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junkyarddog1.
It's as the Month of Ice rolls into the Month of High Cold that Ken abruptly breaks their comfortable routine.
It's been eight years since Mukuro joined them, and seven since he gently consumed them. Ken and Chikusa had gone from loyal to only each other, and each other above all else, to being twisted around Mukuro's fingers like rings. It had happened gradually enough and quietly enough that neither of them really noticed the change, and even now - with the change complete - neither of them has any complaint to make. Ken's probably never even considered the shift; Chikusa has, but it hasn't really bothered him. Mukuro's takeover of their duo, and his transformation of it into a triad with himself at the top, wasn't - surprisingly - a hostile one. Rather, he'd had confidence and self-assurance and knowledge beyond either Ken's or Chikusa's understanding at the time...and, with all those advantages over them, he'd taken care of them. To two scared, abandoned children, forgotten or discarded by everyone else, Mukuro had felt like strong arms catching them when they'd been in freefall, when they hadn't expected anyone to catch them at all. They'd both sunk gratefully into that security, into the feeling of someone else - someone more assured and capable than they were - making decisions for them, and looking after them in the process. It had felt like having parents again, in a weird way, despite the fact that Mukuro wasn't any older than they were. (He always acts like he is, though; that hasn't changed.) Letting him direct them hadn't felt like a concession; it had felt like a relief.
With Mukuro's assistance, and the powers he'd gained three years ago, their quality of living has gone up. Scavenging isn't even necessary on a daily basis anymore. Sometimes they can buy things, and when they do scavenge their hauls are always better than they used to be when it was just the two of them - even though the Flooded District has been well picked over by now. But Mukuro's eyes are sharp beyond explanation; Chikusa's seen him dig through a pile of refuse, seemingly worthless, to unearth a piece of artwork worth a week's worth of food, or smilingly direct them to hidden riches and stores within a building without ever entering it himself. And since the year before last, Ken's acquired his own abilities from the mysterious Outsider he and Mukuro occasionally speak of - Mukuro with casual familiarity, Ken with something like confused aggravation mixed with superstitious awe. Now Ken's nose is sharp enough to detect people from entire buildings away, through solid stone - although Chikusa knows it's not just his nose. Ken doesn't just know where people are, or where they've been; he knows where they're looking, he knows where they're about to be. No nose works like that...but then, no eyes work like Mukuro's eyes, so Chikusa hasn't bothered questioning it. (Especially not to Ken; Ken probably couldn't explain it if he tried.) They have other powers, too, powers that only seem to be growing with time - and the weight of them increasingly presses down on Chikusa's shoulders, until he feels like he's drowning again.
Still, traversing the Flooded District remains necessary, though as much of their time is spent patrolling as it is scavenging these days. Mukuro has eked out a territory for them, which only the foolhardy or unwise go into and no one at all goes out of. And as Mukuro often goes off on his own business, often Chikusa and Ken have nothing better to do anyway. And it's comforting in its own way, for it to just be the two of them - especially now that they're older and stronger, more resourceful, less afraid. They can take care of themselves now, they wear the Flooded District like a second skin, and even Chikusa - unmarked as he is - walks it like a master of what he surveys. Especially with Ken at his side, always fierce about protecting him and now more capable of it than ever before.
But suddenly, Ken's taken to going off on his own, too. Not just on a whim, but insisting on it, grumbling or outright snarling when Chikusa presses, distant and secretive in ways Chikusa's never seen him. It winds tight, dull terror in Chikusa's chest - that feeling of drowning again, but even more familiar than before because now - much like the first time - he isn't sure whether Ken will haul him back up.
Mukuro simply smiles, shrugging it off when Chikusa works up the energy to bring it up. "Dogs will be dogs," he says cryptically, and laughs to himself. "He's probably restless. He'll get over it."
