More Than Good - Part 1

Rating: R
Fandom: Weiß Kreuz
Characters: Yohji + Aya
Date Completed: 5/28/03
Archive:  Please ask first.

So just let me try and I will be good to you
Just let me try and I will be there for you
I'll show you why you’re so much more than good enough...

'Good Enough'
-Sarah McLachlan

Pain. Pain lived in him, sharp and bright and clawing. He staggered down yet another alley, lost in the darkness and the wet. How long had he been in pain now? Forever? The totality of his existence had been reduced to basic animal reactions; escape, hide, flee. Avoid light and people. Seek out a place to lick his wounds. A place to recover. Somewhere safe.

Instinct had nearly taken him over, his eyes were narrow and savage beneath ragged bangs plastered to his face by endless rain. Fever-heat raged in the arm that refused to move on its own anymore. In the ache of his ribs, his side. Had he really fallen off a building and survived? Three floors ... a low one, after all. But if not for the pile of discarded boxes left in an alley, he would be dead now, he knew. But sodden cardboard and brittle wood could only do so much. He'd landed on his left side. Hard. His arm was broken, maybe ribs too and the point of his hip ached as if it could be cracked as well. Somehow he had managed to keep hold of his katana and he willfully damaged the lacquer saya by leaning on it, bracing himself with the sheathed weapon like a cane whenever he was forced to stagger along without a wall or something else to brace himself against beside him.

Alone. He was alone in the rain-drenched night. Hurt. Badly. He had to find safety.

He took the infrequent solo missions for the money. The pay was better when one worked alone. The jobs were cleaner in their way too, more direct. Go in and kill. No justification. No excuses. No reasons. Simply an obstruction to be eliminated, a human life to be ended on his true master's orders ... not Persia, but Kritiker. He took every one of those missions offered to him. Because he needed the cash. Always. For his sister. The bills piled up faster and faster for every ephemeral treatment the doctors proposed. Each new drug. Each new therapy. Each empty promise. And he let them, desperate for anything that would restore her and bring her sunshine-bright presence back to the world. No, it wasn't really for the money. He took these missions for his guilt.

Working alone was a relief in a way, even without backup. There was no questioning of his plans. No annoying chatter in an absent headset of teammates wasting valuable breath and focus on trivialities. No infuriating inquires as to his status. No one to drop an intrusive hand on his shoulder, or to give him a quick scan from jade-green eyes to verify if he was telling the truth or not. As if he couldn't be trusted to let them know he was impaired; the mission might be at risk if he was wounded. He was a professional, after all. Cold, remote, skilled. And, when necessary, part of the team. But without them, was he truly Weiß? Or only something darker? Colder? Something that deserved to die in a back alley like this, alone?

He tripped over an unseen crack in the pavement, boots splashing through a muddy puddle that concealed a deeper hole. He stumbled hard, almost going to his knees. Pain radiated through him, bright and savage. Off balance, he fell against a dumpster with a loud clatter, mind and thought vanishing into the red-bright flash of agony as he clutched at his broken arm. He might have screamed, he couldn't tell anymore, his ears hollow with the feel of his own pulse, his throat raw with the rasp of his own labored breaths. Rain fell over his face like uncaring tears from the sky, cold and pervasive.

He had to find safety... a place he could rest. Panting desperately, he looked up, squinting at the battered signs nearby through the rain-blurred night, unable to make sense of them in his state. But it didn't matter. They wouldn't tell him anything he didn't already know. Safety was still far away. And how could there be such a place for him anyway? He was a flawed being. A sinner. A killer. And alone... always alone... yet...

The ache in his side stabbed deep with every ragged breath, driving all thought away again, scattering it like paper in the wind. How long had he been in pain? Forever. But safety existed. He knew it somehow. Craved it, sought it or he wouldn't still be on his feet. The instinct for survival was fierce, driving him on with the need to reach what he needed before it was too late. The animal within wanted to live. But did he, anymore? Was it worth it? What waited for him but more pain? Trembling, sickened, aching, he felt his way slowly along the debris that littered the alleyway, heedless of filth and clutter, using whatever he could to keep himself upright.

He knew if he went down again, it would be the end. He would die here in the dark. Alone.

The saya scraped loudly against brick as he staggered around another corner, nothing familiar anymore in the dark, wet pain-blur of the night. Another endless tunnel of blackness stretched before him. His lips were moving in a silent word. A name. An inaudible chant to keep him going down the whole length of this next hellish corridor. Then another corner at last. A pause while what was left of his mind tried to locate his position through the ever-growing pain.

