yard, was muscling in and taking over the business in Libya.

‘He’s very well connected. He’s close to some of the tribal sheikhs. He’s also a gangster. There’s no doubt. He’s controlling many of the suppliers. It’s all on the USB.’ And then Ahmed made a plea for complete confidentiality. The consequences in this broken state of being revealed as an informant could be dire.

Later that day, in between interviews, I read the contents of the USB. There was clear proof that Yusuf had been buying up local firms that supply to the oil business and then putting contracts in place on extremely favourable terms between them and my company. In his own, admittedly criminal way, in predicting that eventually, despite all appearances, the oil market would pick up, Yusuf was showing more confidence in the prospects for Libya than the company’s senior leadership. They saw it as a basket case but Yusuf, like the best hedge-fund managers, was playing the long game with his investments and had picked the very best time to pull off this kind of scam, now that monitoring of the goings-on in the business in Libya had all but ended. Many of the company’s transactions had to be performed manually in Tripoli rather than through the centralised electronic finance systems in the US or UK. This meant that there was no longer the usual intense oversight of where money came from and went to. Instead there were numerous opportunities for an unscrupulous employee to make hay while the country detached itself from the world.

That evening, just before midnight, I was driven to British Home Stores in downtown Tripoli to buy some new clothes, since my luggage still hadn’t turned up. When we arrived, the driver sat in the car with the engine running while the security contractor stood at the shop entrance. I had ten minutes to go around the deserted aisles putting socks, pants and shirts into my basket. ‘Any longer,’ the contractor said, pointing to the shop assistants, ‘and their mates could be over to pick you up.’ But the two women at the counter seemed completely uninterested in my supermarket sweep. They didn’t lift their chins off their hands as I shopped, and they took payment from me with as much curiosity as if I were buying clothes on a Saturday afternoon in Oxford Street.

The next day, one of my scheduled meetings was with the oilfield operations manager who had been on the call a few weeks earlier. We worked our way through the scheduled questions and answers and then he said: ‘Can I ask for your opinion on the chemicals?’ He reminded me of the story of the damaged barrels in the warehouse and I expected him to ask for compliance advice regarding their disposal, as he had done with the explosives and the radioactive materials. But instead the conversation took an unexpected turn.

‘We’ve been approached by the authorities in the east of the country,’ he said. ‘They would like to buy the chemicals to use for drilling for water.’ He explained that there was a desperate need to repair infrastructure and restore running water to areas that had been ruined by the fighting. ‘The company won’t allow us to use the chemicals that survive the attack to drill for oil. They no longer meet our quality standards. But the Libyan authorities would be happy to buy them from us. They’re not proud.’ And here was the bit that made it all worthwhile. ‘They will pay us millions of dollars for stock that we will otherwise throw away.’ He showed me photos of the damaged chemicals and the letters requesting the deal from the authorities. ‘We need this deal,’ he told me. ‘We haven’t had any significant revenue for years.’ This would mean that at least some people would keep their jobs for a little while longer. A draft contract had already been drawn up and legal approval had been given. He showed me the approvals from the commercial lawyers and a chain of emails from our leaders showing their desperation to screw some profit out of this situation. But the authorities were running out of patience. They had a window in which they had to get drilling and if we couldn’t help them they would need to find someone who could. So time was of the essence and all that was lacking was the compliance seal of approval.

Over the next few days, I went over the areas of possible risk created by the opportunity – legal, commercial, reputational. The operations manager called daily, asking whether I had made my decision, reminding me that the clock was ticking. I spoke with our commercial lawyers and with finance. I made sure that the chemicals actually existed and I got assurances that there really were functioning authorities in the east of Libya. My training and experience had made me very sensitive to the signs of fraud and corruption and I was confident that I’d covered off those avenues. But I was still very uneasy with the deal. Then I realised I might have missed the most important risk factor of all. I got hold of the names of the chemicals and rang a senior company chemist to ask him to carry out an analysis of each of them to make sure they couldn’t be used as chemical weapons. The analysis came back: all clear. None of them, either alone or in combination, could be used in chemical weapons.

