A/N: I'd resolved this year to try for monthly updates of this thing, and look, so far so good! This is February's update. Thanks to any of my very patient readers, and I hope you enjoy this bit. Still kind of slow, but it'll pick up soon. I hope.
All disclaimers and warnings continue to apply; please refer to notes before the Prologue. I know, I know, some people have fabulous and totally hilarious disclaimers (one of SephLorraine's, for example, made me howl, and I thought, damn, I need to write disclaimers that good—good fic too, one of my favourites, and hmm, I think I'm babbling) but no, mine's dull. It applies anyway.
Chapter 17: Reclamation
It took less than an hour for Aya to start seriously regretting his decision. Or, more precisely, Omi's orders. Cursing Omi was far easier than cursing himself. Or Ken.
Ken hated hospitals, and Aya knew this, had known this, in fact, for a long time. It was no secret—they each had the little things that freaked them out, and for Ken, hospitals and fire were it. The fact that Ken had been told by white-coated staff that his parents had died and he was going to an orphanage, and the weirdly mottled and too-shiny skin over Ken's side and back after a strange treatment that Kritiker had subjected Ken to after the fire--both had something to do with it, although it was difficult to get Ken to talk about either, and so Aya had little information about any of it. What information he did have made him loathe Kritiker almost as much as he hated Takatori--but he'd chosen a path, and at this point all his alternatives were equally grim.
Driving home, with his Ken slouched still and pale and traumatized beside him, but smiling in wonder, Aya had thought it would be ok. Ken was whole enough, and he was alive, and he was coming home. Had smiled at Aya for that.
Aya could forgive much, could forget much, and could be grateful for a whole very much more as a result.
And initially—for at least the first ten minutes--it hadn't been so bad. Ken seemed cheerful about being home, and while they all knew he was running on adrenaline alone, it had made them lighthearted while they'd unloaded Ken from the car, Omi tumbling down the steps to help. They'd even bantered, some: Yohji teasing Omi under his breath about his paranoia and endless sweeps for bugs as they rested in a corner of a stairwell, Omi's annoyed tones shushing Yohji; Omi directing them all to Ken's room, where he'd been making last-minute preparations (including some hasty cleaning, because Ken, as Omi said with his trademark innocent enthusiasm, apparently liked to adopt dustbunnies along with the rest of his kids); Yohji not so gently breaking it to Aya that the new girl was going to get his room, and that's what he got for living like a monk. Ken had almost smiled at the idea of Aya as a monk, and did smile at Aya's answering growl that Omi had better have arranged for him to have a good chance to clear it out before "that girl" made it all pink and fluffy, and then Ken took a breath to say something, but coughed for a full minute instead, and then they'd stopped talking and concentrated instead on getting Ken up to his room.
But getting Ken upstairs and safely into bed was nothing less than an hour-long ordeal, and even banter fell away by the time they reached the last flight of stairs up to Ken's room. By that time Ken was gasping and clearly disoriented, despite his efforts at stoicism, even though he kept refusing, absolutely and vehemently refusing to let Aya or any of others carry him. Blood spotted the hospital scrubs Ken was wearing, and Aya wondered how many of the stitches had torn already.
"Please Ken," Aya had finally and shamelessly begged, "just up these last stairs."
Yohji had snorted, and opened his mouth to say something, but Omi kicked him in the shins.
But even panting, Ken had simply snarled back at him. "No, I can walk up the fucking stairs by myself," he'd said painfully, sort of half hopping slowly in that direction, one arm around Aya's shoulders, although in reality Aya was by then practically hauling him along by the waist, and Yohji was holding the crutches along with his other arm.
But the fact is, he couldn't. He just hadn't been able to, and in the end, Yohji and Aya played a painful and painstaking game of pretending they both weren't just dragging Ken vertically up the stairs, until a tearful and stressed-out Omi had ordered Aya, in a voice that none of them would disobey, to carry Ken, and Ken to let him.
