© 2006 Jet Mykles for the story. The characters however are not mine. Click here for more info on these beautiful kitties. Or check out the Bishonenworks WK gallery, which is where my obsession began.
Authors note: This is a continuation of a work of love. Pure fan fiction. I get no payment or kickback out of this except pure enjoyment and a wish to share the image of Aya, Yohji, Ken and Omi in my head.
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– TO CATCH A KITTEN –
Aya rolled his white coat up in one of his bags as Yohji retrieved the locked metal box from its hiding place in the ceiling. Aya told himself not to look, but it was utterly impossible to resist watching that midriff shirt ride higher up that ridged abdomen. Despite the vivid, pleasant ache in his ass, his dick twitched and his mouth watered with the urge to take a bite out of Yohji’s side.
Resolutely, Aya turned, trying to summon his icy reserve. Sleeping with Yohji might have been a huge mistake. It might have been a good thing if they were normal people, or if their former lives truly could be laid to rest to allow them to “retire”. But such didn’t seem to be the case and Aya knew he needed to put Abyssinian firmly in place for the sake of their survival.
By the time Yohji jumped down from the chair, Aya almost had himself in check. He was careful to move around the table when Yohji crossed to his own bags. Touching the blond, he knew, would be his undoing.
Yohji deftly tucked the bag away then swirled his mission coat up and around behind him, making the damn thing flutter like a cape as it gently settled around his body. He shoved the sunglasses over his ears, then perched them atop his head, swung one bag around his chest so that it settled on his back and shouldered the other on his left arm. When he turned toward Aya, his face was set in its own cool mask. Balinese was different than Abyssinian in that he maintained a small grin, but there was nothing in that smile that any enemy could take comfort in. People who discredited Balinese because of his seeming easygoing manner often paid for that mistake with their life.
Abyssinian settled his own pack on his back and bag over his shoulder, clutching the katana in his left hand. He nodded when he was ready.
Balinese mirrored the nod, then led the way out the window.
They hugged the shadows, keeping to alleys as Balinese led the way to the car lot. Stealing a car wasn’t a permanent solution but it would get them out of town.
He ran different possibilities through his head as he tailed Balinese. He still hadn’t figured out what the best plan was or when they should contact Krittiker. Or if they should contact Krittiker. It was a mission for them, after all, which had put them on this path. Or had it. Either Krittiker knew of some entity gathering data on Weiss or had sent them to plug up a hole. But no, the last couldn’t be true. No one had been killed on that mission. Abyssinian’s presence had been purely for protection.
Who was gathering data on Weiss? And why? Who even knew for sure that they were still alive? In hindsight, Aya had wondered why Krittiker allowed them to keep their names. They’d even provided Yohji with another Seven, which was highly suspect.
Why hadn’t Aya thought about this earlier?
You didn’t want to. He didn’t. He hadn’t. He’d been quite content to let the icy killer thaw and rest while resurrecting some of the human being he used to be, ages ago. He’d wanted to badly just to live. To be.
With Yohji.
Focus!
The tall assassin stopped up ahead at the edge of shadows between two buildings. He pressed his back against the brick of the building and peered out. Abyssinian waited further back, scanning the darkness behind them before he followed. A dark shape skittered through the deep brown shadows at the end of a passageway as he stole across the opening. Abyssinian’s mind went cold, his senses kicking on higher alert. He flattened against the corner just near the opening, quickly but quietly dropping his bags to the ground beside him. A brief glance toward Balinese showed the blond had noticed his move. Without questioning or hardly making a sound, the taller assassin dropped his own bags and crept to the wall opposite Abyssinian, making sure to he could not be seen in the opening.
The man was good, Abyssinian would give him that. He could barely hear the footfalls approaching. Too many footfalls. He glanced at Balinese, freeing his hand from the hilt of his katana only long enough to hold up two fingers. He then changed it to one and pointed it at Balinese.
Balinese nodded, scanning above him. There was a fire escape landing not far above him, the ladder within easy reach, but reaching the landing would cause too much noise. Abandoning the idea, the blond widened his stance and held out his arms before him, one finger poised over the watch that was far more than just a timepiece.
Abyssinian crouched, turning back toward the entrance to the side passage. He clicked his katana free of its sheathe with his thumb.
Before he even saw the man, the wire sang through the air. A male voice cried out and a shadowy body stumbled past the swordsman into the main alley, shining silver threads circling his forward arm. A gun dropped from that hand, clattering to the pavement mere seconds before the heavy fall of his body.