I let the operations manager know that he could go ahead. He was delighted. ‘This is really going to make a big difference to the bottom line for my business,’ he told me. It also meant that he would get his bonus and lots of kudos for having the winner’s mindset: he would keep his job for at least the next quarter or so. I was relieved too. The pressure had been building, and for me to have turned the transaction down at the last minute would have provoked a shitstorm in the region and even higher up the chain. As promised, the operations manager sent me the confirmation documents with the various legal restrictions and covenants that the authority had agreed to abide by regarding its use of the chemicals. In a matter of days, the sale was completed. We had sold countless barrels of useless chemicals to the Libyan water board for a huge profit. The perfect deal.

During the remainder of my time in Libya, Ahmed continued to provide me with evidence about Yusuf’s acquisition of suppliers. It was so compelling that, as a first step, I blocked the suppliers in the central accounting system. This meant that no matter how hard Yusuf tried, his supply companies couldn’t receive any significant payment from my company. I concluded the compliance audit and left Libya. My bag was waiting for me when I arrived at Tripoli Airport. As soon as I picked it up from the airline desk in departures, it was seized by a man wearing an old police jacket and grubby suit trousers. He took me to a small room at one side of the departures hall and ordered me to unpack every single item onto a large table in front of him. Everything was covered in dust. When I finished he told me to repack it. I checked my luggage in and made my way once again past the gangs of sub-Saharan Africans travelling from misery into misery, past the stall selling tatty Free Libya merchandise, to the plane.

Then the oil price collapsed. It was already bad but now the price of a barrel had really tanked. There was a lot of talk about permanent structural change in the industry. Firms like mine fired thousands of employees in a matter of weeks. I made sure that Ahmed was put on a protected list of essential employees as his reward for doing the right thing. Somehow, the Libyan senior managers, Yusuf included, found out about this almost as soon as it happened. I received a series of increasingly desperate emails from Ahmed. He knew what was about to happen and thought that I had betrayed him. The emails stopped abruptly when he was fired. When I raised Ahmed’s case with a senior HR manager, I was told that it was unfortunate but that, given the state of the market, it was a matter of only a few weeks before all the employees on the protected list were going to be fired anyway. Any concern for Ahmed got lost in the huge wave of redundancies that the low oil price brought.

I went ahead anyway and presented the allegations against Yusuf to senior management. Despite the evidence, they didn’t find them convincing and the matter was closed with no further action taken. The supply companies that were the subject of the investigation were unblocked in the system. In the rapid restructuring of the company in Libya in response to the manically deteriorating market conditions and worsening violence, Yusuf was promoted, along with the operations manager who had arranged the sale of the damaged barrels to the water authorities. This was to fill the gap created by the departure of the detested country manager, who had managed to get out of Libya with a plum posting to a new project back at US HQ. Not long after I left Tripoli, a large car bomb was left outside my hotel, driven through the entrance, which was undefended by bollards. Thankfully, it was defused.

Eventually I caught up with the regional head of security about the sale of the chemicals. ‘They didn’t want the chemicals you fucking idiot,’ he said. ‘They wanted the barrels.’ He was sure the whole deal was a scam, that one of a number of groups – tribal, terrorist or government – was tapping available sources for the basic ingredients to make their weapon of choice, the barrel bomb. There was no proof of this. I had done all I could to verify that the deal was genuine but in my heart of hearts I knew that it smelled. The regional head of security just found it bleakly funny that one of the most advanced weapons in the world – a laser-guided bomb – had spawned hundreds of the crudest airborne weapons possible, responsible for so much indiscriminate killing. But there was a silver lining. ‘Look, we made a few million bucks. With Brent Crude at sub-$40 a barrel for the foreseeable future and Libya eating itself alive, that’s an awesome result,’ he said. ‘As long as the company logo doesn’t appear on a report by CNN, no one is going to give a shit about where those barrels end up.’ And, as it turned out, he was right.

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izanyas · 7 years

Text

Not Justice (7)

Thank you eternally to @scarlet-blossoms for being the most amazing and reliable beta reader in the world. And sorry everyone for the long wait!

Rating: M Words: 5,300 No warnings.

[Read from Chapter 1]

Not Justice Chapter 7

Shiki was tired.