Was this a familiar street at last? Something in him cried a warning. He shouldn't be here. He was too conspicuous like this here in this place. It was too dangerous. It would compromise all of them. But the pain drove him on, the animal overruling the remnants of his reason. Safety was close. Close enough to say.

"Yohji..."

He stumbled forward into blackness.

Pacing was getting old. Particularly when one didn't have room enough for more than three strides at a time without getting drenched. Shit. Chain-smoking was getting old too. Yohji Kudoh stood in the alley behind the Koneko under the awning above the back door and pitched the latest smoked-down butt of nearly an entire pack out into the wetness beyond. It hissed out sharply, the sound a brief counterpoint to the droning downpour. He lifted his head and stared up into the low, sodden clouds that shrouded the glow of a Tokyo night in their thick gray embrace. It would be fog if they would just drop the last few hundred yards or so and actually hit the ground, but instead they hovered stubbornly just above the local rooftops, content to disgorge their contents in a continuous, penetrating flood on everything below.

Not a fit night for man or beast to be out, he mused darkly as he leaned back against the wall, arms folded over his chest as he watched the rain fall. Which just figured that Aya would take a solo mission for tonight, the stubborn bastard. Making no concession for the weather. Brushing off his scarcely voiced concern with a cold look and a sharply turned shoulder. No, he certainly didn't need any help. It was a simple assignment. And no, he wouldn't give Yohji any details. That wasn't how a solo assignment worked. Kritiker frowned on agents who couldn't keep their mouths shut about missions. Yohji should know that by now.

The biting scorn in half-lidded violet eyes had sent Yohji out of the other man's room - where he had dare intrude while Aya readied himself for his mission ... and down here hours ago. It was the only place other than the roof or his room where he could smoke as much as he wanted without the others bitching at him. The rooftop walk had no shelter from the rain and he hadn't wanted to be inside any more. Hadn't wanted to be nearby when he left. Fog would have stopped the bastard, he knew. But it was just rain, Aya said. And so, furious and frustrated, Yohji had watched the white Porsche disappear down this very alley into the night a few minutes later, the headlights barely illuminating the road ahead through the downpour. Had even flicked the cigarette he had been currently smoking after it in a petty, disdainful gesture.

Just rain? Yeah, well fuck you too, Aya Fujimiya, he had thought angrily. See if I care if you drown in it...

Even as he'd thought it, he'd known it was a lie. Because he did care, damned fool that he was. When and where and exactly how he'd come to care so much for the other man, he didn't know, but it seemed as if he'd always at least had a heightened awareness of him. Since the second time he saw him, unconscious on the floor of the Koneko. Intrigued by the unusual combination of deep red hair and pale skin, perhaps those superficial features had been what initially prompted him to carry the other man to his bed. But it was the oddly fragile, too-young face filled with despair even in restless unconsciousness that had stirred his long-dormant protectiveness, touched his guilt-sealed heart. Giving birth to an odd need to watch over this near-stranger whom he had last seen spitting defiance and rage and frustration, trapped in the strands of his own wire as Birman made him the offer that none of them had been able to refuse. He'd stayed by his side until he woke that day. He'd been unable to keep himself from watching over him ever since.

Stupid, really. Because Aya didn't need him to watch over him. More, Aya didn't want him to watch over him. At least he managed to remember that most of the time... but tonight...

He closed his eyes, letting out his breath in a long, irritated hiss. He was too restless to go back inside again and listen to Ken watch one of his pointless soccer games on the big screen downstairs. Too uneasy to endure Omi's concerned looks, his soft-voiced comments that Aya knew what he was doing on his own, didn't he, since he'd been doing it for six months before joining them, right? He scrubbed both hands over his face wearily. Why the fuck hadn't he taken that cute secretary he'd met in the club last night up on her offer of a date tonight? Simply because he'd known Aya was going to be out on a mission alone tonight, of course. He cursed out loud this time, but the harsh words did nothing to soothe him.

Where the hell was Aya? The only information they'd been able to get out of him... and it was Omi who got it from him, damn it ... was that he expected to return by 2 AM. It was nearly 5 o'clock now.

He shoved himself away from the wall angrily, glaring at the rain. Intent on going back inside to see if, by some miracle, Aya had called to tell Omi why he was delayed. Maybe the Porsche had a fucking flat or there was some other incredibly mundane reason for him to be nearly three hours late coming home. But inside, he knew that wasn't it. Fear clawed at the back of his throat, making him want to scream. He fought it back grimly.

