Yohji approached the flower shop with as much stealth as he could muster. Sitting in his car at the end of the road, Crawford watched the younger man just disappear. Occasionally a flick of shadow would dart around a streetlight or a flap of coat would catch the faint moonlight. Crawford watched him intently, but he lost him in the deepening gloom. By the time he found him again he was strolling down the road, no longer making an effort. Crawford scowled at the cocksure young man. Even though he couldn’t have seen the American, Yohji stuck his tongue out at the car whimsically.
Yohji climbed back into the warm car with his hat cocked and hair slightly mussed. Crawford smiled and rolled his eyes. As Yohji twisted in the seat to face him he reached out with one hand to just pluck at Crawford’s coat, even though he already had the older man’s attention. It was a contemplative action, like playing with his hat. His lips were still damp from when he’d stuck his tongue out.
“I take it they’re gone?” Crawford asked softly.
“Best to come back tomorrow and ask around. The fans probably know more than we do right now,” Yohji said.
“It’s strange to think of florists with fans,” Crawford smiled.
“You’ve seen those guys,” Yohji pointed out. He snorted a short laugh. “While I was there one of those fangirls told me I ought to be working there, with my looks.” He tipped his hat and tilted his chin, pouting like a model and posing awkwardly in the confined space of the car.
“You look better when you smile,” Crawford told him. “Otherwise, I think I might have to agree with those prepubescent adolescents.”
Yohji turned to stare at him.
Crawford settled his hands on the wheel with a self-satisfied smirk
and made a point of not looking at Yohji as he pulled away and out
into the
“You think I’m pretty,” Yohji crowed eventually, once he’d recovered his equilibrium, upset not only by Crawford’s comment but also the movement of the car, which had sent him falling off the seat with a distinct lack of grace, all elbows and knees.
“Yes,” Crawford replied shortly, earning himself even more stunned looks. He glanced across at his passenger as he drove, and found Yohji studying his reflection intently in his window, tugging on loose strands of hair. “You know perfectly well that you are,” Crawford added. A second glance informed him that the smile had faded, and Yohji was leaning with his forehead against the glass.
His moods, Crawford reflected, were almost as volatile as Schuldig’s. He’d have to learn what buttons to press, and what lines not to cross. Of course, giving up alcohol probably wasn’t helping the mood swings. Withdrawal. Probably.
He pulled up in front of the motel they’d visited previously. Crawford glanced at the melancholy Yohji, the pretty Yohji, and smiled at his own plan. Weiss had cleared out. Hirofumi would kill Yohji anyway, and Crawford had come to the conclusion that he’d probably be killed as well, if not by Hirofumi then by someone else in the not to distant future. Hazard of the trade, and a trade Crawford had never dreamt of taking up.
“Can you get my-” think fast “-gun out of the trunk, Yohji? I’ll go and get the rooms.”
“Gun?” Yohji frowned.
“I’d rather not leave it out here,” Crawford said firmly. Of course, the gun Yohji was thinking of was tucked into its holster, as usual, but he did have another, thankfully. It was the only thing in the damn trunk, and Crawford couldn’t think of any other stalling method.
He moved quickly anyway.
“When my friend comes in, tell him you only have double rooms. Not even any twins,” Crawford commanded.
Yohji slunk into the lobby, shoulders hunched to hide the strange way his coat swung with the Magnum weighing down the left pocket and no bottle counterweight. His hat was pulled down over his ears again. That miserable look was back.
Yohji frowned at Crawford standing by the counter. That man ran hot and cold and then wondered why Yohji distanced himself? Everything was happening too fast. He’d said so that morning. If it was sex he wanted, they’d have had it by now. If he really held him in that kind of contempt he’d have abandoned him at the Koneko the other night. If he liked him, well, that would just be a bit weird. Crawford wasn’t the type to just ‘like’ someone.
So Yohji was confused, and if working out Crawford’s feelings weren’t enough, his own had decided to stage a revolt as well. Lust and resentment and hurt and respect and something stirred that he’d thought he’d never feel and again and had hoped he wouldn’t either. Feeling vulnerable, he hunched his shoulders tighter and sidled up to the desk, wishing for a bottle of anything to give him the strength to deal with this.
“Two singles,” Crawford
told
Crawford looked like he wanted to argue, but bit it back with a grunt of frustration. Yohji wondered if he’d ever shot someone for not giving him what he wanted. Probably.
“Fine, twin,” Crawford snarled.
“Nope. All those are gone. It’s double or nothing,” he said with a broad smile.
Yohji’s eyes widened. He ducked his head before Crawford noticed, and pulled up his collar to hide the battle he was having with his mouth muscles.
“That’s not good enough,” Crawford said bluntly.
“Double or Nothing,”
Crawford looked at Yohji in what the Japanese man now knew to be feigned exasperation. “I don’t have enough on me for two doubles,” he said.
“I’ve never shrunk from sharing,” Yohji managed.
With a very heavy sigh Crawford slapped another fistful of bills on the counter. “We’re never coming here again,” he declared, snatching the key from dirty fingers and hastily beating a retreat towards the stairs.
