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scriveynerTitle: All The Time in the World
Fandom: Samurai Flamenco
AU: Spyfic
Characters/Pairing: Gotou/Masayoshi
Rating: T
Length: 1601
Summary: "You shot someone right in the head!" "Yeah, and a 'thank you' wouldn't be entirely out of order."
The supply closet was suffocatingly tiny, it smelled of cleaning solvents and stale smoke. Gotou stood with his back against the door as his companion crouched down low, tech plugged in to the power outlet. It was the only light source and it cast the room in a sickly green glow.
Another patrol hurried past, Gotou counted the clicks of their boots on the tile outside in the hall. They had ditched the earpieces and most of the armor two floors up, the chatter had gone silent on the channel once Hashimoto’s guards realized that their quarry was listening in. “Are you almost done?” Gotou asked, head tilted back against the door, the comforting weight of a pistol in his hands.
“Patience,” his partner said, in the most irritating manner. “Is a virtue.”
“I knew there was a reason I worked alone,” Gotou muttered.
“There.” After a moment, the greenish hue clicked off and they were left in total darkness. “That ought to give them something to really worry about.”
Gotou heard him stand up, felt the brush of his body and he straightened. “What did you do?” Gotou asked, unsure of how, if anything had changed at all.
There was a long moment of silence.
The alarm was faint, but audible even through the supply closet’s door. “Did you trip the fire alarm?” Gotou said, exasperated. “That’s seriously at a fifth-grade level.”
“Not when you have to get through three layers of security to find the proper switch that actually alerts the fire department when the alarms go off,” his companion said. “We can use the confusion to get out of here. Without,” he added, clearly for Gotou’s benefit. “Shooting everyone between here and the lobby.”
“You say that like I’m looking to leave a trail of bodies,” Gotou murmured. They really were uncomfortably close in this supply closet.
“You shot someone right in the head!”
“Yeah, and a ‘thank you’ wouldn’t be entirely out of order.” Gotou put his hand on the knob, he hadn’t heard any footsteps in long enough, and the alarm was still going off, a steady muted wail. It hadn’t been shut off, so that meant the building was actually evacuating. When he opened the supply closet door, it was to an empty hallway. “Let’s go.”
#
For all the noise and chatter, it was a simple action to join a milling crowd of people by an elevator bank. They were office workers from the middle of the building, disturbed from the midday routine by the emergency sirens. He wasn’t given a second glance, his weapon tucked away in the back of his pants, button-down shirt pulled loose and covering the bulge neatly.
Gotou didn’t linger, finding his way to the stairwell and starting down the steps quickly, his new companion several steps behind. “Ah,” he said, stopping suddenly and Gotou hesitated, looking back up the stairwell at him. He was patting the pockets of his trousers, looking troubled. “I forgot something!”
“You’re kidding,” Gotou said, watching as he bounded down the handful of stairs past Gotou and then moving to follow. “We don’t have time for-”
Gotou’s eyebrows shot up when he raised up on his toes, smooth like a ballet dancer, caught him by the front of his shirt and kissed him.I
t was only a split second to startle him - then Gotou shoved him off, both hands on his chest. He wobbled back but didn’t lose his balance, blue eyes glinting in the stairwell’s dim light. “What the hell-” Gotou said, eyes flashing - and his companion smirked at him, pink little flash of his tongue as he wet his lips.
“My thanks,” he said slyly. “For before.”
“Kissing guys is not a thank-you-” Gotou snarled, and didn’t react in time as his companion vaulted the railing down to the next flight of stairs and then took them running, two at a time.
The realization struck him in an instant, and a quick pocket check confirmed that the thumb drive was now missing - or more accurately, in the hands of the other guy. “Son of a bitch,” Gotou yelled - and the door on a landing a flight up banged open. Without waiting around to see who was piling through the door, Gotou took off after the sandy-haired man.
#
Konno was a man of technology. His office was neat and clean, white and modern with a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that faced out to the busy city streets. He could often be found sitting with his feet up on the desk and a tablet in his lap - but today when Gotou let himself in he was standing, back to the door and cell phone to his ear.
Two days had passed. He’d been checked out and vetted and made to stay put in a hotel room with nothing but basic cable to keep him company, and that (among other things) had left Gotou in a very foul mood. He stood quietly just inside the door, awaiting acknowledgment, and Konno half-turned and stared at him before looking away again and ending his phone conversation curtly. He set the phone down gently on the desk, and Gotou braced for it.
“Three months,” Konno said, turning to face Gotou and leaning back against his desk. “Three months of intel down the drain, just like that.”
Gotou did not move from his position nor offer up any words of apology, because he was incensed himself. He’d lost the data, and he’d lost and opportunity - and worst of all, From Beyond now had him in their database. They’d see him coming, now. “Three months, and all I have to show for it…” Konno raised his empty hands, palm up. “Is a name.”