He wasn't the kind of man to use the word lightly. His job and activities, whether they be monitoring the gallery or the less upstanding trades and negotiations he was a part of, required a great deal of energy. His strength since the very start had been that he was undefeated by fatigue; Mikiya called him inhuman, Akabayashi called him ruthless, Aozaki had stopped watching for him to give in and show weakness a long time ago. Shiki never minded the job and never minded the watching.

The situation was a bit special, however. As machine-like as he liked to appear, a friend's disappearance was still a friend's disappearance. With every new morning he expected Kine's body to show belly-up in the bay or abandoned at the gallery's glass doors with blood crusted at the mouth. The Black Rider texted him every evening with a glaring lack of update and an apology, and Shiki smoked more than he liked to, just to abate the nerves keeping him awake at night as he wondered why Kine was still gone.

He could only think of a few reasons why someone would take Kine. One was vengeance against the man himself—he was a private detective, and ties to Awakusu non-withstanding, someone who made enemies as a professional hazard. Another was vengeance against Awakusu, but then, why keep the body? There was no point to be made in secrecy.

The last was ransom, and no one had asked for anything. Not for Kine, and not for any of the other people that Shiki had soon learned were being taken in similar circumstances.

He had a folder full of the names of the gone, now. It sat open on the low table in front of him, stained with ashes and half-buried in the shadow of Akabayashi's body.

Which brought him to the second reason he felt the necessity to admit to fatigue.

"You'll hurt yourself with that," Akabayashi said, in that murmur of a voice that should sound over-the-top to any of them but which only served to cool the atmosphere of the room.

They all knew that the weight of Akabayashi's posturing was very real.

Kazamoto's grip tightened on his blade. Already a few inches of the sword were unsheathed and gleaming cold and blue in the light. "Want to test that, Akabayashi?"

Aozaki wasn't here to put a leash on his dog, so of course, Kazamoto had taken up the role of antagonizing them all with sheer delight. Shiki sucked in the very last of his cigarette's worth, until the foul taste of burning plastic coated his tongue and he was forced to crush the filter into the dirty ashtray next to him.

Any other day of the week he could've dealt with his colleagues' antics. Not today.

"Kazamoto," he said lowly. The man perked up, throwing him a glance. "Get out."

Akabayashi let out a pleased sound, which made Kazamoto's face redden with anger the way the excitement of a fight hadn't. He seemed to hesitate for a second, looking between the two of them and wondering if it was worth disobeying the orders of someone who technically couldn't order him, but who had the sort of backing that he lacked.

With a disgusted click of his tongue, he left.

Shiki's phone chose this moment to ring, which suited him, because now Akabayashi was looking at him with curiosity in his eyes, and Shiki didn't have the energy to deal with that.

"Shiki," he said curtly, shoving the phone against his ear.

He heard nothing in answer except for static.

Akabayashi, still watching him, gestured with his hand in askance. Shiki's lips thinned. He was about to either speak again or hang up when he heard breathing, and then, "I heard you lost Kine, Shiki-san."

Shiki stilled, blood turned to ice and muscles to rock.

He didn't know what face Akabayashi made at his reaction, because he didn't think he could have seen anything and understood it in that very moment.

"Orihara," he said. He couldn't tell what sort of voice had left his lips.

Akabayashi's body went immobile atop the armrest of the couch.

"It's been a while," Orihara said, playful and alive, "You should think about changing your number from time to time. You've had the same since I've known you. Not terribly careful of you."

It took a second too long for Shiki to be able to answer. "You should be thankful I haven't," he managed, and he could only hope that the distance and distortion would be enough to mask the heavy emotion in his voice to Orihara himself, because Akabayashi was missing none of it.

"I suppose so. I'd spend more time on catching up, but we're a little short on time, wouldn't you say?"

"When did you come back?" Shiki asked nonchalantly. As nonchalantly as he could.

"Just this morning. I would've called earlier, but I ran into some trouble on my way."

He wanted to ask. He really wanted to ask. He wanted to know where Orihara had gone and why he had come back, wanted to ask to see him for no reason but to neaten the memory of his face and of the full scope of his voice and smile—but Akabayashi was staring at him, anchoring the situation to reality rather than some far-off dream Shiki could've had, must've had, over the last year and a half.

His wits were returning to him now. The ache in his neck, the weakness in his legs. Shiki uncrossed them and didn't wince as pain flared under his right thigh from an old pulled muscle that had never really mended. He cleared his throat.