And then Ken was finally, finally resting more-or-less peacefully in bed, despite the bloodied sheets and the fits of coughing and the oozing on re-wrapped bandages, despite the fact that his eyes were unfocussed and glazed with pain, despite the fact that Aya was close to screaming, snapping at Yohji and Omi when he was forced to address them at all. Yohji and Omi, glaring viciously at Aya and smiling insipidly for a visibly angry Ken, had both stormed off in a huff the second the IV was hooked up and everything was in place.
When they were gone, and everything was silent, Aya suddenly realized he had no idea what came next.
"Aya?" Ken's tentative voice broke the silence.
Aya grunted in response.
"I ... I'd like ... could you help me to the shower?" Ken's voice was not angry—but pleading, with a hint of desperation underlying the words.
No. Aya wanted to snap at him, wanted to yell; settled for shaking his head instead. It was the most restrained he could manage, because speaking was beyond him. He'd just brought Ken home, for fuck's sake, against all reason, it had been so stupid, such a stupid thing to do, because Ken, his Ken, aggressive and strong and active, had just been stitched together and patched together and shot with chemicals and wrapped in bandages, barely held together by grafted skin and thread and cloth and so fragile and he wanted ... just no.
"Please, Aya. It was so … dirty, and I ... I just wanted to come home and have a bath, but I can't ..." A desperate frustration laced the words, and Aya could see how much it cost Ken to have to ask. And it bothered him a lot, bothered him that Ken—who was normally so shy, embarrassed even now at the burn scars covering most of the left side of his body—had to ask. But Aya was exhausted, and had no idea how to assist Ken to take a bath; just then, he wasn't up to trying to figure it out.
But Ken was struggling to sit up, had managed almost to get his feet on the floor, despite the IV that was in his arm and the sheets that had been carefully tucked in to hold him in place ...
Why couldn't Ken just let things go, like anyone else would? Aya saw red. "What do you think you are doing?" he'd shouted. Aya moved suddenly forward, stopping just short of touching Ken as Ken flinched violently back, and both Ken and Aya froze. The IV needle swung free, and blood dripped from Ken's wrist, but neither of them moved. Ken was holding the bed frame in a white-knuckled grip, swaying and struggling to remain upright.
A sudden awkward silence fell over the room.
"I ... I just ... " Ken was struggling again to stand, failing miserably, but growing more and more agitated. Aya, moving over him to hold him in the bed, was at a loss. As weak as he was, Aya didn't even know why Ken hadn't just passed out already. Aya wished he just would—because when he woke up, Aya was somehow sure everything would be fine, and normal. That was what was supposed to happen, not this, not struggling with Ken who was …
Yohji, Aya thought frantically . Yohji and Ken were friends. Yohji would know what to do. Yohji would help. Aya's mind clung to the thought desperately.
"Don't move. I'll return."
And Ken, who had been struggling against Aya only moments ago, froze and clutched at Aya's shirt. "No! Aya, no ... don't ... don't go ... I'm sorry ..." Aya tried not to hear the panic in Ken's voice. He just needed a moment to get away, and he needed Kudoh to get here and deal with this, this Ken that Aya didn't understand. He couldn't. Between the two of them, it had always been Ken who could deal with this emotional stuff, not him. And please, gods, he needed his Ken back. He needed his Ken back. And he would get Ken back. He would.
He clung to the belief to keep from screaming, or crying, or anything. In the meantime--in the meantime, Kudoh could get off his lazy ass and help. Aya practically pushed Ken back into the bed, before barking, "One minute," and then turning on one heel and practically sprinting out of the room. And if Aya noticed the sharp fear in Ken's eyes as Aya left the room, the door closing behind him, he knew Ken could only think he either didn't understand or didn't care. He left anyway.
Moments later, after a good deal of frantic yelling up the stairs, Yohji—albeit, a very pissed off Yohji--was there. Ken, true to his word, hadn't moved a muscle as Aya came back in, pausing in the doorway. Ken was possibly paler than before, although seeing him again even after a moment of being away was a new shock. He tended to forget … because part of him wanted to forget.