But as the Month of High Cold goes on, and Chikusa finds himself going to sleep alone more and more often because Ken doesn't even return before sundown...his fears sink deeper and deeper into his bones. His mind whispers that this is the shape it takes - the beginning of Ken and Mukuro realizing they're being held back by someone who doesn't share in their abilities. Despite his perpetual exhaustion and tendency to sleep like the dead, he finds himself waking up late at night, when Ken finally creeps in and nestles against him, just so he can wrap his arms around his best friend and memorize the feeling of him against the abandonment he's sure is approaching.
His own family had abandoned him. There's no reason for the ties holding his found family to him to be any stronger.
2.
"Ken." Chikusa's somewhat gratified, in his exasperation, to see the way Ken flinches. "What have you been doing?"
"Nothing," Ken replies sullenly, and ineffectually. He's stripped to the waist, and Chikusa is actively treating the wounds that nothing, apparently, has left on him.
"These are wolfhound bites, Ken," Chikusa says reprovingly. "Where were you that had wolfhounds? Only rich people and Overseers have them."
Ken looks away, scowling.
"Did Overseers come after you?" That's a terrifying thought to have. One of Chikusa's remaining areas of effectiveness is that the strange music boxes the Overseers carry don't bother him at all, whereas Ken and Mukuro find themselves suddenly no more able to touch the void and its powers than Chikusa can. It seems to disorient them in general, in fact. If the Overseers have taken an active interest in Ken, in them...
"It's not a big deal," Ken snaps, eyes angry and defiant. It's the fierce secrecy that's becoming so familiar to Chikusa rearing its head.
Chikusa deliberately tugs a bandage excessively tight, startling a sound of pained protest out of Ken. "I'm going to tell Mukuro that you're taking stupid risks. It'll cause trouble for him if you bring the Overseers here." This is usually an effective threat; not because Mukuro will necessarily do anything about it, because Mukuro will just as frequently encourage Ken's misbehavior as he will punish Ken for it, but Ken's almost fawningly devoted to Mukuro and hates looking bad or disobedient in front of him, or doing anything detrimental to him.
"Mukuro knows what I'm doing!" Ken barks, and then his eyes widen comically as he clearly realizes he's said something he shouldn't. Or at least it would be comical, if Chikusa's heart hadn't just iced over in his chest, eyes locked on the fingers he's suddenly unable to move.
Ken's doing something dangerous. Something big, clearly. And not only does Mukuro know about it, while Chikusa doesn't...Chikusa isn't supposed to know about it.
He's being left behind.
"...it's nothing, like I said," Ken mumbles, evidently unsure how to recover from his mistake.
"...nothing is going to run us out of bandages, if you aren't more careful." Chikusa's fingers have started moving again, continuing to patch up his best friend, but he can no longer feel them.
"Kakipii," Ken says, sounding unhappy, leaning toward him, but Chikusa focuses entirely on his work. Ken never likes it when he goes away to...wherever his mind goes during these times, but even if Chikusa could help it...Ken's the one who's been leaving lately, not him.
3.
"You sent Ken shopping," Chikusa says, in slow disbelief.
"He's a big boy, Chikusa," Mukuro says idly, from where he's lounging on their sofa. "It's not fair to you to have to do it every time. And he's getting to be an old enough dog that he can stand to learn a new trick or two."
"Even if he doesn't pick a fight with any pawnbrokers or shopkeepers," Chikusa says, still slowly, trying to pierce this unexpected pocket of stupidity in Mukuro, "he'll come back with nothing but tinned meat and sweets. Rat skewers and jerky if we're lucky. We'll be eating whale and eel for weeks."
"Fresh produce is expensive this time of year anyway," Mukuro says with a yawn.
"If you wanted him to learn how to shop for us," Chikusa says, suspicion rising in his throat like bile, "you'd have sent us together."
Mukuro, who's closed his eyes in what Chikusa suspects is an attempt to dodge this conversation rather than any genuine intent to doze, opens one to give him a sidelong look. "Poor little Chikusa." This is in direct contrast to the fact that Chikusa has several inches on Mukuro already, more on Ken. "Are you worried I'm trying to replace you?"
That's exactly it, to the point that Chikusa's throat closes up around any answer he could have given. Though he suspects his fears run even deeper than Mukuro is referencing at the moment - he's not worried he's being replaced so much as he worries he's being discarded, not in just this but in everything.