"I suppose there's something you want, then," he said.

"There is," Orihara agreed. "You must know that Kine is only one in a string of missing people."

Shiki flicked a glance to the files spread over the coffee table. "I do."

"The latest of them is my sister."

This time he leaned forward, rummaging through the papers. He found Orihara Kururi's face inside; she stood squeezed between—Mairu, he read over the associated file, who couldn't be anyone but her sister indeed, and a boy with blue hair that he knew from Akabayashi's tight-lipped musings.

"I hadn't realized that she was your sister," he said lowly.

"Orihara isn't an uncommon family name, and we don't look much like each other," Orihara said, sounding bored.

Shiki disagreed. The selfie was recent—taken a week before the girl disappeared—and if anything he was wondering how he hadn't made the connection beforehand. Orihara Kururi looked something like her brother had the first time they had met. The hair color was wrong and the shape of her face softer—younger—but the resemblance was striking now that he was looking for it.

She'd been missing for almost two days.

"None of them have reappeared anywhere, either dead or alive," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. He didn't know if Orihara would want or accept anything more than this. "She's probably alive."

Orihara, it turned out, ignored his words. "I've been asked to help look for them," he said briskly, and God, Shiki hadn't realized how much he wanted to hear his voice until he had it pressed against his ear. His longing to meet face-to-face with Orihara again was ridiculous. His mouth didn't shake only because Akabayashi was watching.

He looked at the faces of the missing again, trying to regain his focus.

"I've asked for the Headless Rider's help with finding Kine," he said, doing his best to ignore the weight of Akabayashi's eyes. "So far she hasn't found anything."

"Neither has my secretary. This is a strange case, isn't it?" Orihara let out a huff, something close to laughter but a little less controlled than Shiki remembered it. "I've heard of a few other strange things happening here since I've been gone."

That answered a question Shiki had been asking himself, then. "So you're not involved with that Snake Hands… whatever it is."

"I'm afraid not. I never planned to involve myself with Ikebukuro again."

Shiki didn't linger on the sting he felt at those words. "There's nothing I can tell you about those kidnappings," he said. "Except for what the courier told me, which I'm sure you already know."

"I've heard some accounts," Orihara replied vaguely. "Well, either way, thank you, Shiki-san. I wasn't expecting more than to let you know I'm working on this. Let's stay in touch while I'm in town. Hopefully we can both find who we're looking for."

"Do you think it was them? Snake Hands," he added for clarity.

He didn't think it was, but he didn't want the call to end just yet. While I'm in town sounded too much like Orihara planned to disappear again, gone like a wisp of wind.

"The only thing I know," Orihara replied, "is that whatever took Kururi wasn't human."

There was fear in his voice, mixed in with the loathing.

"Orihara," Shiki breathed. Damn Akabayashi. "I'm glad you're alive."

He wasn't surprised when only the flat tone of a cut call answered him.

For a moment longer he kept the phone against the side of his face, as if to keep the sound of the man's voice stuck there. Eventually he let it slide against his neck and put it back in his jacket.

"So," Akabayashi murmured, interest burning bright on his tongue. "Things are looking up for you, Shiki-no-danna."

Shiki met his eyes levelly.

The whole apartment was dusty. Izaya had snapped out of the weird dozing-on-and-off sleep he'd fallen into at the station up by the time they reached it. Namie spent the way resenting the tone with which Sozoro, as he'd introduced himself, told her not to wake him.

She wasn't stupid.

She hadn't cared to tidy up the place when she had left, so long ago now. Izaya's things were still spread across the wide living-room, laptop screens invisible through the layers of dust, windows dirtied on the inside even if clean outside. Put in stasis until he returned. The air was stuffy, unbreathable, with a stench that told her with no words that something had been left to rot in the fridge.

Izaya didn't seem to care much. He made a face when everything he touched clung grey to his fingers, but he chased off Sozoro's grip on his chair to wheel himself near the windows and take out his phone. He didn't address more than a look to Namie herself before he was speaking, lowly, into it. His long fingers tapping softly against the armrest.

Sozoro took a laptop out of the bag he was carrying. "I'll arrange for cleaning," he told Namie.