Ken barely reacted when Yohji entered the room, and Yohji's eyes narrowed. Something was really off.
"So, what's up, Kenken?"
"Don't call me that." Ken's voice was dull.
"Sure, Kenken, sure." Yohji's tone was light and gently teasing. But Ken didn't respond.
Yohji took a moment to look Ken over where he lay in his bed, noting, with some shock, that even in the few days of absence—had it only been a couple of weeks?--the boy had lost a lot of weight, and all his muscle tone, leaving him with skin and bone and pitifully little else. No wonder Aya had whispered that Ken had been complaining of being cold in the hospital—there was nothing to him now. Sure, Ken hadn't ever had much excess flesh, despite a fairly stunning appetite …
Yohji suddenly and fondly recalled a happier day, when he and Omi had conspired together for a change, with Aya's tacit support, forcefully pre-empting the endless soccer games of a highly outraged but, in the face of both Omi and Yohji, laughingly ineffectual Ken--to watch the annual sumo tournament. Then, in the breaks between matches, and while cheerfully scarfing down Chinese noodles while Ken sulked ostentatiously in the corner, he and Omi began a serious and heated discussion about whether or not Ken could out-eat the legendary Chiyonofuji--much to Ken's further annoyance and Aya's only half-concealed amusement. Omi had readily taken up the defence of Ken's appetite, but Yohji had the training argument on his side, and if he recalled, the argument had been settled by … um, right, Ken, yelling and throwing cushions at both of them and slamming a door somewhere, and Aya, somewhat ruefully going after his lover after thanking the two of them for letting him share the noodles and the enjoyment of the game …
And that was such a change from the Ken before him now. For some reason, even though Yohji had seen Ken in the warehouse and again at the hospital, he'd somehow expected Ken to look, well, more like Ken once they'd got him home and into his own bed. They'd dressed Ken in his old, soft blue cotton pyjamas, because, well, Ken had always liked the ratty things and they'd thought it would make him more comfortable—but the pyjamas that had fit him fine just a couple of weeks ago now pooled loosely over the wasted frame. Ken looked small and weak and godawfully young in the large bed. Like a kid in someone else's clothes.
Like a victim.
Even when Yohji had first met Ken, years ago—even as he'd been shocked by how young his two fellow assassins were—he'd never been small, or vulnerable, or weak. Quite the opposite: Ken had always been loud and strong and hungry and to Yohji's eyes, quite exhaustingly filled with energy and enthusiasm. Despite injury or illness, "victim" was just never a word he could ever associate with Ken. Not their Ken.
But the too pale skin—no longer tanned, hidden from the light for only two weeks—was flushed, and hot, flinching violently away even from Yohji's gentle, non-threatening touch. Yohji sighed. A sponge bath, a lukewarm one, was probably a very wise idea, and if he'd been thinking, Aya would have known that.
"You never came before." Ken's voice was abrupt, and oddly flat.
"Huh?" Yohji was confused. "Ken, I was just here ..."
"It was always Aya, or sometimes Omi, but Omi never said anything. And Aya always came, right before they came ... "
"Ken?"
I'm right here, Ken." Aya's voice interrupted sharply from the doorway, where he still hung back awkwardly.
"Oh." Ken looked up, his eyes cleared, and he flushed bright red. After an awkward moment, he mumbled. "Sorry, Yohji, I guess I just got confused."
Yohji glanced over at Aya, throwing him a concerned and inquiring look. Aya just stared back, impassive, pretending not to acknowledge the look, although Yohji knew Aya was as concerned and confused as he was. But Yohji could also see that Aya was about wrung out as well, and just couldn't deal with analyzing anything with Yohji, not right now. So. They needed to deal with Ken, first. Get him settled, and then. Then there would be time to process, to figure, to sort. Not now.
Yohji spoke into the silence, in his lazy, easy manner, calculated to set others at ease. "So, Aya here tells me you want a shower. I don't think that'll work, sweetheart."