He lingered a minute longer, staring at the far end of the alley where he had last seen the white Porsche. Willed it to turn the corner again as he watched. But nothing moved in the street beyond. There was no sound of an approaching engine; he could hear nothing but the steady, endless drumming of rain stretching his nerves tighter and tighter. So tight that a sudden clatter in the alley behind him had him jumping. Something shifted against the trash piled back there. A rat maybe, or a feral cat too desperate with hunger to stay out of the drenching rain. He looked over his shoulder, distracted, frowning into the darkness. Saw a shadow moving there. Too big to be a rat... or even a dog.

His heart pounded suddenly in his chest. He sprinted out into the rain, heedless of the fact that he was instantly soaked. A huddled form clad in sodden leather leaned against a broken packing crate behind the shop next door, clutching some kind of stick in one hand. Yohji moved closer, wary of a trick if it turned out to just be some bum or druggie wandering around in a stupor. But as he drew close, the rain-darkened head rose unsteadily, giving him a glimpse of familiar pale skin and glittering eyes. And of the blood trickling from the corner of a gasping mouth.

"Aya! Fuck! Aya!" he called, lunging forward. The other man swayed toward him, almost eagerly, it seemed ... or maybe he just fell ... and Yohji suddenly had his arms full of soaked leather and trembling man. The sheathed katana was still gripped tightly by the hilt in one hand, but it looked as if Aya had been using it as a crutch. He'd never knowingly treat his weapon that way, Yohji knew; dread surged.

"Yohji..." His name was barely more than a whisper, scarcely audible above the pounding rain. He clutched Aya close, arms wrapping around the other man, but his eyes widened in shock when Aya gave a choked scream and suddenly went limp against him. The katana clattered down on the wet pavement beside them, unheeded.

It was only then that he noticed the unnatural way Aya's left arm hung. Broken. Fuck. Yohji gathered the other man as gently as he could into his arms and carried him back to the shop. A sodden red head rolled loosely over his arm, rain beating on the slack face without response; the lean body he held trembled with chill. He kicked at the back door furiously, unable to spare a hand to open it, shouting for Omi. Uncaring of the noise he made. Aya groaned in his arms, lips moving but no words coming out.

"It's okay baby, I've got you. You'll be okay, Aya-love..." Tender words he didn't even know he was saying spilled out of him in an anxious stream before turning angry at the delay. Aya was drawn and haggard and barely breathing. He kicked the door again. "Damn it! Omi! Get the hell down here!"

The door finally yielded and he bulled his way inside past a glowering, disheveled Ken. The glower quickly vanished in favor of shock when the other man recognized the sodden form in Yohji's arms.

"What the hell happened to him?"

"Fuck if I know... wake up Omi... he's hurt bad..." Yohji snarled, moving for the stairs. His only thought was of getting Aya into his room and onto the bed, stripping him of his wet things and warming him up as soon as possible. That arm... hopefully that was the extent of it... but fear was heavy in his gut. A simple broken arm wouldn't make Aya lean on his precious katana like that...

"He's freakin' soaked... did he walk all the way back here or something?" Ken demanded, trailing him up the stairs, annoying and useless.

"Fuck if I know!" Yohji snarled again, then he shouted toward the other apartment door as they reached the first floor. "Omi! Get your ass out of bed, now! And bring the medical kit!"

Omi's door flew open, the boy stumbling half-dressed into the hall in tee-shirt and boxers, rubbing at blinking eyes.

"Yohji-kun! What's going on?"

Yohji ignored his question, stalking toward his own room. He'd managed to juggle Aya further onto his shoulder to free one hand, aware that every motion was causing the redhead pain by the low moans that came from him. Aya coughed weakly against his neck and he felt something hot and moist come with it. A shudder of apprehension swept through him. No. Not more blood. Please not more blood, he pleaded frantically inside.

His room was warm, at least, and well-lit. He'd stormed out without shutting off the lights earlier when he came in for his cigarettes. Now he was grateful for the lapse. It let him pick his way across the messy floor without stumbling, aware, dimly of Ken following him in.

"Shit, don't put him on the bed yet! Get that damn coat off him," Ken said, reaching toward him as if to take Aya out of his arms. Yohji surprised them both by snarling at him, throat too tight for words, his expression savage. Ken took a hurried step back, raising his hands palms out to placate him.

"Okay, maybe not... shit... what's with you?" Yohji glanced down toward the huddled form in his arms, feeling the strain in his arms and back from carrying another fully grown man hit him at last. Sheer adrenaline and fear had gotten him this far, but he knew he couldn't hold Aya like this forever.