As Yohji followed the
American, occasionally offering directions, he wondered whether to
tell Crawford that he knew perfectly well what he’d asked
Yohji stared at the Armani covered rear and came to a decision.
“I know what you did,” he said as Crawford unlocked their room. “I’ve done it myself plenty of times.”
“What are you on about?” Crawford asked distractedly.
“’Double or Nothing’. It’s the code,” Yohji explained patiently. “And I’m flattered, I think, but...”
“Always ‘but’,” Crawford sighed, turning to look at him. “Are you really flattered, or just disturbed?”
“Flattered,” Yohji said sincerely. “I’m just dealing with rather too much right now to even consider adding this.”
“Tell me what you’re dealing with,” Crawford said suddenly, sitting on the bed and pulling his shoes off. “You at least owe me that much.”
“I owe you nothing,” Yohji said stiffly. “You did this off your own bat.”
“You owe me as a friend,” Crawford said firmly.
“And what does ‘friend’ mean to you?” Yohji asked. “If Hirofumi your friend? Are your colleagues your friends? Have you ever been out for a casual drink with someone, or chatted about sports, or women, or what’s on television, or, or...”
“Not for a while,” Crawford said softly, “but I think it’s fair to say it’s been a long time since you’ve ever had a friend like that either.”
Yohji sagged, and stumbled over to the bed. “I want a drink,” he said.
Brad reached out and ran a hand over wavy hair. The hat had tumbled off somewhere on the floor and Yohji shed the coat as he crawled properly on to the bed. Brad shifted to accommodate him. He let himself fall back and stare at the ceiling.
“I can’t have a drink,” Yohji said, and for a moment Brad thought he was talking to himself, “but I do want a friend.”
“So tell me why you’ve been on the brink of collapse since the day I met you,” Crawford said, moving back to sit next to Yohji’s head. Yohji tugged on the back of his jacket and he lay down.
“Asuka,” Yohji said easily. “And everything else that was destroyed when she left me. My confidence. My dreams. My life, really, in any coherent form. Lost my apartment, my income, my contacts and my friends. She was my best friend, but the way I fell apart meant no one else wanted to know me afterwards anyway.”
“Is that it?” Crawford frowned. “Everyone goes through a tough break up at some point.”
“Most people don’t have their lives turned upside down by assassins and politicians and long lost florists,” Yohji pointed out. “I was fine until you arrived. Now I’m having to get my head around whole new aspects to my sexuality, which I’d been quite happy ignoring, thank you very much. I’m quitting on my childhood dream because you made me see that only an idealistic idiot would cling to child’s play that long. As you point out, everyone goes through a bad break up at some point, and a lot of people don’t have any family, and few friends, and have to quit drinking, and go through identity crises, and.” He stopped. He didn’t trail off, and he didn’t halt abruptly. He just stopped as though he hadn’t; it was just Brad couldn’t hear the rest. “You made me realise that I have to grow up,” he said eventually, beginning with that same disjointed continuity.
“You are a deeply odd man,” Brad said.
Yohji turned his head to look at him. “And that coming from the international gay psychic assassin.” He grinned lopsidedly.
“Feel better for ranting?” Brad asked mildly.
No, Yohji though. “Yeah, sure,” Yohji said.
“We should listen to what we got, if anything,” Brad said uncertainly, sitting up and shifting towards the edge of the bed. Yohji had his eyes closed.
“Yeah,” Yohji grunted when he realised Brad wanted a response.
“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Brad frowned.
“I generally do that after sex,” Yohji said. Brad glanced back at him, and smirked when he saw that Yohji’s eyes were still shut.
He climbed off the edge of the bed and stumbled to the cabinet set against the wall. After a moments search he uncovered a cheap television and an old stereo with a broken CD player. A stack of unlabelled videos wobbled dangerously, but Brad steadied them without apparently noticing they were there at all. Yohji watched and thought about phone numbers and pretending to be drunk.
There was a click, a whirr, a slow buzz and then Yohji spotted a flaw in their plan.
“There’s twenty four hours on there,” he said. “If it’s twenty four hours of silence that’s all we’re going to be listening to.”
“It’s got a sensor in the bug,” Brad said. “It only starts recording when there’s sound. We might miss the beginnings of a few words, but we shouldn’t miss the end of anything. Thirty second delay after the last sound.”
“It’d be really irritating if there was a tap dripping,” Yohji observed.
Muffled sounds could be heard on the tape. Feet on stairs. Muted shouting. Solemn footsteps. Then hurried sounds, people running around, someone making a phone call, and a door opening. Suddenly it all got a lot louder, and voices were distinguishable.
Male voice 1: You don’t suppose there’s a chance he didn’t get in?
Male voice 2: We can’t risk it.
Male voice 1: I wasn’t going to, O-
Male voice 2: No names! If he’s been down here he’s probably bugged it.
Male voice 1: I knew I didn’t like that guy, the minute he came into the shop.
Male voice 2: That was jealousy, K- uh.
Male voice 1: We should probably leave this to the experts, huh?
Male voice 2: I guess so, or at least until we’ve had some sleep. I’m just not with it right now. It was all so surreal back in the shop.