"I can do that," she replied, annoyed for reasons she didn't know.

The only thing she got in answer was an irritating twist of his lips.

Izaya's call didn't last long, but he was hunched over his contact list before Namie could put in a word, still not looking at her, mouth opening only when whoever was on the other side of the line answered.

He did this for most of the day. Barely an hour in two women rang at the door, carrying cleaning supplies and dressed mostly in white, and Sozoro let them in with an agreeable smile. They started cleaning up the place and emptying what needed emptying, gently asking Namie to move when she was in their way, making rage swarm inside her until her throat was stiff with it.

There was nothing to be done, though. She sat down once one of the couches was usable, took out her own laptop and stared at the screen without knowing what to do. Izaya's Wi-Fi was still running, and the device connected itself to it with no need for her to input the password again. Her inbox was full of messages from Shingen and Emilia, which she ignored.

Seiji had sent her a message to. She stared at it for a long time without understanding why it was there, before she remembered—she hadn't told him she was leaving.

He wanted to know where she had gone.

Not so long ago she would've relished in the sight of it, in the mere concept of Seiji contacting her on his own for nothing more than to know where she was. No messes to clean up or half-dead bodies to hide. Now all Namie felt was the tightness in her chest, regret and shame and something more vulnerable and childish. She closed her laptop with shaking hands.

Izaya was done making calls.

She walked toward him slowly. Sozoro was in the kitchen with the cleaning staff, maybe making a list of things to buy to keep himself and Izaya fed, acting the part of some sort of an outdated butler. Namie stood next to Izaya and watched his face intently as he raised his eyes from the phone in his lap to take in the sights of the city. The sunlit sky was kind on his face; it soothed the imprint of sleeplessness where the station's harsh lights had exposed it like a raw wound; it burned in his black hair with a hint of red, made his skin look healthier.

"You look like crap," she said.

He looked at her tiredly. "Pot, kettle."

She couldn't help the stretch of her lips at that any more than he could his.

"I told your sister you were back," she said then, and the light fluttering of a smile on his lips died down promptly. "I don't think she wants to subject herself to your company, don't worry."

"No," he replied. "I don't think she does either."

It almost made her want to tell him how mistaken he was in his assumption of Mairu and Kururi, but she refrained. She didn't want to be subjected to assumptions about herself and Seiji in return.

The simmer of anger inside her quieted as they watched the city side by side. Namie felt no kinship with Tokyo, no burst of love or rage for the city itself. If anything she had felt more emotion stepping into the stifling air of the apartment than she had landing in Narita. Izaya was different. There was nothing to be seen on his face as he observed the comings and goings of bug-sized people in the streets below, but he must be feeling something.

Anxiety, if nothing else, she thought. She hadn't spent too long thinking of what she knew of his physical and mental state now, but, well. Heiwajima's presence earlier had given that away. Perhaps it would've surprised others—Kishitani's son, or the Dullahan—to see him demonstrate such textbook suffering. Choking on his own lungs and passing out from the panic. Heiwajima himself had barely seemed to notice in his fury. But it hadn't surprised her.

She'd never seen Izaya as anything more than pathetically human.

"I need to work," he said in the heavy silence.

She nodded. "All right. I'll let you delay talking to me until you find your sister." The look he gave her was a warning; she smiled in answer, satisfaction rumbling in her belly, foul and comforting. "Don't think I'll let you escape feeling every bit as uncomfortable as I feel, Izaya."

"You're so cruel, Namie-san," he sighed, leaning back with a flourish. "And here I thought the sight of my person would be enough to deter you from… whatever it is you're trying to do."

"I did forget how unsightly you are. Physically and otherwise."

"Does the wheelchair make it worse?" he teased, glancing at her from the corner of his eyes.

She laughed, humor as nasty on her tongue as sugar. "Somehow, it suits you."

It was even true. The thing looked nothing short of a throne with the way Izaya sprawled in it.

Izaya's amusement cooled after that. The way he turned his head to look at her had a sort of finality to it, and Namie tensed, knowing that she wouldn't like whatever was about to come out of his mouth.

"Namie-san—"

"Drop the honorific," she cut in.

