Escape Velocity

His bags are packed, and the car's waiting out front. There's enough clean cash warming his wallet to last a few months, at least; not to mention cards in various names and a stack of fake IDs.

There's only one thing left for him to pick up before he gets the hell out of dodge.

Please, says Takeshi, and he knows he's basically begging, but this late in the game he doesn't give a fuck how pathetic he sounds. Any minute now they'll realize he's done a runner on them, and all hell will break loose. He doesn't have much time -

Hibari lounges there with his cigarette, the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt bunched around his elbows. He looks Takeshi up and down slowly; sizing him up, taking the measure of the man, or perhaps just his wallet. His lips part, smoke billowing forth. How much, he mouths, as though he can't even be bothered to give voice to the question.

How much? How much. Takeshi doesn't know whether to laugh, or cry, or scream. Everything, he says, holding his face in his hands, everything. Everything I have, everything I am. I need you. Please, just come -

Hibari lets out a sigh, boredom in every line of his body. Stubs his cigarette out on the grimy floor, leaving a little stony pile of ash, then rises and stretches, lazily. Drawing out the moment, despite the fact - or maybe because of it - that he knows Takeshi needs to leave, now.

But he goes with Takeshi; in the end, he goes, and as Takeshi floors it, leaving behind that scummy little building in that scummy little city, he can almost kid himself into thinking that things will be all right.

Ever since he laid eyes on Hibari for the first time, in the back room of that seedy bar in the seediest part of town, he was gone. Done for, every part of him. He fell so damn hard that he never quite managed to put himself back together the same way. He remembers it all so clearly: Hibari standing there, so calm and still, standing there over the rapidly-cooling body of some old pervert, his eyes like two shards of ice. The knife still in his hand, blood dripping from its point.

Then he notices Takeshi, and turns, slowly. Giving off, as always, the impression of a caged animal - forever reaching out through the gaps between the bars, longing to sink his teeth into something alive.

Whoa, says Takeshi, hey. Just put the knife down. I won't turn you in. (A pause.) What's your name?

The dead have no need for names, Hibari says, and goes for him, blade bared. If Takeshi wasn't so fast on the draw, he wouldn't be here to tell the story, but he is, and even Hibari knows that a dinky little knife is no match for a loaded gun.

Now, Takeshi says, and smiles, and doesn't lower the gun a centimeter. Your name?

Hibari, says Hibari.

Nice and careful, Takeshi strolls over, kicks the dropped knife far out of their reach, and then rolls over the corpse with the toe of his shoe to look at its fat bloodied face, twisted in a mask of death. He pushes the gun into Hibari's slim side, bumping the barrel into his hip bone roughly.

So, you sleep with people for money? Hibari?

Until his dying day, he will never, ever forget the look Hibari gives him then. Just the sheer nerve of it, even though Takeshi has a gun cocked and loaded, the barrel jammed up against Hibari's body and his finger twitching on the trigger - the way Hibari looks up through hooded eyes, looks up from under his long eyelashes and smirks; then reaches out, slipping a finger under the knot of Takeshi's tie, loosening it gently, almost playfully -

Oh, says Hibari, and his voice is smooth as honey. Is that how it is?

His eyes are blue, so blue that Takeshi feels himself losing his grip. He could drown in those eyes, he's already drowning, the air sapped from his lungs like a sucker punch to the gut - and something in him snaps. He slams Hibari back against the wall, violently, kisses him breathless, and when Hibari bites at his mouth, claws at the back of his head he forgets all about the gun, the knife, and the fat man's corpse lying just over there. It's their first kiss, then their second, their third, their fourth, each as awful as the last, and the taste of blood on Hibari's teeth sets his nerves ablaze.

Takeshi knows, then, that he'll never want it any other way.

That night, they check into the first of many motels.

Want to go somewhere? Takeshi asks. Sake, says Hibari. I want to drink.

Okay, says Takeshi, okay. Let's go drinking. It hurts trying to sound cheerful. Even Hibari notices, and his lip curls with scorn. It hurts him even more when they get to the bar - and maybe it's just the way Hibari's learned to do things, how he's learned to get by - but when someone buys Hibari a drink and then leers at him, slipping his tattooed arm around Hibari's narrow little waist, Hibari just lets him, he just fucking lets him and he knows Takeshi is watching every second of it, he must know it makes Takeshi's blood boil -

Keep - he rages, sounding inhuman, more beast than man - keep your fucking hands off him! Takeshi comes to, in the alley behind that dingy dive, and he's pounding the living shit out of that guy's face. If you can even still call it that, because now it's more like a hunk of ground meat. His knuckles are bruised, but he doesn't even feel it, he's never wanted to kill someone with his bare hands so much -

Get a hold of yourself, Hibari says, seizing Takeshi by the shoulder with one cold hand. You fool. Where he came from, Takeshi doesn't know. He must have been watching the whole time. Watching, silently, watching Takeshi destroy the man who laid hands on him. The words are like a bucket of ice water dashed over his head. Takeshi drops his fist, stumbles back. The guy groans, wetly; spews a spray of blood, and then collapses back against the brick wall. He won't be getting up in a hurry.

Fine, says Takeshi, and he's trembling, he's shaking all over, blood is dripping from his sore knuckles the way it came off the blade of the knife Hibari used to gut that old fat man like a fish. Let's go.

They don't speak on the way back, but the moment Takeshi gets the door closed Hibari is all over him. Kissing, biting, scratching - like a god damn animal, like he wants to show love but never learned how. Takeshi wouldn't have thought he could get it up after something like that, but his adrenaline's still pumping, the blood is roaring in his ears, and when he bends Hibari over the side of the bed he finds he has no trouble at all. They fuck for hours, until Hibari can barely stand, they fall off the bed and still can't stop; they knock over furniture and it probably sounds like they're beating each other up but they don't even give a shit, and it's half true anyway. The desperate way these two fuck, it's like they're fighting to stay alive. And just when Takeshi thinks he can't do it anymore, Hibari comes with a soft cry, tightening around him, shooting thick ropes of jizz all over his own stomach - and there he is just staring down at the glistening sticky mess on Hibari's belly and the raw carpet burn on Hibari's knees and the green-black bruises blooming on Hibari's pale wrists, and he fucking gets hard again, like a desperate horny teenager with his first porno mag. He doesn't care if this is sick and twisted and wrong, he doesn't care if no one understands, he doesn't care if they're slowly killing each other - all that matters is the way Hibari shudders and comes when Takeshi presses down on his windpipe while he's fucking him, hard enough to bruise, and how Hibari's lips move soundlessly, ceaselessly, so Takeshi can pretend that Hibari is saying his name.

At sunrise, Takeshi wakes, and the bed is cold and empty. And for a moment a wave of panic and nausea sweeps over him - all his money, the cards, everything, it must be all gone, he should have known better, should've would've could've wasn't half good enough when the whore you were fucking obsessed with had just made off with everything you owned -

But then he opens his eyes, and his wallet is still lying there on the bedside table, nice and fat. Hibari is seated by the window, shirtless, the sun rising behind him.

He takes a deep drag on his cigarette, and exhales, and the smoke wreathing his face is tinted with gold.

Morning, says Hibari, gazing out the window, at the lightening sky.

… morning, Takeshi murmurs. He rolls over, buries his face in the stale-smelling motel room pillow, down into the dust and the old stained linen, because after all, real men don't cry.