Mukuro studies him with that shrewd eye, then chuckles and closes it again. "I'll use you up before I discard you," he says flippantly. "Do you think you've got so little to offer that you're already empty?"
It's probably meant as a sort of casual, rough reassurance. But as Chikusa suspects exactly that, he's not really reassured.
4.
"Ken," Chikusa gasps, fingers curling into the blankets as Ken drives into him. He's trying not to grab at his partner, since Ken's come home injured and bruised again - but even before he was allowed to patch Ken up, Ken had shoved him up against a wall, all hot lips and tongue and teeth, and for a handful of minutes Chikusa can't entertain any thoughts of inadequacy at all. Hell, he doesn't even remember how they made it to their mattress.
A few rough strokes of Ken's hand and he's shuddering beneath him, around him, spilling over Ken's hand and his own stomach. Ken thrusts into him once, twice, and then he's biting roughly at Chikusa's neck as Chikusa feels the familiar heat of Ken's own release inside him, the low throb of his snarl against Chikusa's skin.
It's a good ten minutes after Ken's warmth slumps against him in the aftermath that Chikusa moves himself enough to run fingers along the scars Ken's come home with today. Shallow sword cuts, mostly, plus the usual bruising. Chikusa knows plenty of the bruises are self-inflicted from Ken throwing himself bodily at things or taking falls too big for him.
Ken's not badly hurt today. And he still wants Chikusa. Two comforting facts. Chikusa tries to let the warmth fill him, to hold onto it.
"Don't leave me." It takes Chikusa a few seconds to recognize his own voice. He hadn't intended to speak at all, much less to say that.
Ken lifts his head to look at him with such bafflemenet in his eyes that how confused he is almost feels like reassurance itself. "Huh?"
Chikusa can't bring himself to repeat something he never meant to say; all he can do is slip his arms around Ken, to hold him tight. Ken will probably assume Chikusa just doesn't want him leaving the bed anyway; he supposes there's no harm done.
Ken huffs out a snort and pulls out of him so he can settle more comfortably against Chikusa's side, pressing his face against Chikusa's neck. "I'm not going anywhere, stupid Kakipii," he mutters, and promptly falls asleep.
It's not much comfort, but Chikusa clings to it.
5.
Chikusa blinks, twice. The image remains before his eyes. Ken, sitting on the floor of the library, scowling down at a book as though he's trying to set it on fire with his mind. That's Ken's normal approach to reading, he knows, but...why is Ken reading anything at all?
He takes a single step into the room, though, and Ken's head snaps up. The book is slammed shut, and Ken gets that all-too-familiar look of guilty sullenness he gets whenever he's caught doing something he shouldn't be doing.
"Ken." Chikusa raises an eyebrow. "Are you reading The Prince of Tyvia again?"
"No," Ken huffs, and when Chikusa looks closer he has to concede the point; the binding of the book is the wrong color. Come to that, it looks newer than the other books here; perhaps Ken brought it home from somewhere. (Which begs the question of why. Sometimes Ken brings home books to self-consciously dump on Chikusa's lap, all but acting like they just accidentally fell into his arms on his way home, but clearly Ken doesn't want him to see this one. And Ken's not the type of person who reads for pleasure.)
"Is there any point in asking what you are reading?" Chikusa asks, and he's surprised that the bitterness he feels can actually be heard a little in his voice. It's rare for his emotions to be audible.
There's a flicker of uncertainty in Ken's eyes before they harden. "It's a secret," he declares.
"Fine." Chikusa turns on his heel and walks away, stomach twisting. Everything is secrets with Ken anymore.
+1.
"Kakipii!"
Chikusa's jerked out of a sound sleep by Ken all but leaping on him. He doesn't actually move, but he's awake, eyes slowly opening enough to see his own breath. There's a quiet and chill in the air that suggests snow, and a quality of the light that tells Chikusa it is probably much earlier than he should be awake. But Ken is perched on top of him, practically vibrating with excitement, which means that like it or not, Chikusa is awake and going to stay that way.