"I'm not one of your women, Yohji!" Ken growled, suddenly upset and angry again. "And I don't see how you'll stop me. I don't need your help." And Ken suddenly started sliding down until his feet touched the ground, once again making as if to stand before the other two could pull themselves together enough to react. Predictably, he merely succeeded in falling heavily back down, Yohji in front of Aya lunging to break Ken's fall.
"What are you doing?" Aya's roar.
"Stop it, you jackass!" Yohji was more to the point.
And Ken, their hotheaded, fearless Ken, actually cowered away. And the suggestion of a sponge-bath didn't help at all.
So Aya had compromised--a word that had never been part of his pre-Ken vocabulary, but a word he was using all too frequently of late--and had taken another few hours, and between the two of them, they'd helped Ken sit on a chair in the shower stall, covered his cast and bandages, and Aya and Yohji had washed Ken's hair, rubbing him down a little with a soft cloth until he was finally more or less clean, albeit pale and shaking even with Yohji basically holding him up. But Ken had been thankful, and very grateful--especially as he knew Aya hadn't wanted to do it. And then Ken had kept apologizing and thanking them until Aya actually wanted to hit him, and so he'd let Yohji soothe Ken and said nothing despite the barely contained anger and reproach in Yohji's eyes.
After they'd gotten Ken settled again, Omi still abandoned downstairs to wait for and distract the new girl, Yohji had thrown himself into a chair beside the bed, while Aya had sat on the bed beside Ken, running gentle fingers through his hair.
"The kids are really safe, right?" Ken's voice was a thread of whisper. Aya cursed mentally. The bath really had been overdoing it.
"Go to sleep, Ken,", commanded Aya, but the harsh words were at odds with the tender gaze and gentle fingers stroking Ken's hair, soothingly over and over.
Yohji answered for him, his voice steady and patient. "Yes, Ken. I already told you we got them out."
But Ken was nothing if not persistent. "And Omi ... I haven't seen Omi. He's ok?"
Aya stopped stroking Ken's hair, wondering if the motion was distracting the younger man, discouraging him from the sleep he so clearly needed. But Ken's head moved restlessly again on the pillow, and his eyes opened again, fixing on Aya and closing only when Aya replaced his hand.
Yohji answered again from his corner. "He's fine, Ken. He's downstairs waiting for someone. He set up your room and your IV, remember? You need to rest now, all right?"
"You know, you know that Ko ... that the target had a partner we didn't know about? You got him too, right?"
"Yes, Ken. Go to sleep now." Aya's voice had a note of finality in it, but Ken didn't mark it, opening his mouth again. Aya wasn't sure why Ken was fighting so hard against sleep, but it was starting to annoy him.
"No. Stop talking, and go to sleep. I mean it, Ken." And to Aya's surprise, where he hadn't obeyed Aya's command, Ken obediently subsided at Yohji's words.
It hadn't taken long after that for Ken to fall asleep, and Aya settled in for a long night.
The night was longer than Aya had anticipated, longer than he'd been prepared for. It was a blessing that Yohji had stayed. After only a half hour, Ken shifted and woke, calling out for Aya before throwing up violently over himself and the bed.
"All we've given him is glucose and morphine," muttered Aya, rubbing Ken's back gently as he vomited violently into the emesis bowl in front of him, the movements jarring the fractured collarbone and ribs. All that was coming up at this point was water and bile, not that Ken had eaten anything to come up in the first place.
"Shhh, Kenken," murmured Yohji from the other side, as Ken bit back a pained gasp, "easy, easy." Yohji turned to Aya, his voice lowered, "Don't we have him on a broad spectrum antibiotic too? He must still have some of those weird drugs in his system, it's probably reacting with something—did you ever get the test results at the hospital? He wasn't throwing up before."
Aya glared at Yohji, mostly because he was there, while bringing a limp and almost insensible Ken carefully back to lean against him. "I know that! And I didn't exactly have a chance to check before I left—you try dealing with bureaucrats on a timeline--and they told me Ken wasn't a lab priority. I'd have killed someone if it would've helped." Yohji knew Aya wasn't even kidding.