Abyssinian didn’t wait. Keeping low, he sailed into the passageway. A muffled shot sounded and the passage of the bullet whizzed over his shoulder as he lunged, blade out and expertly aimed at the heart of the second assailant. A second gun clattered to the pavement.
The wire sang beside the swordsman as he shoved his victim off his blade.
Another muffled gunshot sounded.
Balinese grunted.
Abyssinian trod over the corpse before him, bloodied blade slicing upward to cut open the chest of the third assailant.
The narrow passage behind the third man was empty. Aya forced himself to retain his icy calm and raced to the end to make sure all opponents were dispatched.
His heart, however, tore.
Yohji was hit.
The passage opened into another, better lit alley. But other than two cats that skittered away when he rounded the corner, there was nothing. No more shadows. No one else to kill.
Katana clutched in his hand, Aya spun back just in time to see Yohji stagger toward the first alley. He caught up to him just as Yohji sagged against the corner, still in the passage. He muttered softly, holding silver wire in one gloved hand, using the finger from that hand to press a button on the watch that drew the seemingly delicate length back inside.
Aya stopped beside him, scanning that tall body. He found what he was looking for sticking out of the meat of Yohji’s upper arm.
A dart.
“Don’t.” Yohji stopped him when he reached for it. “It’s barbed.”
Aya hissed. “How do you feel?”
Yohji grimaced, watching shining silver wire retract into the watch. “Like I’ve been shot with a dart.”
Aya snarled, reaching for the lapel of Yohji’s mission coat, intent on taking it off. “Baka, this is not time for…”
They both froze at the sound of a car screeching to a halt on the street outside the main alley. A door opened and footsteps rushed in their direction. The car was still running.
Aya looked up at Yohji, glanced at the wire that was only half retracted into the watch. The watch’s second length was still wound around one of the bodies. The third and fourth wires would still be inside the watch, but the length Yohji currently held prevented him from loosing them.
All this he saw in a tenth of a second. Abyssinian resurfaced and he sailed into the main alley. He barely even saw the man who gasped in shock just before he died.
“Can you get to the car?” Aya asked, dropping to his knees briefly to wipe blood off the katana on the corpse’s knit jacket.
“Yeah,” a pained voice behind him affirmed.
Aya had to trust his word. At least for the moment. He sheathed his blade as he stood and sped to his bags. Hurriedly, he gathered them and ran to the open door of the blue sedan left running. He unlocked the back door and threw the bags in. Returned to the alley for Yohji’s bags, taking a brief opportunity to scan the street as well. Empty. Dark except for the car lot that had been their destination shining a few blocks away.
Yohji straightened from the first corpse, more wire in his hand, and staggered toward the car. Aya moved toward him but Yohji waved him off. “Get in and drive.”
Aya climbed in. Yohji made it to the open back door and fell in. Aya barely waited for the door to close before he sped off in the opposite direction of the car lot.
They were quiet for a long time. Aya forced himself to concentrate on streets, watching their trail, not listening to the grunts and strained breathing from the backseat.
“Fuck.”
“You okay?”
“No.”
Aya glanced in the mirror to see Yohji with his hand gripping his arm where the dart had been. It was too dark and his mission coat too thick for Aya to see how much he was bleeding.
“It’s a tranq,” Yohji muttered.
“What?”
Yohji tossed the dart into the passenger seat beside Aya. “There. I picked up one of their guns too… thought it’d be handy.” Yohji’s drawl was drawn out, sleepy. “It’s a tranquilizer gun. There’s a box of darts here on the floor too.” He laughed, sounding vaguely crazed as he slumped. “They’re not trying to kill us. They’re trying to catch us.”
Aya grunted, coming to the same conclusion himself. He wasn’t sure the information was comforting. But, at the moment, he couldn’t quite care. “You’re sure it’s not poison?”
“Not according to the box.”
Said box, or something like it, tumbled and spilled its contents on the floor of the backseat. Aya glanced in the mirror and didn’t see his companion.
“Yohji.”
“Gotta sleep now,” came the mumbled reply.
“Yohji, don’t.”
“Can’t… help…”
“Yohji?!”
Aya’s hands trembled on the steering wheel. He didn’t dare stop. He only vaguely knew where he was and still wasn’t entirely certain they hadn’t been followed. It stood to reason that they hadn’t. It was clear to him now that the first three had intended to put he and Yohji down with the darts, picked up by the fourth in this very car. It might have worked if Aya hadn’t spied the first.
He wanted so badly to stop and make sure that Yohji was okay but he didn’t dare. He had to get them to relative safety first before he could make sure that his lover was even still alive.