Unusually for him, Chikusa finds himself a little happy at this inexplicable mood of Ken's. He's been surly so much lately that this is a welcome change, no matter how disruptive it is.
"What is it?" he asks, as he considers the radical move of sitting upright without being forced.
"It's the High Cold Festival," Ken says, eyes gleaming.
Chikusa blinks at this. The High Cold Festival is traditionally celebrated by waking up early and exchanging gifts, yes, and frequently they do all get each other things - it was never planned, none of them ever set out to celebrate, and yet Ken would bring Mukuro whale bones for bonecharms and somehow Mukuro would always have one made already that helps Chikusa move a little faster or a little quieter, lets him jump a little higher. Most years Chikusa's managed to get enough money to bring home a massive Tyvian hare, the size of a small dog, and they have a hot meal. And every year, somehow, Chikusa ends up with three extra hats.
They usually don't adhere to the morning part of it, though. And Ken's not usually this worked up about it.
"...so?"
"So I got you something, dumbass four-eyes." Ken rolls his own two eyes in response. "Wanna see?"
It's obvious that no matter how badly Chikusa could want to see this thing he didn't even know Ken got him, Ken wants him to see it a lot more. So he sighs and forces himself upright. "Do I have a choice?"
Ken doesn't even seem to hear, grabbing a bulky and very badly wrapped package to press into Chikusa's hands. It looks like Ken wrapped it in brown paper and twine from a fishmonger's stall - and, honestly, it doesn't smell as though that impression is far wrong. But Chikusa finds himself intrigued, despite everything, by the feel of the thing through the paper. Hard and angular and knobbly and, frankly, in a shape so strange that Chikusa can't even guess at what it is.
When he tears the paper off, a thick bundle falls out of it and onto his lap. He doesn't immediately notice it, because he's still holding the main part of Ken's present in his hands, and he's speechless with it.
It's a crossbow; he can see that now. But small, the smallest Chikusa's ever seen, light enough to be held in one hand. It looks like it might be collapsible, in fact, to become even smaller. It is, unmistakably, the highest quality thing Chikusa's held in his own two hands - to say nothing of owned - since before the district flooded.
"Where did you get this?" he murmured, unable to look away from the clean lines of it, the complexity of the mechanisms as he turns it over in his hands.
"I bought it!" Ken says, with pride. "I went into the city and I stole a bunch of stuff so we could afford it. Mukuro said you'd like it a lot."
Somewhere, beyond Chikusa's wonder, thoughts of Ken's constant excursions for the past month, his coming home battered from having clearly gone in lots of well-guarded places he wasn't supposed to be, call for his attention.
"There's bolts and stuff in here!" Ken suddenly grabs the thick, leather-wrapped parcel off of Chikusa's lap, unrolling it. In it are regular bolts, Chikusa can identify those at a glance, but there are others... "Mukuro got a book of all kinds of crossbow stuff! He found somebody who could make these special darts - they can put people to sleep! Or these ones make people go temporarily blind." He's pointing excitedly as he talks. "And these ones give people short-term...uh...forgetfulness? They make people forget what they're doing and run away! They can do all kinds of cool stuff. These ones can set things on fire."
Finally, Chikusa looks up at Ken. "Ken, why...?" His throat's closing up again, for different reasons than it has been for the past month. This is more than he's received for every other High Cold Festival in his life put together. It doesn't fit their pattern at all.
"Well..." Self-consciousness finally seems to be overtaking Ken's eagerness, and he squirms a little. "...Mukuro said you don't like not having powers. And awhile ago I heard this guy talking about all the cool things crossbow bolts can do, and then I thought maybe you could use a weapon like this and it could do almost as many things as we can. And when I asked Mukuro about it, he said if we were gonna get you one it had to be the best crossbow, and he found some guy who made this. Mukuro let me pay for it, but he paid the guy who made the darts."
Chikusa stared at Ken for so long that his partner started squirming again, and wondered how he'd ever thought Ken wouldn't reach down to pull him up.