He startled, eyebrows raised. Namie's hand clenched around the hold she had on her opposing elbow, fingers pressing against bone through the soft of her shirt, and she steeled herself for the poison he was sure to deliver in answer.

She never knew what he would've said—perhaps neither of them did—because someone knocked on the front door right as Izaya opened his mouth.

Mikado wasn't trying to collect information. What he got out of Aoba on a good day was enough to satiate the part of him that he thought would always crave more than what he had; meeting far-eyed Mizuchi Yahiro, seeing the scars on his hands and the videos taken of him fighting Heiwajima Shizuo and leveling a whole group in one night, had also soothed him. Mikado contented himself with talking to the boy and talking to Aoba. He filled himself with the stories Anri told of her rare clients and Masaomi of his travels to find things for her to sell. School occupied the rest of his time.

Maybe pushing Mizuchi forward had been a bad idea. But seeing Izaya's name on the boy's phone and a glimpse of their conversation… he couldn't have resisted if his life depended on it. Aoba hating him was an unfortunate outcome, but not one he regretted entirely.

He didn't think Aoba could stay away from him for long anyway.

Now, however, and despite his best attitude, there was a piece of information at the front of his thoughts that he didn't know what to do with; and with it, the echo of a rumor online, of Heiwajima Shizuo making a ruckus at Narita train station this morning in a way that had become uncharacteristic for a year and a half. Putting the pieces together was any fool's job, he thought.

Mikado had never actually gone to see Izaya in person. He had the man's business card, old as it was. He had kept it in his wallet ever since he'd met the man for the first time. It held an address and phone number; the phone number had been dead, so.

Address it was.

He walked the way from the underground station on jittery legs. Shinjuku was less busy with activity during working hours, but more people were outside because of the warm fall sun. The building he found at the address was nondescript enough, if a bit on the expensive side, he mused, eyeing the tall glass windows on the uppermost floors. He entered the lobby with no need for a code. A guardian was there, sweeping the floor, and when Mikado asked her, she said, "Saw him get back this morning. Wonder where he was all this time." Then, in a curious-suspicious voice: "He's in a wheelchair now."

Mikado didn't know what to make of that except try and calm the shaking of his hands.

He's really back.

The person who opened the door to him was an old man with gentle features; his eyes swept over Mikado's body with the intensity of an x-ray machine for a few seconds too long before he stepped aside to allow him entrance.

"You've got a visitor, Izaya-dono," he called lightly.

Mikado stepped into a wide-lit living room that smelled a little strongly of detergent and lemon; he found Izaya sitting by the window, his face struck dumb by surprise, open-mouthed and, as always, striking.

And then he glanced sideways and met the furious eyes of Yagiri Namie.

"You," she spat out, and Mikado tensed all the way to his nape, swallowing nervously. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I—er," Mikado said. He looked back at Izaya before he could help it. "Is this a bad time?"

Izaya was still looking at him as if he'd seen a ghost, which did nothing to appease the surge of wonder in Mikado. Eventually he regained his countenance, because his lips thinned into a white line and his gaze became sharper, and Mikado felt all of a sudden as if he were fifteen and standing in front of a helpful stranger. Masaomi tense as a bow beside him, the light of midday shining in Izaya's hair and on the young, amused lines of his face.

"Mikado-kun," he said lowly—Mikado swallowed again, for the shiver than ran up his spine, joy or fear or something similar.

"Ah, I really hope I'm not interrupting," Mikado answered. His voice was shaking, but there was nothing to be done about it.

He looked between Izaya and Yagiri hesitantly; Yagiri was glaring murder at him, arms crossed in front of her chest. She looked more disheveled than he remembered her to be. The shirt she wore was rumpled, her hair in disarray. Her eyes sunk deep and the skin around them bruised.

"I don't know how many more surprises I can deal with today," Izaya muttered almost inaudibly.

It made Yagiri snort.

"Sorry," Mikado tried again. "I just… heard that there was an altercation with Shizuo-san this morning—" he saw the line of their shoulders tense, Yagiri's face growing even darker, and he hurried to add, "and, with what I've heard of the situation… I thought you might be here, Izaya-san."

Izaya examined him for a moment. Mikado tried not to shuffle on his feet and to ignore the glee tensing his stomach into inextricable knots, almost more potent than nausea. Behind him the old man was moving, his steps light onto the wooden floor, and he made no comment at all.