"Ken?"
But Ken was unresponsive, trembling and weak, his breathing raspy through his open mouth, and his skin clammy and cold. His eyes were open, but glazed and uncomprehending, and he remained as limp as a rag doll as Aya and Yohji cleaned him up and tucked him back underneath the covers, where he finally closed his eyes and went still.
As Aya rose from the bed, Yohji spoke in a low voice. "He can't take much more of this".
"You think I don't know that?" snarled Aya.
"I'm just saying, we'll have to take him back to the hospital soon if …"
"NO!" Ken's eyes were wide with terror and his voice fraught with panic. He was struggling wildly to sit up.
Aya glared at Yohji before going to Ken, putting one hand on his chest and pushing him gently back down, holding him there despite the weak struggles. "Pay no attention to Kudoh. He likes babbling nonsense. Rest now."
The struggles ceased—although Aya wasn't sure if that wasn't as much due to weakness as anything else--but Ken's gaze, fixed on Aya, was searing. "Don't go". A faint whisper, and a thin hand clutched desperately at Aya's shirt. Aya removed the hand gently, folding it back over Ken's chest, leaving his own hand on top and repeating the order.
"Rest. I'll stay with you."
"Please. No hospital. Promise me." The voice was raspy and the faint whisper was even weaker than before, and Aya cursed mentally. Yohji was right. Ken couldn't take much more of this, but for a ton of reasons, taking him back to the hospital at this point was simply not an option. At least, he didn't think so--but Omi had been … erratic, of late. But despite Omi, and despite all those reasons, if Ken's condition deteriorated … he didn't want to make Ken any promises he couldn't keep.
The door clicked, marking Yohji's exit.
"I'm not going anywhere. Sleep."
It took time, and more non-committal reassurances, before Ken finally agreed to close his eyes, before the tension in the thin frame succumbed to exhaustion and drugs. When Ken was finally asleep, Aya left the room, only to find Yohji waiting outside, smoking like a chimney. His expression remained lazy and relaxed, but Aya knew him as well as he knew Aya—tension and worry underlay the languid façade, and the droopy eyes looked sad and guilty.
Aya cut Yohji off before he could say anything. "I know, he said simply. I know."
Yohji had gone to bed then, while Aya stayed with Ken. As the night stretched on, the vomiting eased but Ken's fever spiked. Ken was delirious, and spent long minutes rambling: at times pleading, at other times overtly demanding that someone stop hurting him, alternatively insulting his assailant and all his ancestors, and then promising good behaviour if he'd only stop, if only they'd just kill him quickly; before moving on to bargaining with them for his teammates' safety and promising that he'd do anything they wanted in return, anything at all, and even offering horrifying suggestions of things he could do if they complied. At other times, Ken would speak to Aya alone: begging Aya to come and get him, screaming for Aya to run away, or babbling a stream of apologies for being caught, for being stupid, for obviously screwing up so badly that Kritiker wanted to get rid of him; for a list of things that were wrong and idiotic and crazy. The long hours had Aya close to breaking. There didn't seem to be anything he could do, anything he could give Ken, or anything he could say, and when Yohji wandered in, a few minutes after four, rumpled and groggy and knocking lightly before entering, Aya was practically sobbing himself, begging Yohji to help.
And this was how he found himself downstairs an hour later, making a cup of tea and bringing up towels, while Yohji took over, gently but firmly forcing Ken to drink some bright yellow sports drink, deciding Aya needed food and Ken to be changed. Aya remembered he'd planned to change Ken hours ago, he really he did, but he just didn't have the energy, didn't have the strength, and shame-facedly, he'd obediently followed Yohji's directions to lift Ken and turn him and undress him at the appropriate times, as they changed bandages and dressed wounds and washed a struggling, shivering Ken down with washcloths soaked in cold water and a touch of alcohol, Aya trying his best to tune out the gasping protests and pathetic pleas for them to stop, please, please, before they settled him back into bed.