It's as the Month of Ice rolls into the Month of High Cold that Ken abruptly breaks their comfortable routine.
It's been eight years since Mukuro joined them, and seven since he gently consumed them. Ken and Chikusa had gone from loyal to only each other, and each other above all else, to being twisted around Mukuro's fingers like rings. It had happened gradually enough and quietly enough that neither of them really noticed the change, and even now - with the change complete - neither of them has any complaint to make. Ken's probably never even considered the shift; Chikusa has, but it hasn't really bothered him. Mukuro's takeover of their duo, and his transformation of it into a triad with himself at the top, wasn't - surprisingly - a hostile one. Rather, he'd had confidence and self-assurance and knowledge beyond either Ken's or Chikusa's understanding at the time...and, with all those advantages over them, he'd taken care of them. To two scared, abandoned children, forgotten or discarded by everyone else, Mukuro had felt like strong arms catching them when they'd been in freefall, when they hadn't expected anyone to catch them at all. They'd both sunk gratefully into that security, into the feeling of someone else - someone more assured and capable than they were - making decisions for them, and looking after them in the process. It had felt like having parents again, in a weird way, despite the fact that Mukuro wasn't any older than they were. (He always acts like he is, though; that hasn't changed.) Letting him direct them hadn't felt like a concession; it had felt like a relief.
With Mukuro's assistance, and the powers he'd gained three years ago, their quality of living has gone up. Scavenging isn't even necessary on a daily basis anymore. Sometimes they can buy things, and when they do scavenge their hauls are always better than they used to be when it was just the two of them - even though the Flooded District has been well picked over by now. But Mukuro's eyes are sharp beyond explanation; Chikusa's seen him dig through a pile of refuse, seemingly worthless, to unearth a piece of artwork worth a week's worth of food, or smilingly direct them to hidden riches and stores within a building without ever entering it himself. And since the year before last, Ken's acquired his own abilities from the mysterious Outsider he and Mukuro occasionally speak of - Mukuro with casual familiarity, Ken with something like confused aggravation mixed with superstitious awe. Now Ken's nose is sharp enough to detect people from entire buildings away, through solid stone - although Chikusa knows it's not just his nose. Ken doesn't just know where people are, or where they've been; he knows where they're looking, he knows where they're about to be. No nose works like that...but then, no eyes work like Mukuro's eyes, so Chikusa hasn't bothered questioning it. (Especially not to Ken; Ken probably couldn't explain it if he tried.) They have other powers, too, powers that only seem to be growing with time - and the weight of them increasingly presses down on Chikusa's shoulders, until he feels like he's drowning again.
Still, traversing the Flooded District remains necessary, though as much of their time is spent patrolling as it is scavenging these days. Mukuro has eked out a territory for them, which only the foolhardy or unwise go into and no one at all goes out of. And as Mukuro often goes off on his own business, often Chikusa and Ken have nothing better to do anyway. And it's comforting in its own way, for it to just be the two of them - especially now that they're older and stronger, more resourceful, less afraid. They can take care of themselves now, they wear the Flooded District like a second skin, and even Chikusa - unmarked as he is - walks it like a master of what he surveys. Especially with Ken at his side, always fierce about protecting him and now more capable of it than ever before.
But suddenly, Ken's taken to going off on his own, too. Not just on a whim, but insisting on it, grumbling or outright snarling when Chikusa presses, distant and secretive in ways Chikusa's never seen him. It winds tight, dull terror in Chikusa's chest - that feeling of drowning again, but even more familiar than before because now - much like the first time - he isn't sure whether Ken will haul him back up.
Mukuro simply smiles, shrugging it off when Chikusa works up the energy to bring it up. "Dogs will be dogs," he says cryptically, and laughs to himself. "He's probably restless. He'll get over it."
