I wrote a Ban sick-fic a while back, and finally decided I had to do one for Ginji, too. This one's a little more light-hearted, though, so be warned. If you like this one, be sure to check out Sick Day. As always, Ban, Ginji, their friends and their world belong to Yuya Aoki and Rando Ayamine. I'm just borrowing them.

RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS

Ginji Amano winced as he sat up in the confined space of the 360. His head throbbed madly, the veins at his temples and between his eyes like jackhammers that beat just out of sync with one another. His sniffled and the pressure beneath his eyes squeezed a few tears out. His ears and nose and the back of his throat felt as though someone had stuffed them full of cotton. His partner woke beside him with an ugly glare already pasted onto his face, even though it was only seven o'clock in the morning. Ginji shrank back against the passenger-side door.

"Don't tell me you're sick," Ban Mido warned, brilliant blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't you dare."

Ginji sniffled apologetically in response, but the sniffle tickled his throat – which, now that he thought about it, kinda hurt – and he coughed. Ban's eyes flashed, and he brought a fist down firmly on Ginji's aching head.

"Ow, ow, ow, Ban-chan!" Ginji opened his door and stumbled out of it. The park scenery whirled around him for a minute, and he ended up sitting on his bum in the cold, wet grass, staring dazedly up at the rainy morning sky.

"Idiot! We can't afford for you to get sick!" Ban opened his own door and stomped over to Ginji. With a devilishly firm grip, he latched onto Ginji's wrist and hauled him up on his feet. Ginji wobbled a little bit, but managed to sit down on the passenger bucket seat.

"I told you, I told you that you shouldn't be playing in the rain when it was so cold outside. Geez, you're just like a little kid!" Ban kicked a tire, wincing when he hurt his toe, and glowered at Ginji as if his injured digit was his partner's fault. "You got mud all in the Ladybug, and now you're sick. Can't you do anything without screwing it up?"

Ginji smiled and shrugged sheepishly. Ban pursed his lips and crossed his arms, and knit his brows together furiously over closed eyelids. "Idiot," he said once more, but he didn't sound as angry. Letting out a sharp sigh between gritted teeth, he looked his partner over carefully. "Fever, too, huh."

"Dunno," Ginji admitted candidly. "I feel cold."

A sour look twisted Ban's mouth as he settled the back of a comfortably cool hand against Ginji's forehead. "Fever," he said firmly. A wary look came over his face. "You're not, uh, nauseous or anything, are you?"

Ginji shook his head, and flinched as the jackhammers beat at his temples with renewed fervor.

"Aspirin's in the glove compartment. Stay put; Ill be right back." With that, Ginji's hot-tempered friend sauntered away from the 360, across the park, and out of sight.

Ginji fell asleep before he returned.

A nudge at his shoulder woke him. "Oi, Ginji. Take these." Ban proffered a pair of red tablets to him, along with a bottle of juice. Ginji blinked sleep from his eyes and did as he was told, even though swallowing was hard, what with the cottony feeling and his sore throat.

He screwed the lid back to his juice bottle and rolled his head on the headrest to face Ban. "Did you eat breakfast, Ban-chan?"

Ban waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah." That was a lie, but Ginji knew that Ban knew that he knew it was a lie, so there was no point in raising the subject.

"We've still got a little money left. Probably we would be okay to get a hotel room for the night – we've still got that missing manuscript to find, and if I get that done, we should be okay."

Ginji nodded, feeling more than a little guilty. "The man said that he would pay more the faster we returned it, right, Ban-chan?"

"Right. I'll do a little digging, see what I can come up with. Shouldn't be too hard."

"If that book really has all of the information that that person says it does, there's a lot of people with something to lose, Ban-chan," Ginji replied. He closed his eyes against the morning sun, wishing that he had a pair of sunglasses, like Ban's, to close off some of the light. Almost as if Ban had heard his thoughts, Ginji felt Ban's trademark specs slide crookedly onto his face. He smiled, despite the discomfort of the temple that poked the side of his head. He adjusted the sunglasses.