"Just... unbuckle the coat. I've got him," Yohji managed through the tightness in his throat. Ken stepped warily closer to comply. He had just undone the first of the buckles on the maroon leather trenchcoat when Omi came sliding into the room, the bulky satchel that they used for their medical supplies slung over his shoulder. He was panting and wide-eyed and anxious.

"Where's he hit? There's blood on the stairs..." Omi said urgently.

"Don't know yet... left arm's broken at least... I saw that outside," Yohji said, inching his burden toward the bed even as Ken finally managed to get the last of the buckles free. Together they somehow rolled Aya out of the coat and lowered him onto Yohji's wide bed, both of them hissing in alarm when they saw the state of his left arm beneath the coat. The skin was badly torn on his forearm, and what had to be the white end of bone was poking through. It looked like there was blood on his side as well beneath his tight black shirt, and there was that worrying trail of blood from his mouth too. Broken ribs and a pierced lung, maybe; Aya's breathing was rough. Yohji and Ken fixed each other with distressed stares. This wasn't something they could treat here. They'd have to get Aya to a hospital.

"Open fracture," Ken said grimly, taking a step back, dragging the waterlogged leather coat with him. Yohji had braced himself over Aya's body, staring down at his arm and side. Omi moved up beside the bed, dropping to his knees beside it, a hand rising to roll back one of Aya's eyelids.

"Maybe a concussion too," Omi added, darting Yohji a worried look. "What happened?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me?" Yohji snapped furiously, wishing just as furiously that he did know. "I was smoking out back and he came stumbling up using his katana as a cane... damn! It's still out there... in the alley..."

"I'll get it," Ken said, spinning away only to come to an abrupt stop in the doorway, glancing back over his shoulder at them with a frown. "Wait! Where's his car?"

"Hell if I know... I said he walked up," Yohji said, glaring at the other man for the apparent triviality, mind focused on the man in his bed.

"Then how are we getting him to the hospital?"

Yohji cursed vilely and ran one hand through his wet hair. The Super Seven was too small to get a man as badly injured as this inside it ... plus the canvas top had been torn by vandals and was still out for repairs. Fucking custom workers took their time. There was no way he was subjecting Aya to more rain and wet tonight.

"Magic Bus doesn't have an ambulance," Omi stated the obvious. Kritiker expected their agents to get their own asses in for any emergency medical care needed. To do otherwise would attract far too much attention. He met Omi's worried gaze briefly, then Ken's.

"Then call a regular fucking ambulance!" Yohji spat.

"What do we tell them?" Omi said. Ken had turned back, frowning in concern. This affected them all. If Aya's injuries attracted too much attention to them... to Weiß...

Yohji glared at them both, then shifted his gaze down to Aya, unaware how it softened when he did so. He stared at the blood on Aya's chin, noted the pained, shallow way he was breathing. They had no choice.

"Tell them he fell down the stairs or something... I don't care! Just get them here!"

Ken nodded and took off. Decision made, Yohji looked the redhead over for anything incriminating. With the coat gone, only the high boots with the knives concealed in the inseams might be a giveaway. But before he could move down to take them off, Aya began to choke and gasp for air. Omi was already up, grabbing his shoulders and lifting him, to clear his airway and take pressure off his chest. It helped some, but Aya was still struggling to breathe freely. Yohji climbed behind him, bracing him upright with his own body, wrapping the lean form carefully in his arms, painfully aware of each labored breath Aya took, of the blood now beginning to foam on pale lips.

"Rib in the lung," Yohji muttered, trading worried looks with Omi. "Tell them to fucking hurry!"

Omi scampered out on Ken's heels to add urgency to the call, leaving Yohji alone in his room with a gasping Aya clutched in his arms.

And he wondered sickly if they would be fast enough...

The waiting room for the hospital emergency room was a stark, cheerless place, even once morning had come. It probably had something to do with the heavy curtains of rain that still fell outside, making morning seem more like twilight. Or maybe it was just the miasma of old despair that seemed to linger in the walls despite the fresh paint and brightly colored flowers that graced the nurse's desk. Flowers had no ability to cheer any of them any longer.

Yohji stood by the windows, hands shoved into the tight front pockets of his low-slung jeans and glared outside, wishing desperately for a cigarette. His cool façade had worn off hours ago. Behind him, Ken had fallen asleep with his head back on one of the uncomfortable chairs and was snoring faintly, while Omi was tapping away at his laptop, only occasionally throwing Yohji anxious, unhappy looks.