But as the Month of High Cold goes on, and Chikusa finds himself going to sleep alone more and more often because Ken doesn't even return before sundown...his fears sink deeper and deeper into his bones. His mind whispers that this is the shape it takes - the beginning of Ken and Mukuro realizing they're being held back by someone who doesn't share in their abilities. Despite his perpetual exhaustion and tendency to sleep like the dead, he finds himself waking up late at night, when Ken finally creeps in and nestles against him, just so he can wrap his arms around his best friend and memorize the feeling of him against the abandonment he's sure is approaching.
His own family had abandoned him. There's no reason for the ties holding his found family to him to be any stronger.
2.
"Ken." Chikusa's somewhat gratified, in his exasperation, to see the way Ken flinches. "What have you been doing?"
"Nothing," Ken replies sullenly, and ineffectually. He's stripped to the waist, and Chikusa is actively treating the wounds that nothing, apparently, has left on him.
"These are wolfhound bites, Ken," Chikusa says reprovingly. "Where were you that had wolfhounds? Only rich people and Overseers have them."
Ken looks away, scowling.
"Did Overseers come after you?" That's a terrifying thought to have. One of Chikusa's remaining areas of effectiveness is that the strange music boxes the Overseers carry don't bother him at all, whereas Ken and Mukuro find themselves suddenly no more able to touch the void and its powers than Chikusa can. It seems to disorient them in general, in fact. If the Overseers have taken an active interest in Ken, in them...
"It's not a big deal," Ken snaps, eyes angry and defiant. It's the fierce secrecy that's becoming so familiar to Chikusa rearing its head.
Chikusa deliberately tugs a bandage excessively tight, startling a sound of pained protest out of Ken. "I'm going to tell Mukuro that you're taking stupid risks. It'll cause trouble for him if you bring the Overseers here." This is usually an effective threat; not because Mukuro will necessarily do anything about it, because Mukuro will just as frequently encourage Ken's misbehavior as he will punish Ken for it, but Ken's almost fawningly devoted to Mukuro and hates looking bad or disobedient in front of him, or doing anything detrimental to him.
"Mukuro knows what I'm doing!" Ken barks, and then his eyes widen comically as he clearly realizes he's said something he shouldn't. Or at least it would be comical, if Chikusa's heart hadn't just iced over in his chest, eyes locked on the fingers he's suddenly unable to move.
Ken's doing something dangerous. Something big, clearly. And not only does Mukuro know about it, while Chikusa doesn't...Chikusa isn't supposed to know about it.
He's being left behind.
"...it's nothing, like I said," Ken mumbles, evidently unsure how to recover from his mistake.
"...nothing is going to run us out of bandages, if you aren't more careful." Chikusa's fingers have started moving again, continuing to patch up his best friend, but he can no longer feel them.
"Kakipii," Ken says, sounding unhappy, leaning toward him, but Chikusa focuses entirely on his work. Ken never likes it when he goes away to...wherever his mind goes during these times, but even if Chikusa could help it...Ken's the one who's been leaving lately, not him.
3.
"You sent Ken shopping," Chikusa says, in slow disbelief.
"He's a big boy, Chikusa," Mukuro says idly, from where he's lounging on their sofa. "It's not fair to you to have to do it every time. And he's getting to be an old enough dog that he can stand to learn a new trick or two."
"Even if he doesn't pick a fight with any pawnbrokers or shopkeepers," Chikusa says, still slowly, trying to pierce this unexpected pocket of stupidity in Mukuro, "he'll come back with nothing but tinned meat and sweets. Rat skewers and jerky if we're lucky. We'll be eating whale and eel for weeks."
"Fresh produce is expensive this time of year anyway," Mukuro says with a yawn.
"If you wanted him to learn how to shop for us," Chikusa says, suspicion rising in his throat like bile, "you'd have sent us together."
Mukuro, who's closed his eyes in what Chikusa suspects is an attempt to dodge this conversation rather than any genuine intent to doze, opens one to give him a sidelong look. "Poor little Chikusa." This is in direct contrast to the fact that Chikusa has several inches on Mukuro already, more on Ken. "Are you worried I'm trying to replace you?"
That's exactly it, to the point that Chikusa's throat closes up around any answer he could have given. Though he suspects his fears run even deeper than Mukuro is referencing at the moment - he's not worried he's being replaced so much as he worries he's being discarded, not in just this but in everything.