Finally, Izaya exhaled. He leaned back into the wheelchair—which Mikado was only now noticing. His forehead was still marred by a single line of tension, but when he spoke, his voice was even. "What do you want, Mikado-kun? I'm a little busy."

"I heard about your sister," Mikado said too fast, and watched attentively for a sign of anything on Izaya's face. He didn't find it. "And… I knew Mizuchi-kun was trying to contact you, so…"

Izaya's attention sparked at this, and Yagiri's as well. "Mizuchi Yahiro?" he asked.

Mikado nodded, nerves alight. He pushed his glasses up his nose. "He's my junior at Raira."

Izaya and Yagiri exchanged a look.

"Anyway." The scars on Mikado's torso were starting to ache, a stretching sort of burn, as they always did when he stood for too long. "I've come across something… I'm not sure how useful it'll be, but, it's come up a few times. Maybe it'll be useful in finding her."

"Are you offering me information?" Izaya's smile was sharp enough to cut.

Mikado blushed. "Sort of?"

"Are you for real?" Yagiri commented, disgust evident on her voice. "Do you still not realize—"

Izaya raised a hand in her direction, and she shut up with a snarl. "I'm simply wondering, Mikado-kun," he said. His voice dragged softly over the words in a way that used to make Mikado's face warm and still now threatened to. "Why would you offer information to the person who ruined your life?"

"Izaya," Yagiri seethed.

"You didn't ruin my life," Mikado said, blinking. Yagiri shot him a white-hot glare, but he paid her no mind. "I think I mostly did that by myself."

"Maybe," Izaya replied. He dragged a leg up, crossing it over the other, some flicker of discomfort running over his face as he did and disappearing just as fast. "What of Kida-kun's life, then?"

Mikado couldn't help the downward twist of his mouth. "I…"

"I'm sure you know by now," Izaya continued. "Saki has never minded talking. If he didn't tell you, then she must have." His smile was cold. "Or are they still in exile together, afraid I'll come running?"

He laughed loudly at his own joke, and Mikado stood there awkwardly, not knowing how to react. Should he laugh too? He didn't think it was appropriate, considering the wheelchair.

Thankfully, Yagiri seemed to have reached her maximum tolerance for humor, because she snapped her fingers into Izaya's face. He jumped in his seat, breath catching; for a second his face seemed lost between joy and utter disbelief, and then he looked at her with a frown.

Mikado cleared his throat. "Masaomi is… dealing. I think. He's not back, no." He gave a shaky smile. "Actually, this is also part of the reason I'm here."

"I don't have time to deal with any more of Kida-kun's troubles," Izaya said.

"Not even when you caused all of them?" Mikado asked.

"Not even then." Izaya looked amused but bored.

The fact that Mikado felt no more animosity for the man after this admission must reflect poorly on him as a person, he thought vaguely. "Well, I'm still going to tell you what I know."

"You're an idiot," Yagiri muttered.

"Now, Namie," Izaya said without looking at her. "You heard him. He doesn't think I ruined his life."

She chuckled dryly. "Sure. How are the stab wounds, Ryuugamine?" she asked snidely.

Mikado's chest flared with pain as if to answer her. "I could tell you something else if you don't believe me," he said quickly. "What I have is only a name—a nickname, even, not a full name or anything—it's just." He swallowed. "It came up in Aoba-kun's own search. I don't think he would want me to tell you that."

"Oh, I'm sure," Izaya drawled.

"But if it's not enough…" Mikado paused. That was the part he wasn't too sure about, but if it ended up giving him what he wanted, he was willing to make the sacrifice.

He looked up at Izaya again. "You've heard of Snake Hands, right?" he asked. When Izaya nodded, he continued: "I could tell you who it is."

There was interest there, he thought, looking at the handsome lines of Izaya's face, the flutter of excitement at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were almost cutting. He didn't know who Mizuchi was yet, then. That was good. It gave Mikado some advantage.

"You've been busy," Izaya said airily. "Planning on taking up my mantle?"

Mikado blushed furiously. "No! I'm staying out of all of this—"

Izaya laughed again, bright and curt. "Of course you are," he said in good humor. "Still, giving me twice the amount for nothing in return? Your flair for business is terrible, Mikado-kun."

