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Aya stood in the hallway, ragged, waiting outside the bathroom for his turn. He tried to resist the urge to lean back against the wall since he was covered with blood and grime from the mission, but it was battle lost before it began. The door hadn’t budget in a while and he would be silly to think it would. So he gave in and let his shoulders fall back to the cool wall, letting the feeling seep in through his shirt. At least this part of him was relatively clean, considering it had been protected by a jacket since discarded.
His eyes drifted closed before he knew it, adrenaline having left him deflated; he wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and let his mind leave the world, but he knew better than to streak his sheets with the after bits clinging to his skin. He’d never get the smell out. And he’d rather not make it a habit. So he waited, and he drifted, maybe minutes, maybe an hour, he did not know nor care.
Until someone was suddenly too close, and hot breath hit his face. His name like a curse, and his eyes were flying open even as his body tensed for the fight.
Too late. Aya had no time to get his hands up before Yohji pushed him hard into the wall. He twisted, ready to roll or buck, but the other man was as fast as he was quiet and Aya's hands were caught and pinned. There should’ve been strength left in him to resist better than this, but the way that man was staring down into him, fury in his features, his green eyes fire…Aya could feel the pulse the man throbbing against his skin.
“Back off Kudou,” he hissed, eyes narrowed against the assault. He demanded to be heeded.
He wasn’t.
“Shh. I'll talk. You listen.” The man was menace embodied: impeccable control wrapped over thrumming violence. A noise ripped at his throat as Aya felt his own fury rush to meet the challenge. He didn’t like to be given orders; he definitely didn’t like being threatened.
He drove a knee up but Yohji was ready and rolled to avoid it. He swung Aya with him by the wrists, and this time when he shoved him back into the wall he did it with force enough to slam Aya’s head. Aya cursed his unsteady vision, cursed his exhaustion. He had given in, relaxed himself, thought the fight done for the night.
That had been a mistaken.
Now he had a furious assassin up against him and he couldn’t dislodge him. “Kudou.” The blonde man had a knee in-between his legs, a thigh right up into his crotch. Aya hissed in discomfort. “I said back off.”
The pressure increased and his heart sped up.
“And I said don’t talk.” The man had whispered that in his ear, hot and moist, and Aya shivered. “I have something to say.”
Maybe he did. The line of his body and the glow in his eyes were already speaking volumes. And Aya was not in the mood to listen to either—not like this, never like this.
Fuck capitulation. Fuck vulnerability.
Aya’s body bucked, full of fury and hate and rebellion. But the man against him was too keen and too close; he was too ready. Before the roll could lift him from the wall, Aya’s wrists were gripped and savagely pushed into the plaster by his head, preemptive and brutal. Yohji might not be able to match him purely on upper body strength but he was using gravity now to his advantage. The extra height of his body leaned down to keep Aya still.
Disgust flooded him, and Aya glared and strained against the hold. It might not be enough to win him freedom but it was enough to convey a point. Those green eyes flashed fury at the movement. But then, there, past the screaming destruction, in the depths, Aya saw it. It was just a moment, but it was there.
Fear.
A wicked and terrible pride flushed through Aya then, even prostrate as he was, to see he could still provoke such an emotion in another assassin. He may have even gloated if his teeth weren’t gritted so hard. As it was, everything was tense fit to breaking, the air, their bodies, their breathing and faces, and for that unbearable moment, muscles tightening with every second, there were only glaring eyes, violet and green, unblinking, challenging.
Then Yohji leaned forward, scowling terribly, hot breath back on Aya's face bringing reality down hard, realization flooding like acid on his tongue: Yohji Kudou was not, and never has been, afraid of him. It might be cause to question the man’s sanity but there was no denying that Yohji did not fear him. Even now, when Aya wanted nothing more than to spit on him, to bite him, to bruise and maim him, the other man was relentless.
If Yohji was afraid, it was not of Aya, but of something else entirely.
“Dammit Aya!” There was something else here now, some other emotion, Yohji's tight control lost somewhere in the struggle. “Why do you always make things so hard! Do you even feel guilty at all for what you’ve done?” His voice was ripe with frustration, the vibration of his throat and chest enough to shake Aya’s lungs as he pressed against him.
“So help me god, Aya. We’re not pawns or things for you to use and dispose of as you please. So I’m warning you now. If I ever see you flee the side of an unconscious, bleeding member of Weiss again like you did tonight, I swear I will hang you from the nearest rafter and watch you suffer as the life is choked out of you. Do you hear me? Because you better not fucking test me on it.”
With his breath ragged in Aya’s ear, and Aya could almost imagine his face, how it would be tight, eyes squinting closed as he struggled for composure, and Aya froze against retaliation, an image of a different sort of tension gripping him by the gut. “We’ve only got each other in this, don’t you get that? And once that's gone…there are no second chances in this line of work. We aren't invincible. We’re living, breathing people, you dick. Ones that fucking trust and depend on you to be there!” But the breathing here was different; it didn't have the tinge of breathlessness it should. It spoke of nothing but pain. "So don't be so fucking arrogant to use us to reach your own fucking ends! Although an end is what you seem to be seeking lately!”
Yohji was panting now and trying to hide it, though Aya could feel the rapid pump of his lungs.Then he took a deep breath, pulling air right against the skin of Aya’s neck, sending goosebumps down his back when he let it out through his mouth. The thigh against him loosened its assault and the man pulled back, releasing Aya’s wrists as he did.
“We aren’t going to missions to die, you idiot, but to survive and to let the deserving live.”
Those long fingers were suddenly in the strands of his hair at the nap of his neck. They gripped them right at the root. Aya winced a bit at the sting but he didn’t resist as they maneuvered him and forced him to look up.
He hadn't even realized he’d bent his head.
Yohji’s eyes glittered with depth...weary? earnest? Full of regret. It was as if he felt too much and knew himself a fool for it. He searched Aya’s face for something, briefly, who knows for what or if he found it, before re-meeting his eyes.
“Could you listen for once? This doesn’t have to be so hard.” Entreating? or lamenting. The fingers in Aya’s hair flexed before they loosened their hold and drifted softly down the curve of his face. A ghostly caress against his cheekbone that made him shiver. “Just, my god Aya, this doesn’t have to be so hard.”
Then Yohji stepped back entirely and it was clear the fight in him was gone. Those green eyes which had been so livid only moments ago were dull even as they tracked the movement of his fingers slipping down and off Aya’s skin. Yohji watched them, staring for the moment they hovered before falling to his side. Perhaps he'd noticed for the first time that he still wore his working gloves.
Did he know? Did he realize? That it wasn’t the humanity or inhumanity, it wasn’t loyalty or disloyalty, nor rationality or irrationality. It was this that was dangerous. This that was going to get them killed.
The man that had been so full of rage pressed against him didn't look back up at him before he turned away. And Aya could only watch him, frozen under an unnamable weight, as he moved away. Eventually he lifted fingers to his slack face to wipe at something slick there, pulled them away so he could see: blood smeared down his cheek. When he looked back up, Yohji was gone, disappeared down the hall and into the darkness of his own room, likely, leaving Aya alone with it.
Righting himself, Aya glanced at the bathroom he had suffered more than enough in a night to gain access to, and decided to just leave. Exhaustion had flooded in worse now, and it hurt. Besides, no amount of soap and water would ever be enough to make this right, would it? To really make him feel clean. He tugged off the shirt he had been wearing and scrubbed it against his face, watching as smears marred the white fabric, and shivered. But the feeling was only skin deep. Then he took the hint at last and headed back to his room, wishing he’d gone straight there to begin with.