#akai: and then I talked to him about scotch. also akai: says a whole eight sentences on the matter xD

[the-red-thread-that-strangles]

Continuing where we left off with Akai.

.

Shuichi must've regained conciousness quickly, because when he comes to, strands of soft hair brush against his face. Rei has tipped his head back, holding him steady and leaning in close to check whether he's still breathing. Shuichi actually doing so with sputtering gasps seems to be the wrong move, though. As soon as Shuichi shows signs of life, Rei's heat is gone as the agent hurries to get some distance between them.

The ensuing tirade as Akai's dragged up the stairs to the guest bedroom Okiya Subaru is occupying is decidedly not helping the developing headache and nausea. Everything is pain. But that's par for the course. He needs to eat something, maybe take a painkiller or two, and then he really needs to get back to his watch over Shiho. He's already wasted too much time.

As usual, Rei has other plans. He shoves Shuichi into bed, throws a blanket over him and orders him to stay. put. Shuichi wants to assure Rei that it's fine, he's fine, and he really has better things to do, but the other agent runs off, quietly talking to someone on the phone. Warmth is seeping into Shuichi's bones under the blanket, and the lack of sleep from the last couple of days is rapidly catching up, now that he's bundled up in bed. See, that's why he would usually avoid it. And should really get out, right about now. But he's a little too worn to get up. Maybe he can entrust matters to Rei, just for a little while.

To his surprise, Rei returns a couple of minutes later, stirring Shuichi out of a light doze. He's carrying a glass of water and plate. It smells of summer.

"I thought I made myself clear last time", he mutters to himself, putting the items on the bedside table.

('I won't pamper you, if you collapse again.' Amidst the drowsiness, a half-buried memory threatens to resurface. He might have been sick, before?)

"Not the same", Shuichi drawls in protest, because he can't let Bourbon get away with everything.

('Nobody's forcing you to be here', his memory says. As if anyone could make Bourbon do something he truly objects to.)

Grimacing at the lack of seating opportunities, Rei sits down on the bed next to him.

"Alright, even an old man like you should be able to eat this." Rei nudges a piece of melon against his lips. Shuichi finds himself dutifully taking a couple of bites, and then a sip of water. Eventually Rei relents, gets up. With a click, the room goes dark. Shuichi thinks he might leave for good, now, but then the matress dips as Rei returns to his side. In the unlit room, Shuichi is keenly aware he's only inches away.

('Rest. I'll take the first watch', the echo of a bygone era says.)

Rei stays by his side until the front door rattles downstairs, and the chatter of the Kudos drifts up. Then he flees into the night.

The sweater he came for lies forgotten in its bag in the basement gym.

Shuichi can't remember the last time he slept this well.

III.

"You wouldn't happen to know why Amuro wanted me to fetch him, and I quote, whichever Sherlock Holmes book has The Empty House case? He could just look it up online."

Shinichi is perched precariously on the ladder in the Kudo library, fishing for the book in question. Shuichi's watching it sway, coiled and ready in case he needs to get up and catch the boy. It's probably fine, but he has thought enough about death these past couple of days. He'd really rather not have another avoidable one on his conscience.

"Not particularly", he says, sipping his coffee. For the most part, The Return of Sherlock Holmes is probably of little importance to Furuya. He likely just wanted Shinichi, or rather, Conan (because he's not sure Furuya has cracked that one yet, and it's not his secret to share) out of his hair for the day.

"It's hard to tell with him, but it seemed like it was important." Conan climbs down the ladder. Another potential disaster averted.

Shuichi shrugs. "I don't know of any important missions he has coming up." None that would benefit from reading Holmes, in any case.

At that, Conan raises an eyebrow. "And the two of you have been getting along rather well recently, right?"

There's no reason to lie to the boy. "He's been around. We're working on it." He has been nagging and yelling and an all-around whirlwind, but Shuichi appreciates the company.

"It's about Scotch, right? Why he's mad at you?" Curiosity clear on his face, Conan settles sideways in the comfortable library armchair, legs dangling over the armrest. Watches Shuichi carefully, who can't help but smile. "Now, wherever did you learn that name?" Conan just shrugs, smirks. "I'd rather not reveal my sources. Although this one would surprise you, I think."