He'd snapped at the kid one too many times, it seemed, while they waited.

It was not the Magic Bus hospital. They hadn't been able to talk the paramedics into diverting to Kritiker's pet hospital, the territorial bastards. However, Omi had already made the necessary call to inform their masters. Manx had promised to take care of any intrusive questions and paperwork for them right away and, as soon as he was able, Aya would be transferred to the Magic Bus. But for now they could only wait.

He'd been rushed straight into surgery on arrival. His left lung, partially collapsed already by the two broken ribs that had pierced it, had collapsed further in the ambulance.

The paramedics had set his arm on the way, but the lung was the most worrisome injury. As well as the fever that now raged in the redhead's body. Too long injured, too long out in the drenching rain with wounds untreated, walking who knew how far across Tokyo to reach the Koneko...

The phone rang on the nurse's desk. She picked it up, listening intently for a moment before answering quietly, her suddenly anxious gaze flickering over the three young men in the waiting room. Two of them, at least, were staring anxiously back at her. She covered the receiver with her hand and called out, "Excuse me, but is one of you named Yohji?"

Yohji spun all the way around, frowning. "I'm Yohji," he answered, even as Omi nodded toward him. Ken jerked awake, jumping to his feet and scanning the room swiftly, placing them all in that single glance, hands fisted tightly at his sides. Omi spoke softly to him and patted his arm in an attempt to calm him ... only the three of them truly understood what that reaction meant.

The nurse spoke into the phone again then hung it up as she surged to her feet. "Come with me, please," she said urgently. "They need you in the recovery room, sir. There is some... difficulty with the patient..."

"What's the matter? Is he okay?" Yohji demanded, stomach sinking. The nurse just shook her head.

"If you’re Yohji, they need your help now," was all she said.

"Go, Yohji-kun," Omi said, nodding at him. As if he needed encouragement.

Yohji strode along after the young nurse, blood singing anxiously in his veins. She led him at a brisk trot to an elevator marked 'Staff Only'. The door opened instantly when she pushed the call button and they stepped inside. She pushed the button for one floor down and glanced at him, biting at her lower lip in some concern.

"What's going on?" he demanded. She shook her head at him, flushing. This was clearly an unusual situation for her, taking someone into the recovery room like this.

"I don't know, sir, I'm sorry. They only said to bring you down immediately."

The elevator door opened on noisy chaos. There were clusters of flustered nurses in uniform standing around, talking and pointing down the hall toward another room. He could hear medical alarms going off somewhere. A few of the nurses were treating orderlies who looked a little worse for wear, bandages held to a bloody mouth or supporting an awkwardly held wrist. And Yohji suddenly had a better idea what was going on. He pushed through the people toward what looked to be the heart of the disturbance, a room half-way down the wide hall on the left. A scrubs-wearing doctor ... a grim look on his face as he tapped a filled hypodermic with his fingernail ... was talking urgently with two burly male orderlies outside.

"...don't really want to give him this sedative ... it's too soon after anesthesia... Hey! You can't go in there!" the doctor spluttered as Yohji pushed between them, moving for the room they were guarding.

"I'm Yohji," he snarled over his shoulder, knocking one set of grabbing hands way before fixing them all with a forbidding glare. "You called me... now back off or more of you are going to need first-aid." They subsided, apparently not eager to mix it up with him just yet. The doctor ... maybe the attending anesthesiologist ... just gulped and gestured him on. Appeased, he turned his attention on the tumbled room beyond.

Aya was crouched beside a gurney, right arm braced on the mattress. IV tubes were scattered everywhere and a breathing tube dangling awkwardly from tape near his mouth. Yohji winced at the sight. Had Aya yanked that out himself? The monitoring equipment ... disconnected from a body ... was emitting a steady warning shriek, adding to the tension and the sense of imminent danger. Even naked, disoriented and in pain, Aya had managed to fight off what looked like half a dozen people. Of course these people hadn't wanted to hurt him... but training like his was hard to overcome. Aya frowned at his entrance, gaze tracking on him slowly. His violet eyes were almost black in his bloodless face they were dilated so wide, Yohji saw. He was heavily bandaged on his left side where they'd patched up his lung and tacked his ribs together so they wouldn't pierce it again, while his left arm was still encased in the air-cast the paramedics had put it in. He was white-lipped and pale, as if every breath pained him.