Mukuro studies him with that shrewd eye, then chuckles and closes it again. "I'll use you up before I discard you," he says flippantly. "Do you think you've got so little to offer that you're already empty?"
It's probably meant as a sort of casual, rough reassurance. But as Chikusa suspects exactly that, he's not really reassured.
4.
"Ken," Chikusa gasps, fingers curling into the blankets as Ken drives into him. He's trying not to grab at his partner, since Ken's come home injured and bruised again - but even before he was allowed to patch Ken up, Ken had shoved him up against a wall, all hot lips and tongue and teeth, and for a handful of minutes Chikusa can't entertain any thoughts of inadequacy at all. Hell, he doesn't even remember how they made it to their mattress.
A few rough strokes of Ken's hand and he's shuddering beneath him, around him, spilling over Ken's hand and his own stomach. Ken thrusts into him once, twice, and then he's biting roughly at Chikusa's neck as Chikusa feels the familiar heat of Ken's own release inside him, the low throb of his snarl against Chikusa's skin.
It's a good ten minutes after Ken's warmth slumps against him in the aftermath that Chikusa moves himself enough to run fingers along the scars Ken's come home with today. Shallow sword cuts, mostly, plus the usual bruising. Chikusa knows plenty of the bruises are self-inflicted from Ken throwing himself bodily at things or taking falls too big for him.
Ken's not badly hurt today. And he still wants Chikusa. Two comforting facts. Chikusa tries to let the warmth fill him, to hold onto it.
"Don't leave me." It takes Chikusa a few seconds to recognize his own voice. He hadn't intended to speak at all, much less to say that.
Ken lifts his head to look at him with such bafflemenet in his eyes that how confused he is almost feels like reassurance itself. "Huh?"
Chikusa can't bring himself to repeat something he never meant to say; all he can do is slip his arms around Ken, to hold him tight. Ken will probably assume Chikusa just doesn't want him leaving the bed anyway; he supposes there's no harm done.
Ken huffs out a snort and pulls out of him so he can settle more comfortably against Chikusa's side, pressing his face against Chikusa's neck. "I'm not going anywhere, stupid Kakipii," he mutters, and promptly falls asleep.
It's not much comfort, but Chikusa clings to it.
5.
Chikusa blinks, twice. The image remains before his eyes. Ken, sitting on the floor of the library, scowling down at a book as though he's trying to set it on fire with his mind. That's Ken's normal approach to reading, he knows, but...why is Ken reading anything at all?
He takes a single step into the room, though, and Ken's head snaps up. The book is slammed shut, and Ken gets that all-too-familiar look of guilty sullenness he gets whenever he's caught doing something he shouldn't be doing.
"Ken." Chikusa raises an eyebrow. "Are you reading The Prince of Tyvia again?"
"No," Ken huffs, and when Chikusa looks closer he has to concede the point; the binding of the book is the wrong color. Come to that, it looks newer than the other books here; perhaps Ken brought it home from somewhere. (Which begs the question of why. Sometimes Ken brings home books to self-consciously dump on Chikusa's lap, all but acting like they just accidentally fell into his arms on his way home, but clearly Ken doesn't want him to see this one. And Ken's not the type of person who reads for pleasure.)
"Is there any point in asking what you are reading?" Chikusa asks, and he's surprised that the bitterness he feels can actually be heard a little in his voice. It's rare for his emotions to be audible.
There's a flicker of uncertainty in Ken's eyes before they harden. "It's a secret," he declares.
"Fine." Chikusa turns on his heel and walks away, stomach twisting. Everything is secrets with Ken anymore.
+1.
"Kakipii!"
Chikusa's jerked out of a sound sleep by Ken all but leaping on him. He doesn't actually move, but he's awake, eyes slowly opening enough to see his own breath. There's a quiet and chill in the air that suggests snow, and a quality of the light that tells Chikusa it is probably much earlier than he should be awake. But Ken is perched on top of him, practically vibrating with excitement, which means that like it or not, Chikusa is awake and going to stay that way.