"It's not business," Mikado muttered, face still warm. "And it isn't for nothing either. I just need you here for a while."

"What for?"

"To draw Masaomi back."

Izaya was silent.

Mikado licked his lips, and worried the bottom one with his teeth for a second, latching onto the bitten-raw skin there. "He'll come back if you're here," he continued. "Because he's terrified of you, and he thinks I'm ready to follow you everywhere and let you spin me around like a toy or something."

"Good thing he doesn't know about your attempt at making me follow you," Izaya said quietly, and Mikado's face flushed once more, though the man's tone wasn't mocking. "I'm not going to contact him," Izaya went on with no hesitation. "Or any of your little friends."

"You don't need to," Mikado urged. "The news of you being here—alive—he'll know soon enough."

The old man's voice rang behind him, making all three of them jump: "Too bad for your plans of staying unnoticed, Izaya-dono."

Izaya was looking up in annoyance now, fingers tightening over the armrest of the chair.

"Did you really think no one would notice you being back?" Mikado asked after a second of stupor. "I know some people were expecting it."

"Is that the idea behind all of this?" Izaya replied, irritated. "A bunch of teenagers bullying me into dealing with their issues?"

"Serves you right," Yagiri commented.

"You should be kinder to the disabled, Namie."

She threw him a look so loaded with disgust that Mikado felt it crawl up his back in a shudder.

He had known that Yagiri Namie was working for Izaya, but he hadn't met with her since that day in the crowd of the Dollars' first meeting and hadn't been contacted by her since the mess with the gun either. He made use of the uneasy silence to look between the two of them and wonder at the sort of relationship they had. They didn't act like lovers or friends did.

Yet there was awareness between them, in the way they slipped glances toward each other as if to make sure the other hadn't vanished into thin air in the seconds they weren't looking.

In the end Izaya was the one to speak again, leveling a gentler stare with Mikado. "I'm not interested in that new urban legend of yours. I'll take the name for now, Mikado-kun."

"And you'll stay?" Mikado asked hopefully.

Izaya sighed. "Long enough to be noticed by a few more people, I'm sure."

"Okay." His nerves seemed to settle at last. "The name Aoba-kun heard of was Lizard. I'm not sure how much help it'll be, but…"

He trailed off. There had been a glimpse of understanding on Izaya's face for a fraction of time, barely perceptible.

As if to mask it, Izaya smiled mockingly in his direction. "Very well. Sozoro will see you out, Mikado-kun, and I hope you don't take it personally when I ask you not to come by again."

"Of course," Mikado replied hesitantly. "I hope you find your sister, Izaya-san."

His chest was hurting badly now. He was thinking of the way back as he turned around and met the eagle-sharp eyes of the man named Sozoro, wondering if he'd manage to find a seat on the train or if he would have to spend the ride hunched over and trying not to pull at the sensitive scars littering him. The night promised to be painful.

"Mikado-kun," Izaya called.

Mikado stopped and look back.

Izaya's face was… maybe not pensive. Far-away. Like a veil had been placed between them. "A word of advice," he said softly. "You give away more than you think. I'm letting you off easily because I'm fond of you, but don't think next time I won't take advantage of how green you are."

I haven't let the truth about Mizuchi-kun slip out, have I? Mikado thought, queasiness gripping him in the stomach. "I'm not an information broker, Izaya-san," he replied as pleasantly as he could.

"No, you're not," Izaya replied. "But it's always a good idea to keep what you know under lock and key. And you know a lot."

He didn't.

Mikado wasn't into the thick of things anymore. He was happy at school, happy with Anri, content with watching Aoba sink deeper into a world that Mikado had realized was not meant for him. He sated the bottomless hole in himself with the margins of the unknown and grabbed life with both hands, day after day, goal after goal.

He just thought it might be easier to fool himself into believing it if Masaomi was by his side.

Thinking of the push he had given to make the present situation happen—something Izaya didn't have an inkling of—he said: "Welcome back, Izaya-san."

The smile on his face was plump with nerve and delight. It was the kind of smile that had made sweat shine on Aoba's brow, once upon a time.

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wallpapernifty · 4 years

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qindaskurdi · 5 years