Yohji stepped further into the room, hands spread before him and moving slowly so as not to startle the other man with any sudden moves. He'd gone through enough surgery and recovery himself that he remembered the disjointed sensations, the odd panic that came from coming out of anesthesia. And Aya had done it alone and in a strange place with no memory of how he'd got there. It was no wonder he'd flipped out. The Magic Bus people at least knew what to expect from their agents ... they simply strapped them securely to the bed and ignored any screaming until they had full control of themselves again.

"Aya, damn it, what are you doing?"

"Y-yo-hji," Aya gasped, gaze moving up to his face jerkily. The frown deepened. "Yoh-ji?"

"None other," he said soothingly taking another step toward the crouched man. "We just got you patched up, Aya, don't go breaking yourself up again, okay?"

Aya struggled to stand then, hollow gaze fixed on his face as he clawed at the gurney beside him. It shifted slightly, unbalancing him so that he fell back down again, but he didn't seem to notice, his gaze still locked on Yohji. "Safe?" he said, the word somehow charged. His eyes were wild, glassy. Yohji felt something heavy settle in his chest, his heart stuttering. He forced a reassuring smile to his lips.

"Yeah, babe, you're safe," Yohji said quietly, moving the last few steps to the redhead's side and crouching down beside him. Aya crumpled against him with a shuddering sigh, body gone instantly slack. He held him awkwardly, wary of damaged ribs and broken arm and tangled tubes, but buried his face in heavy red hair for a moment, closing his eyes to better savor the feel of Aya lying so trustingly against him.

"Yohji-san?" he heard from behind him. With a grunt, he turned enough to look over his shoulder at the doorway. The doctor was blinking in at him hesitantly, the hypodermic held non-threateningly in his hand now. An orderly hovered beside him, clearly ready to protect the doctor if necessary. Yohji didn't blame the guys for acting nervous, but Aya was defused for the moment. He noticed the pretty little nurse who had led him down here standing behind the small group and smiled encouragingly at her. She seemed amazed by the ease with which he'd pacified Aya, staring at him in awe. Truthfully, he was a little taken aback by it as well.

"It's okay now. Probably the fewer the better in here, 'tho." The doctor nodded in understanding and turned to have an urgent discussion with the two orderlies. "Hey, can you do something about these machines, sweetheart?" Yohji smiled at the nurse. "Feels like my teeth are going to fall out of my head from the noise."

"Sure," she said, giving him a brave little smile and slipping by the men into the room. They didn't try to stop her. She flipped a few switches and sudden, blessed silence fell on the room. He could hear the pained rasp of Aya's breathing now; felt the excess warmth of his body. The nurse hesitantly came over to help him untangle the IV lines from some of the half-removed monitoring sensors. Then she stood back and watched as he eased Aya up and back on to the slanted gurney. She produced a thin hospital sheet from somewhere and helped him spread it over Aya's trembling body. Yohji smiled his thanks at her until he felt the clutch of Aya's good hand on his arm and looked down. Glassy violet eyes were locked onto him, a frown drawing down the dark brows.

"Stay," Aya breathed. Yohji caught Aya's hand, holding it just a breathless heartbeat too long before setting it down atop Aya's immobile left hand where it already lay on his sheet-covered stomach.

"I'm not going anywhere," Yohji answered softly, voice thick. Drugs were making Aya say it like that, he quickly reminded himself. Drugs and the knowledge that he was in an exposed location. But the request still tore at him. "You can relax. You're safe."

Aya's eyes fluttered closed after a moment and his head rolled to the side. He seemed to fall asleep for a while then or at least he let himself succumb to the dregs of the anesthetic.

Yohji heard footsteps behind him. Not the nurse's. "He woke up fighting," a man said quietly. Yohji glanced back, tacitly acknowledging the doctor. The man frowned. "We tried to restrain him, but it only made him more violent. He broke one orderly's nose, sprained the other's wrist. After he pulled out the airway he started calling your name..." The doctor gave him a sharp, speculative look. "You guys some kind of soliders?"

"Why do you say that?" Yohji asked cautiously, his fisted hand resting on the bed near Aya's arm. Not quite touching him. Aya's request had rattled him. Not that he hadn't planned on staying by the redhead's side anyway... but to have Aya ask...

"Civilians don't get collections of scars like that," the doctor said, nodding his head down at Aya's pale body hidden by the sheet. "He's young... twenty, twenty-two maybe. He'd have to have seen a lot of action to get all of those."

"He was with U.N. Peacekeeping Forces," Yohji said quietly, thinking fast and going with the doctor's military speculation. What the hell was that place called again? "In Kosovo."