There's a limited number of people it could be, considering Furuya himself would never tell, but Shuichi doesn't push it. "Alright. What do you know about him?"

"He was a NOC. A friend of Bourbon. And yours as well?"

"Is", Shuichi corrects, automatically, because that's the important part. "He's still alive."

He finishes his coffee, sets it down. And because he's wanted to talk about this for a while, he tells Shinichi about Scotch.

.

Scotch was a divine blessing. That's neither sugar-coating nor exaggeration, simply fact.

Looking back, Shuichi is pretty sure the rotten company was a major part of why that first year in the organisation was almost unbearable. Everyone, from the executives down, was bad news, but he was most often exposed to his fellow snipers. Korn was fine, mostly calm and keeping to himself. Calvados was annoying in his continuous idolisation of Vermouth, but mostly harmless. Chianti, well, Chianti was the worst.

Shuichi's still not sure how a sniper gets away with being that obnoxious without raising attention to their position ahead of time, screwing over every single operation they're part of. Somehow, she manages - that somehow usually involves killing any unlucky witnesses. That wasn't all, though.

Shuichi is keenly familiar with the thrill of the hunt. He understands the excitement and the pride, even if Chianti is, at best, a middling sniper. But he's always followed a set of principles, and the way Chianti liked to play with her targets, relishing in the pain she caused before finally killing her prey in an absolute disregard of the value of life left him violated at his core. If he wasn't really careful, this could be his future.

And because that wasn't bad enough, Chianti would bring up her accomplishments for the rest of the day, dragging the other snipers into a pissing contest about who had caused the most damage. Shuichi was glad Rye's persona was cold and detached and rarely talked. He wasn't sure he could've kept his cover, otherwise.

So he did what he did best: establish himself as a lone operator. He was clearly superior in skill, didn't even need a spotter. Told whoever was assigned on a mission with him to go take an extended break while he dealt with things. The less time he spent with those lunatics, the better.

Enter stage right: Scotch.

"Scotch made his codename as a sniper. Because he was new in the organisation as well, they assigned him to be my partner."

Shuichi had figured he would hate him, and then he didn't.

Scotch was a breath of fresh air. Cool and composed, very capable. No-nonsense, and most important for Rye's sanity: he wasn't going out of his way to be cruel. Working with Scotch was almost like working a normal job. Sure, they made their business killing people, but finally, here Scotch was, treating it with the appropriate gravitas. What started as smalltalk during stakeouts turned into shared smoke breaks, and, after a while, Scotch insisted they unwind together after missions. They'd grab drinks and junk food, and talk about literally anything but their job. Music, often. Sometimes sports. Life and love, rarely. Off-mission, Scotch was personable when he wanted, even cracking jokes sometimes. Rye couldn't laugh, but Shuichi always felt a little less dead inside.

His risk assessment told him Scotch was dangerous. His was the kind of discipline one could only get from good training. The kind that taught him to take the job seriously, but socialize after a mission, in order to avoid letting the job consume his mind. Shuichi had heard it during academy training, and, seeing the difference in action, thought that just maybe he should've tried sooner. Not that there had been anyone he would've liked to share a drink with, before Scotch. He'd liked to stay in and hide, with Akemi.

That very professionalism really was the downside of working so closely with Scotch. He was the kind of guy who didn't make mistakes. If Rye slipped up Scotch would, indubitably, follow orders and put a bullet through his brain stem without asking further questions. Though maybe, there was a small window of opportunity to sway him, if things came down to it. Scotch, after all, claimed he was mostly in it for the money. (Akai rather hoped the FBI would be willing to reimburse a large sum of money in exchange for an agent's life). With that partnership stable, things were looking up for Rye, for once.

Enter stage left: Bourbon.

Bourbon had made his way to the top in the shadows, appearing almost as if out of thin air. A shark-like investigator, Vermouth's shiny new boytoy, or so the gossips said, and Shuichi quickly realized the less they saw each other, the better.