"Thanks. But what if they've already destroyed Takanowa-san's book?"

He felt, rather than saw, his partner shake his head. "If we assume that the person who took it is one of the corrupt businessmen Takanowa-san mentioned in his book, they have to know they've got a goldmine of information there. They'll keep at least one copy of it around, I'm sure."

"Why?" Ginji asked, shivering a little. He snuffled, and a few more tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes.

"Blackmail," Ban answered shortly, his tone grim. "With Takanowa-san's house torched, the only evidence of any of those businesses' involvement with that money-laundering scheme is in his book. It could be that they'll clean up their own messes, wipe away any of the evidence he found on them, but not tell their partners how to do the same. That's a lot of bargaining power in a criminal ring."

"Ban-chan is really smart," Ginji marveled. Then he sneezed loudly. "Sorry."

"Here." Ban handed him a box of tissues, conjured from Ginji-didn't-know-where. "I'll drop you off at the Honky Tonk. Give Natsumi a reason to mother you. Maybe Paul'll even give us a break and feed you." He stretched before tugging his keys free from his pocket and starting the car.

"That would be good," Ginji agreed, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. He tried breathing normally, but the congestion fouled his attempts, and he started breathing through his mouth instead. Then he realized what Ban had said. "Ban-chan, you can't go alone."

"Why not? You're in the way as often as not, anyway, you dumb eel. Maybe I'll actually pull this one off without a hitch if you're not around."

"But, but Ban-chan, if there are protectors –"

"Then I'll deal with them. It'll be fine. You're no good to me sick." Ban cut him off irritably as he swung the car onto the parkway.

"But what if you get in trouble?"

"I'm the great, powerful, and mighty Ban Mido," Ban replied, with only a trace of humor, "and I'm telling you, it'll be fine. Just concentrate on getting better, so we can actually capitalize on this little bit of luck we've had with jobs lately."

"Okay," Ginji conceded dubiously, reluctant to leave the matter as it stood. "You'll call if you need me, though, right, Ban-chan?"

Ban scoffed, but didn't reply.

"Please, Ban-chan?"

"Ah, whatever. Just go back to sleep, Ginji." Satisfied with the answer, Ginji did as he was told.

Ban left a feverish, stuffy Ginji with his father's old partner, confident that if anyone could keep him out of trouble, it would be the little waitresses Paul had hired to help out around the diner. Natsumi openly adored Ginji, and Paul and Rena cared more than they would care to admit, so he wasn't too worried about it.

Though the big dummy had picked a hell of a time to get sick. Ban glared at the knuckles of his right hand. Bad luck had a way of following him around, and, if he were honest with himself, it was probably as much Ginji's decision to pair up with him as it was his foolishness in the rain the day before that was responsible for him getting sick.

Not that he'd ever tell Ginji that.

Ban had a list of names that Takanowa had mentioned in his book. He recognized a few of them as CEOs of some of the biggest, most profitable companies in the area, and a quick internet search at the cybercafé proved that the other names were high ranking officials in those same companies.

A little deeper research revealed that a few of the men Takanowa fingered had already been brought up on charges of embezzlement and other white-collar crimes, but nothing had ever stuck. He briefly toyed with the idea that one of them had been responsible for the theft, but quickly discarded that theory. Men that got off the hook once were likely to be the more cautious players in the game, and besides, the ringleaders, the ones with the most to lose, would probably be the ones smart enough never to have been caught in the first place. Ban bit his lip, a little uncertainly, and crossed out three of the eleven names Takanowa had given him.

That was still a lot of ground to cover. Were the CEOs the most likely to be the men in charge? Or were they just riding the coat-tails of some less conspicuous individual, someone the press and company employees wouldn't keep a close eye on? That's what Ban would do, if he were in their position. It was the smart thing to do. But then again, men got to the top of such corporations because they weren't afraid to take risks, or to play hardball.

Well, that was all speculation, and at any rate, none of these men would have been personally responsible for stealing the manuscript. No, there was a low-man on the totem-pole somewhere, and that would be the best place to begin.