The doctor raised a brow, made a low sound of dismay as he glanced down at Aya again. "Really? I hadn't heard it was that dangerous there."

"Civil war and ethnic unrest ... not pretty. Hey, do you think he did himself any damage when he got up?" Yohji asked, glancing down at Aya too, desperately hoping the doctor would drop the subject. He'd have to be sure to remember what he'd let the guy believe, so that later Manx and Omi could build a credible cover for Aya, just in case. But the question worked beautifully, the doctor ... who was the anesthesiologist as he'd thought ... went off into medical-speculation land for a while, but the upshot of it all was that since Aya wasn't coughing up blood again, that he was probably fine... except for the fever. Had he had malaria once or something?

No, but he had been outside in the rain for at least four hours with a hole in his lung. But he couldn't tell the doctor that without raising more questions. So for a silent moment Yohji tried to remember if he'd ever heard Omi mention anything odd about Aya's medical records, but reluctantly had to concede he hadn't. They were all regularly tested by Kritiker for blood-borne and other diseases; not for sexual promiscuity, as Ken like to ride him about, but because Siberian and Abyssinian used the kind of weapons that occasionally got one or more of them drenched in a target's blood. And the people who were their usual targets might not bother with things like safe sex or not sharing needles. Healthy assassins were productive assassins in Kritiker's eyes, Yohji understood. Their latest batch of tests had been clean, Omi had told them just last week, so it seemed as if they'd all somehow managed to avoid anything permanent so far. If Kritiker was bothering to tell them the truth, that was...

"I don't know," Yohji said, shrugging for the doctor's benefit. Which was mostly the truth too. "Is it dangerous?"

"Not if it responds to antibiotics and antipyretics. We should know soon."

"When can he be transferred?" Yohji asked as Aya's eyes fluttered slowly open again, locking on him immediately. He gave him a half-smile that Aya failed utterly to respond to, the violet gaze staying solemn and weary. It was a look he definitely wasn't used to seeing on Aya's face.

"Transferred?" the doctor said incredulously. "He's just come out of surgery. That lung shouldn't be under any more pressure for a day at least..."

"I'll walk..." Aya said, lips held in a grim line, the words wiping away any tender thoughts Yohji might have been mistakenly hoarding about him.

"No you won't you stubborn bastard," Yohji snapped at him in a low tone, furious and annoyed, gaze all but spitting fire. The nurse on the other side of the bed gasped in alarm. He glanced at her briefly, unable to spare her any kind of reassuring smile as he jerked his attention back to Aya. "I'll have them tie you to this bed if you get stupid like that again."

Aya glared back at him. The doctor was spluttering beside them, spouting more medical jargon and looking anxious again, so Yohji braced one hand on the raised gurney behind Aya's far shoulder and leaned down close over him.

"Four hours and you're in Magic Bus," he growled into Aya's face, too low for the doctor and nurse to hear. The violet eyes blinked at him once, surprised, then matched his narrow glare. "Try to get up before then, and I'll take great pleasure in tying you to this bed."

Aya didn't flinch from the threat but he saw reluctant acceptance slowly dawn in his eyes.

"You stay."

"You bet," Yohji shot back, pleased that he'd won.

"No smoking," Aya added with the slightest of smug curls to his mouth. Yohji cursed then, shoving back from Aya and glaring down at him furiously where he lay, pale and weary against the mattress. But more than recovered enough, in Yohji's opinion, if he was up to being his usual, pitiless self. Because honestly, until Aya deliberately brought it up, he'd forgotten all about his craving. But the mention brought it raging back, making his fingers immediately twitch with the urge to light up.

"Sadistic bastard," Yohji snapped, folding his arms over his chest sullenly, while Aya just let his eyes fall closed again, still looking vaguely satisfied.

Yohji looked at his still face and suddenly forgot all about his nicotine craving again in the face of another, far stronger drug. Hope.

The tearing pain had faded until it became a far more manageable ache, localized in his chest and side and his left arm. He'd found safety in green eyes again. He could rest at last. The reassuring rumble of the other man's voice in the background kept him calm, kept most of the disorientation and desperation the slowly returning pain prompted away as the last of the anesthesia faded.

He was safe. Yohji had promised to stay.

He dimly remembered the first waking. Dimly remembered wild panic and the feel of something in his throat preventing him from calling for the safety he craved. He had fought with the strength of his desperation, his fear despite the appalling weakness of his body. Feeling flesh yield to his blows regardless, sensing the unknown others only as they fell away. He had clawed at the obstruction until he could summon safety, heedless of the sting. After a time, safety had come, and he had recognized it immediately, slumping into Yohji's arms again, quiet at last.