The word count Rye had uttered in company of BO operatives tripled in a single meeting between them. Because from day zero, Bourbon seemed to hate him, and was pretty vocal about it too. Rye, of course, had a reputation to maintain, and Shuichi's never liked to back down from a challenge, so they ended up arguing more often than not.

On the bright side, most operatives left them to their fights, unwilling to be dragged into a territorial dispute between two predators.

With two notable exceptions: Scotch, calm and sociable, supposedly trying to maintain a work environment where his colleagues didn't shoot each other in the back. At the time, Rye had appreciated the back-up from his partner, but in hindsight, he was probably trying to keep Bourbon out of trouble instead.

The other exception was Gin, wo seemed to delight in watching them try to tear each other apart. Which made it significantly less fun, and resulted in a strange sort of understanding between Bourbon and Rye. They turned their considerable vitriol against Gin, instead. Only Scotch's timely interventions got them out of stupid competitions of who could piss Gin off faster without new holes in their bodies.

With time, the continued involvement of Scotch was the thing that kept attracting Shuichi's attention. The pair of them and Bourbon didn't have joint missions often, usually their respective specialities were needed elsewhere, but every once in a blue moon they did come up. When Bourbon needed security, or he lured out a target for them to take care of; when he had to make the final call of whether it was necessary to permanently deal with a security risk, or if they could be persuaded to keep their stupid mouth shut.

A subtle, but interesting change happened when Bourbon and Scotch were in a room together. Or even just on coms. Granted, Shuichi was a trained intelligence agent and had been partnered with Scotch for a while, but the chinks in their armor became glaringly obvious to him in due time. Both Bourbon and Scotch were capable independantly, but if one paid attention when they were working together, one could see the shift of tension outward, the way they effortlessly trusted each other in a way that was dangerous for two BO operatives. How they got even more efficient about solving problems when combined.

They must have been lovers. Dangerous for them, but they kept it low-profile and ultimately it was very much not his business. He only kept it in mind for blackmail purposes.

Then Masumi found them, returning from several weeks of hell in Osaka.

Each of them saw something they weren't supposed to, that day. Masumi, the three of them. Scotch and Bourbon, how much she meant to him. And Shuichi, well, Shuichi saw how gentle Scotch was with this kid that was prime blackmail material. How he didn't press her for information, but instead taught her some chords with a genuine smile. How Bourbon stepped in to try and remind him who he was supposed to be, before Rye came back. But he saw. And that changed things.

Whether because of the chance meeting or their misadventures in Osaka, Bourbon started joining them for drinks. The two of them still didn't like each other, but Scotch proved himself quite capable of stoking the uneasy cameraderie born from their mutual hatred of Gin into something resembling a tentative alliance. They'd look out for each other, just a little, just as long as there was plausible deniability. It showed in small things; giving someone a lift after a mission; fetching antibiotics when one of them was sick; grabbing an extra blanket for winter stakeouts because someone always insisted he was fine, and then froze his ass off.

They were in the organisation together for a year, after that encounter, and neither Bourbon nor Scotch ever uttered a word about Masumi. Hell, even when Scotch's cover was blown and Shuichi rushed to save his partner, Scotch didn't try to bargain with the dirt on the little girl he'd seen that day. Instead he stole Rye's revolver, and tried to kill himself to erase the evidence of his existance. What a beautiful idiot.

"His cover was blown, but I managed to get to him in time. We faked his death, and put him into witness protection."

It was a damn near thing. Over their struggle, they almost missed the lone car approaching the derelict building, the screeching brakes their warning as it came to a stop downstairs. Shuichi had implored Scotch to stop this nonsense. It wasn't his time to die, not yet, not if Akai could help it. He asked for Scotch's trust, and promised that in exchange they'd both walk out alive.

Someone needed to keep a cool head, and seeing as it wasn't gonna be Scotch, it fell to Akai. A good agent always has a back-up plan, so Shuichi had ushered Scotch onto the railing and then up the emergency staircase's roof. There they waited and watched as Bourbon came and went. In an ironic display of his disposition, Bourbon checked all the ways down, but never once bothered looking up.