Unusually for him, Chikusa finds himself a little happy at this inexplicable mood of Ken's. He's been surly so much lately that this is a welcome change, no matter how disruptive it is.
"What is it?" he asks, as he considers the radical move of sitting upright without being forced.
"It's the High Cold Festival," Ken says, eyes gleaming.
Chikusa blinks at this. The High Cold Festival is traditionally celebrated by waking up early and exchanging gifts, yes, and frequently they do all get each other things - it was never planned, none of them ever set out to celebrate, and yet Ken would bring Mukuro whale bones for bonecharms and somehow Mukuro would always have one made already that helps Chikusa move a little faster or a little quieter, lets him jump a little higher. Most years Chikusa's managed to get enough money to bring home a massive Tyvian hare, the size of a small dog, and they have a hot meal. And every year, somehow, Chikusa ends up with three extra hats.
They usually don't adhere to the morning part of it, though. And Ken's not usually this worked up about it.
"...so?"
"So I got you something, dumbass four-eyes." Ken rolls his own two eyes in response. "Wanna see?"
It's obvious that no matter how badly Chikusa could want to see this thing he didn't even know Ken got him, Ken wants him to see it a lot more. So he sighs and forces himself upright. "Do I have a choice?"
Ken doesn't even seem to hear, grabbing a bulky and very badly wrapped package to press into Chikusa's hands. It looks like Ken wrapped it in brown paper and twine from a fishmonger's stall - and, honestly, it doesn't smell as though that impression is far wrong. But Chikusa finds himself intrigued, despite everything, by the feel of the thing through the paper. Hard and angular and knobbly and, frankly, in a shape so strange that Chikusa can't even guess at what it is.
When he tears the paper off, a thick bundle falls out of it and onto his lap. He doesn't immediately notice it, because he's still holding the main part of Ken's present in his hands, and he's speechless with it.
It's a crossbow; he can see that now. But small, the smallest Chikusa's ever seen, light enough to be held in one hand. It looks like it might be collapsible, in fact, to become even smaller. It is, unmistakably, the highest quality thing Chikusa's held in his own two hands - to say nothing of owned - since before the district flooded.
"Where did you get this?" he murmured, unable to look away from the clean lines of it, the complexity of the mechanisms as he turns it over in his hands.
"I bought it!" Ken says, with pride. "I went into the city and I stole a bunch of stuff so we could afford it. Mukuro said you'd like it a lot."
Somewhere, beyond Chikusa's wonder, thoughts of Ken's constant excursions for the past month, his coming home battered from having clearly gone in lots of well-guarded places he wasn't supposed to be, call for his attention.
"There's bolts and stuff in here!" Ken suddenly grabs the thick, leather-wrapped parcel off of Chikusa's lap, unrolling it. In it are regular bolts, Chikusa can identify those at a glance, but there are others... "Mukuro got a book of all kinds of crossbow stuff! He found somebody who could make these special darts - they can put people to sleep! Or these ones make people go temporarily blind." He's pointing excitedly as he talks. "And these ones give people short-term...uh...forgetfulness? They make people forget what they're doing and run away! They can do all kinds of cool stuff. These ones can set things on fire."
Finally, Chikusa looks up at Ken. "Ken, why...?" His throat's closing up again, for different reasons than it has been for the past month. This is more than he's received for every other High Cold Festival in his life put together. It doesn't fit their pattern at all.
"Well..." Self-consciousness finally seems to be overtaking Ken's eagerness, and he squirms a little. "...Mukuro said you don't like not having powers. And awhile ago I heard this guy talking about all the cool things crossbow bolts can do, and then I thought maybe you could use a weapon like this and it could do almost as many things as we can. And when I asked Mukuro about it, he said if we were gonna get you one it had to be the best crossbow, and he found some guy who made this. Mukuro let me pay for it, but he paid the guy who made the darts."
Chikusa stared at Ken for so long that his partner started squirming again, and wondered how he'd ever thought Ken wouldn't reach down to pull him up.