"Please," Ken begged. "Please stop. It's too cold. I'll be good ... please …" And Aya paused, looking helplessly to Yohji.
"Shhh, Kenken," Yohji soothed easily, frowning at Aya irritably while motioning him to continue, "I know this is uncomfortable, but you'll feel better soon, I promise."
"No, please, just leave me alone for a little while, and then I won't be any trouble to you, I swear …"
But Yohji was firm--both with Ken and Aya. And before Yohji left, Ken's fever was down, and Ken seemed to be sleeping easily enough. Yohji had re-attached the IV while Aya just sat in the chair beside the bed, spent, before turning around and fixing Aya was a disapproving frown.
"Go to bed, Aya," Yohji had said, still frowning. "You're not doing him any good as you are. I'll sit with him."
"No."
"Aya ..."
"No."
"Aya," said Yohji, gently. "Go to sleep. I won't leave him alone. I promise."
Aya didn't say anything for a minute. The silence stretched, and then Aya's voice, rough with exhaustion, asked, "Do you know what he asked me, when we were alone, at the hospital?"
Yohji shook his head.
"He asked me how come we'd come, after all. Why Kritiker had let us. I was sitting in the hospital, wondering how to tell him how sorry I am that it took us so long to find him—and before I could say anything, he started apologizing about how sorry he was to take us away from all the work we had—it must have been so hard, he said, running after him in the middle of a mission and everything else, especially because he knew that Kritiker had forbidden us to come—Kobayashi had told him, he said, Kobayashi knew all about Manx and Persia and Weiss and even Crashers, for fuck's sake—told him that Kritiker knew exactly where he was, and he wondered why Persia had changed his mind. And then he asked me why we'd taken him back with us anyway, when the protocol clearly was to kill him, and that would've been ok. And I don't know what else he'd been planning to say, because I was so stunned, too stunned to tell him that we didn't have any other missions while he'd been gone and that all we did was search for him because no one told us where he was—but then when he said that all I could do was start yelling that I didn't give a flying fuck about what Kritiker did or did not tell us to do--and then he got even more upset, and told me to be quiet and that I couldn't say that. That I shouldn't say that. Because I had to think of Aya."
It was more or less true, Yohji thought, although he was as horrified as Aya. Aya always had made his priorities and necessary loyalty to Kritiker crystal clear to everyone. Even Ken. Ken had once told Yohji, alone in the shop, that Aya's sister was the most important thing in the world to Aya, and Ken didn't really mind being second to that—how could he mind such a thing? And Yohji could only shake his head at the very very odd nature of his teammates' relationship before he directed his mind back to the girl he was going out with that night--who was still on the other end of his phone and who had been describing, for the last 10 minutes, everything she'd bought earlier that day, and how much it had cost, and what a bargain it had all been. Yohji had absently murmured an almost enthusiastic, "That sounds great!" into the phone, but when he'd looked up again, Ken had gone off to deal with some very adamant and stupid fangirl who'd decided she wanted freesia right now, even though they were completely out of season then.
And another part of Yohji was horrified for an entirely separate reason: How had Kobayashi known of Kritiker, and more to the point, how did Kobayashi have any idea that Kritiker had forbidden Weiss to look for Ken?
He had no response for Aya, nothing to comfort him with, so instead, he capitulated. "Fine. But if I check on you again and you've lost it, I'm replacing you. Ken doesn't need this from you right now."
And after Yohji left, Aya had sat there, staring blankly at Ken, who was finally, finally sleeping quietly, although his features were still tense with pain. And Aya finally gave up. He climbed into bed with Ken, mindful of broken bones and lacerations, adjusting the younger man gently, carefully against him. And Ken sighed, and leaned into him a little, and Aya didn't think he was flattering himself that Ken's features relaxed, just a fraction.
And despite the awkward, uncomfortable position he was lying in, Aya slept.
End of Chapter 17. Thanks, as always, for reading. Reviews are always treasured. (and yes, real plot is coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow … but eventually).