Yohji had helped him back onto the recovery room gurney and after a bit of reassurance, he had let himself fall back into restless sleep, disturbed by the steadily rising ache. He didn't ask for more medication, but they gave it to him anyway. At some later time, he felt hands on him, moving him, but he didn't fight because a low, familiar voice told him not to ... to just relax and let them take care of him. So he had let them, tensing only when he didn't hear the voice for a while, distress rising. Unaware that he was calling for it. A rough, strong hand in his had stopped all that and he had slipped into dreamless sleep for a longer while.

Waking another time had been slow and hazy, the panic absent as he woke to the sound of the voice he expected. Eventually he had recognized the other voices conversing with it; Omi and Ken, Manx, Dr. Hito of the Magic Bus Hospital. He had wanted to ask about his sister. Had wanted to be taken to see her, but felt too drained to even ask. Felt too drained to even open his eyes.

But he didn't need to. He was safe. A few words popped into clarity.

"Yohji-kun, you need to go home and get some sleep. You've been here all night."

"Not yet." A soft laugh. The hand that held his tightened briefly. "He tries to climb out of bed if I'm not here, you know."

"Then we can ask the doctor to sedate him..."

"No, he's been out too long already." A heavy sigh followed by the sound of hair being ruffled by a clever hand. "I'll be fine, chibi. Thanks for worrying."

It was a thing perhaps imagined, the open concern in that voice that so often teased or challenged or taunted him. But despite those things, he'd always known the green eyes were watching him. Looking for him, always. Placing him in rooms, on missions, in the shop. A constant, subtle awareness that he had somehow come to depend on to confirm his existence. He was not invisible. He was still alive. Not just a dead name carved into cold granite. Not just a placeholder for a girl who lay forever unmoving in a bed eerily like this. Not just the sum of his sins, measured by the hot blood that lapped at his ankles, rising steadily higher with each mission accepted...

He was warm now. Too warm. Cloyingly hot. The sting in his throat, the hitch in his side had become a damp, clogging drag. He struggled for breath, against the pain, against the resistance... blood... drowning in blood...

Things became a blur then, of heat and restlessness and a bone-deep ache that nothing eased. Dim memories remained of hands on him, stroking coolness across his drawn skin. Of needles in his arm. Of the raw taste of bile. Of coughing, the agony in his side like to rip him apart ... feeling strong arms hold him up at those times, a pillow pressed carefully to his side to cushion the strain on his ribs. Of fingers that stroked soothingly through his hair, over and over, when he was still.

"Are you trying to tell me he walks half-way across fucking Tokyo in the pouring rain with his lung skewered by his own ribs and recovers fine, but he gets put in this place ... a freakin' hospital ... and two days later contracts fucking bacterial fucking pneumonia? You have got to be kidding me! He's out of here. No, forget it, Ken! We're taking him home. Or he's as good as fucking dead, you hear me? They put in the damn shunt but he still can't kick this shit here... he's going home. Now. Omi, make it fucking happen."

He didn't know why he remembered that brief tirade so clearly, but his dazed mind held on to it as a kind of talisman against the endless pain and fatigue and darkness. Perhaps it was the raw outrage in a voice meant for languid teasing or husky promises in the night ... even though there had never been any of that for him. The weariness in it. The desperation. Or perhaps it was the genuine fear beneath it all. Fear for him...

He knew he was likely dying then; each breath had become a laborious process, almost like moving water, thick and heavy, through his chest. They had stuck tubes in his nose to make certain he was getting enough oxygen. Had stuck another for a while in his side to drain off excess fluid from inside his lung. He hated it. Hated the weakness, the heat, the lethargy. Hated that without the strong hand in his he felt like he was drowning. But he wouldn't succumb. He wouldn't release that hand. The stubborn strength that had driven him up on that dark, rainy night so long ago to stumble to his sister's side... that had kept him going, seeking, striving for any way to achieve his vengenance... that had driven him, broken and desperate, to cross Tokyo on a similar dark, rainy night to reach the only thing that made him feel safe... that stubborn strength had still not deserted him.

Long fingers, clever and gentle, stroked through his sweat-damp hair again. His eyes opened slowly. Looked into worried green for a moment that might have been eternity. Then he let his heavy lids fall again.

Stubborn. Yes. Stubborn.

But perhaps there was a real reason to keep fighting after all.

Go to Part 2