With the benefit of hindsight, they could've handled it better, if they had just talked. But at the time, with all the adrenaline and no guarantee Bourbon was like them, Shuichi didn't reach out. Scotch kept his mouth shut, too - understandable, Rye could've been lying through his teeth in an attempt to out both him and Bourbon. Theirs was a fragile trust, forged out of hunches and faith, and it was barely enough to get all of them out alive.

After Bourbon left, they smashed Scotch's phone, just to be safe, and faked his death by blowing up a surrogate corpse in a decommissioned building. For lack of time, they used what was supposed to be Shuichi's own exit strategy. Thus, the corpse found charred in the wreckage was slightly off in build and stature. But back then, Gin wasn't as paranoid yet, and it was good enough.

Not for Bourbon though, who hounded Rye with a vengeance. Shuichi avoided him like the plague for two months, at which point he didn't need to worry about him anymore, because his cover was blown sky high and he had other problems.

"It was sloppy work, and Bourbon never quite got over Scotch's supposed death. Before he could confront me, though, my cover was blown, and I left for the US." Shuichi had turned tail and ran, relishing the opportunity to get out and breathe freely again. There's no way he can tell that to the boy. And knowing what it cost, he wouldn't do it again.

.

Shinichi waits for further elaboration, which doesn't come. After some minutes of silence, he pipes back up. "Let me guess. You left him in the dark, even after you came back to Japan."

Shuichi nods. Smart kid, gets it in one. "Even if I had a safe way to contact him - which I didn't - Scotch never told me Furuya was PSB before he went into witness protection. Suspicions alone could've been my death sentence." He's forced to smile. "Well. An earlier one, I suppose."

"He can be pretty intense, can't say that I blame you." The boy shivers, eyes distant. "Coming clean must have been scary, huh?"

Coming clean had mostly been a relief, really. Furuya was too persistant, it was simply taking up too many resources to keep at arm's length someone who, for all intents and purposes, should have been an ally. Fear in general is a rather foreign emotion to Akai, and has never really crossed Shuichi's mind where Furuya is concerned. Not even when they'd pointed their guns at each other that fateful night in this same mansion's entrance hall. There had been anticipation, the electric thrill of meeting an equal, and the tacit hope that their little game of cat and mouse, intruiging as it was, might finally come to an end so they could focus on what really mattered.

"Not really." He shrugs. "It was necessary for us to lay our cards on the table. There were too many misunderstandings and lies between us. You can't build a partnership on a foundation like that."

Conan nods, seemingly lost in his own head. "How did he take it?" he finally asks, quietly.

"Oh, he was absolutely livid." The bruises had still been fun colours several weeks later.

Conan goes a little pale.

"To be clear, while unproductive, his anger is understandable. Thankfully, Scotch and I share the blame, 50/50, so it's really not that bad. Furuya's coming around." And between all that anger, when they'd put Scotch on speaker, and Furuya's eyes had gone wide with surprise and tentative hope at that first 'Hi, Zero', Shuichi had known going through the semi-official channels to try and dig up where Scotch was hiding had been worth it.

Shinichi is lost in thought, for a while. Finally, he seems to have reached a conclusion. With a tired smile that belies his actual age, he asks, just a little hopefully: "It will be alright, then?"

Shuichi's eyes are drawn to the now-empty take-away cup of black coffee that Conan brought with him from Poirot, dedicated to 'that idiot' in Amuro's neat handwriting. He smiles, and ruffles Conan's hair.

"...yeah. Yeah, I think it will."

.

Sweater weather AU masterpost

#akai accidentally giving Conan relationship advice? it's more likely than you think #the first draft had rei feed akai a banana but I couldn't type that with a straight face and rei is already suffering enough.so melon it is #supposedly it's high in potassium and sugars and therefore good to give someone after they faint #akai: and then I talked to him about scotch. also akai: says a whole eight sentences on the matter xD #sweater weather AU #akam #iris writes things #long post #the rich inner life of akai shuichi