Takanowa had said that, since his home had been burnt down, the police had been unable to find any evidence of the burglar that had entered his house. Ban assumed that the thief and the arsonist were one and the same; Takanowa had stowed the final copy of his manuscript in its fire and waterproof safe moments before retiring, so the theft and the arson had to have taken place within a very limited time frame.

According to him, he had been at home and asleep at the time of the burglary and that the fire had started immediately afterward. Soon after that, firefighters arrived on the scene, and managed to get the fire under control before it got to the second floor, where Takanowa had been sleeping. The police had already concluded from the remains of Takanowa's home that nothing but the safe with the manuscript had been disturbed, and that had disappeared without a trace.

Ban frowned. Takanowa's house had a security system installed, a system which had failed to alert the police to the burglar's entrance. The thief had obviously been successful in bypassing the security system. Could he really have forgotten to deal with the smoke alarms?

Ban's frown deepened, and he got up from his computer. Strolling to the counter, he ordered the cheapest sandwich on the menu and then stepped outside to smoke. Anyone with half a brain would know that the only people who would steal the manuscript (or in this case, hire someone to steal it) were those implicated by it, right? And whoever had taken it knew that Takanowa knew they were guilty, whether or not he had the evidence to support it. He remained a very viable threat to their reputations.

Ginji had said that there were a lot of people with something to lose. He was right; men had killed for a lot less than the sums of money these people were dealing with. Takanowa had to know that, and yet, he had been only too happy to supply the Get Backers with the names of the guilty parties.

So, either he was an idiot, or he knew he was untouchable.

Ban blew out a breath of smoke, watching the passersby on the street. A café server rapped the glass on the window to let him know his sandwich was ready; he pointed to his cigarette and then to the computer he had been using. The young man smiled and put the sandwich next to the computer monitor.

Takanowa wasn't stupid, he was sure. His first impression of the man was that he was cleverer than he apppeared. There was just a certain look intelligent people had, a quickness in the movement of the eye that indicated they were observing everything around them, judging and appraising it all, dismissing the unimportant and filing away the interesting for later rumination. Takanowa had that quality. So he had some reason to believe that the men he had incriminated in his manuscript wouldn't, or couldn't, hurt him.

Or, Ban reasoned, maybe the thief had intended that Takanowa should die in the fire? He had been asleep at the time, and smoke inhalation was all too real a threat. But why leave it to chance like that? Especially after failing to disable the smoke detectors. It wouldn't have been that much more trouble to strangle or suffocate a sleeping man, not for a professional, and these men could afford to hire the very best – and had every reason to do so. Leaving Takanowa alive had been surprisingly unprofessional, and stupidly risky.

Takanowa's manuscript had been top secret; only Takanowa and the publishing company knew anything about it – supposedly. The theft and the fire indicated otherwise. Even the publisher hadn't actually had access to the manuscript, thus far; it hadn't been submitted for editing. With Takanowa poised to blow the whole operation, it wasn't the book that was the real danger. It was Takanowa.

And yet, the manuscript was gone, and Takanowa was not. A dumb mistake, by any reasoning. No one involved in this whole damn thing was that foolish.

Ban ground out the butt of his cigarette and went back inside. He took a couple of big bites of the sandwich, realizing for the first time how hungry he was. Looking at his watch, he was surprised to see that it was well past one o'clock. Idly wondering how Ginji was doing, he felt pretty confident that the Honky Tonk crew would have made sure his partner got something to eat. Even Paul couldn't be so cold-hearted as let Ginji go hungry when he was obviously so miserable.

He felt bad about that. He could have told Ginji to get in out of the rain. It wasn't as though Ginji would have refused him. But he was just like a big kid out there, jumping in puddles and catching worms and tadpoles, and drinking up every bolt of lightning that dared flash in the vicinity of Shinjuku, and he couldn't bring himself to end the fun. It was a childhood that they had both been denied, and he privately enjoyed watching Ginji enjoy himself.

Gah. He was getting sentimental again. Ban gulped down the rest of his sandwich and chased it with some ice water, then got back to work.