Male voice 1: I’m going to miss this place, you know. No choice about telling Kritiker, I guess.
Male voice 2: We’ve been compromised. It’s too dangerous to stay. No chance to even say goodbye, probably.
Male voice 1: You sound so sad. Come here.
Male Voice 2: I’ve been here so long. It’s home. The shop, my room, your room...
Male voice 1: Hint taken.
The voices faded into footsteps and a closing door. Brad paused the tape.
“I didn’t really spot anything of use there,” Yohji said. “I suppose we’ve got confirmation that they’re definitely working for Kritiker.”
“You know their voices better than I do. Any guesses on who those two were?” Brad asked.
“The kid we want, called Omi by the others, and I’m guessing the other was that brunette who kept evilling me while I was buying flowers. They’re definitely attached.”
Brad glanced over sharply. “That was wistful,” he accused.
“I can be wistful,” Yohji shot back. “I can be regretful, too, and jealous. See me do jealous,” he pulled a face. Brad laughed. Back on went the tape, for another exchange.
Male voice 3: Hn.
Omi: Abyssinian, you take the settee and the centre of the room, Siberian, over at the back. I’ll do around the stairs and the computer terminal. I’d be honestly surprised if there wasn’t a bug here.
Male voice 2: I guess we keep talking to a minimum, huh?
Omi: Yes, Siberian. Anything we have to say we’ll write down.
Siberian: What about the camera?
Omi: I’ve checked it, nothing on the tape, but it was definitely disabled for some period of time. The shot switches abruptly from the stairs to the opposite side of the room.
Abyssinian: They could have hooked into the feed.
Omi: I checked that too. It’s disconnected at the moment anyway. Come on, let’s see if we can get this done before Manx has to bring in the scanning equipment.
This was followed by sounds of movement: furniture moved, footsteps, occasional grunts. Crawford sighed.
“I hope they didn’t look for too long. We could end up spending the next two hours listening to them perspire.”
“Joy,” Yohji agreed.
“Do you know what the codenames are based on?” Crawford asked, seeking to amuse himself.
Yohji shrugged. “Places? I
know where
“Cat breeds,” Crawford said smugly. “They’ve been named after cat breeds.”
Yohji shrugged. “I can think of worse. I always liked cats.” Crawford looked a bit deflated. “What are your codenames?” Yohji asked.
“They’re related to our talents, for the most part,” Crawford said.
The tape continued to issue sounds of futile work. “Let me guess,” Yohji grinned. Crawford motioned his consent. “Seer.” Shaken head. “Oracle.” Reluctant nod. “That was a boring game.” Firmer nod.
“I hope we get some sleep tonight,” Crawford sighed. “Honestly, couldn’t they just work in silence?”
“I thought you didn’t want to sleep?” Yohji asked, voice brittle. Crawford frowned at him.
“You’re very mercurial tonight,” Crawford said softly. “Can’t you just be flattered?”
“I am.”
“As you said earlier. Is this really too much to handle? It’s just sex.”
Yohji frowned at him. “That’s always been my line. Funny.”
“Not really, no.”
“No.”
Yohji was saved from further conversation as the voices on the tape began again.
Female Voice: Who’s down here?
Omi: Myself, Siberian and Abyssinian. We’re doing a manual check for bugs.
Female voice: I see. Would you come up here please? I want to discuss your new quarters.
There were footsteps on the stair and a door closed with dull finality. Crawford hit the stop button on the tape. Yohji frowned at him.
“How long have we known each other?” Crawford asked.
“Three days,” Yohji said.
“And we’ve been in each other’s company almost all of the time. Seventy-two hours. If you take sleeping from that, which we haven’t really done much of, that leaves us with about sixty-five hours. Other than that we’ve been out of contact for maybe three hours overall?”
“Something like that,” Yohji said cautiously.
“Sixty-two hours. Now, consider if we both had office jobs, and had met at work. Eight hours a day? That’s just under eight working days. Though we would have actually had to work, so cut that down to maybe two hours a day of actually spending time together. Thirty one days.”
“So we’ve known each other for a month. Nice try,” Yohji said coolly. “So you’re not taking this fast at all, oh no.”
Crawford grimaced. “I’m trying to make you see this from my point of view.”
“I know your point of view! In a few days I’ll be dead and you’ll be back with all those Takatoris,” Yohji snapped, sitting up sharply. “You just want a few quick fucks. Well, it turns out that I don’t like being on the receiving end of this kind of treatment. Thank you for teaching me the important life lesson of treating other people well.” The sarcasm was coming thick and fast and it made Crawford sneer. “I’m going to get killed, Crawford. I don’t give a flying fuck about your wants right now. I just want to know why suddenly I care about dying. I haven’t for years!”
Crawford regretted impressing the inevitability of Yohji’s imminent death on him. He hadn’t foreseen this.
“Turn the tape back on,” Yohji said, “and take notes. I’m going downstairs to demand another room. Which you will pay for,” he added.
The door slammed hard and Crawford felt the resulting breeze ruffle his hair. His gift only gave him insight into the next few minutes, so when something he’d said days ago came back to bite him on the arse there wasn’t anything he could do to prevent it.