“It’s more than we had before,” Gotou murmured, and Konno gave him a sharp look.
“You don’t have any idea who else would have their fingers in the pie,” Konno said. “We haven’t been able to track down your brown-haired cross-dresser, either.”
It was hard resisting the urge to touch his lips, because that’s all Gotou had been thinking about for two days. “No, sir.”
“You’re placed on suspension,” Konno said, waved his hand in Gotou’s direction. “Indefinitely. Until we can figure out a new angle to go at this from.”
Suspension? “But-” Gotou started, caught himself and took a deep, angry breath.
“It’s not a punishment, Gotou-kun,” Konno said, his head tilted back. “You being in the field right now could compromise our other agents.”
“Yes, sir.” Which was true, and he knew it was true, but it didn’t make the anger and disappointment burn any less bright. “Understood.”
“Good.” Konno picked up his phone. “Make yourself scarce, someone will be in touch once things have died down a little with From Beyond.”
Gotou gritted his teeth, nodded, and let himself out of the office.
#
Gotou had a small little apartment a decent enough distance away from the headquarters that he sequestered himself in. He didn’t stay there often - it smelled of must when he unlocked the door - and he spent much of his day opening windows and airing the place out. Suspension. He’d never been placed on suspension before, told to take a vacation or a hiatus, but not this.
Whatever had been on that thumb drive must have been big.
He forgot how hard it was to sleep on this mattress, not quite full-sized, much smaller than the plush hotel room beds he’d been sleeping on for the past few months, and Gotou ended up standing out side and smoking a cigarette at quarter past two in the morning, before deciding to walk to the twenty-four hour convenient mart about a mile from the apartment.
There were a pair of teenagers squatting outside the store - Gotou ignored them, walked to the wall of beverages and started browsing around. He didn’t have anything in the under-counter refrigerator, so he pulled a six-pack of beer and decided on a bag of corn chips. He reached for a bag decorated in some sentai team he didn’t recognize at the same time as someone else, and Gotou darted his hand back, glancing in his direction to offer an apology.
He stopped dead, and stared.
Blue eyes widened more as they recognized each other, standing side by side in the aisle of a convenience mart.
“Nope,” blue-eyes brown-hair said, dropped his basket, and fled.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Gotou said, dropping his own basket, ignoring the shattering of the beer bottles behind him as he gave chase.
Fandom: Samurai Flamenco
AU: Spyfic
Characters/Pairing: Gotou/Masayoshi
Rating: T
Length: 1601
Summary: "You shot someone right in the head!" "Yeah, and a 'thank you' wouldn't be entirely out of order."
The supply closet was suffocatingly tiny, it smelled of cleaning solvents and stale smoke. Gotou stood with his back against the door as his companion crouched down low, tech plugged in to the power outlet. It was the only light source and it cast the room in a sickly green glow.
Another patrol hurried past, Gotou counted the clicks of their boots on the tile outside in the hall. They had ditched the earpieces and most of the armor two floors up, the chatter had gone silent on the channel once Hashimoto’s guards realized that their quarry was listening in. “Are you almost done?” Gotou asked, head tilted back against the door, the comforting weight of a pistol in his hands.
“Patience,” his partner said, in the most irritating manner. “Is a virtue.”
“I knew there was a reason I worked alone,” Gotou muttered.
“There.” After a moment, the greenish hue clicked off and they were left in total darkness. “That ought to give them something to really worry about.”
Gotou heard him stand up, felt the brush of his body and he straightened. “What did you do?” Gotou asked, unsure of how, if anything had changed at all.
There was a long moment of silence.
The alarm was faint, but audible even through the supply closet’s door. “Did you trip the fire alarm?” Gotou said, exasperated. “That’s seriously at a fifth-grade level.”
“Not when you have to get through three layers of security to find the proper switch that actually alerts the fire department when the alarms go off,” his companion said. “We can use the confusion to get out of here. Without,” he added, clearly for Gotou’s benefit. “Shooting everyone between here and the lobby.”
“You say that like I’m looking to leave a trail of bodies,” Gotou murmured. They really were uncomfortably close in this supply closet.
“You shot someone right in the head!”
“Yeah, and a ‘thank you’ wouldn’t be entirely out of order.” Gotou put his hand on the knob, he hadn’t heard any footsteps in long enough, and the alarm was still going off, a steady muted wail. It hadn’t been shut off, so that meant the building was actually evacuating. When he opened the supply closet door, it was to an empty hallway. “Let’s go.”
For all the noise and chatter, it was a simple action to join a milling crowd of people by an elevator bank. They were office workers from the middle of the building, disturbed from the midday routine by the emergency sirens. He wasn’t given a second glance, his weapon tucked away in the back of his pants, button-down shirt pulled loose and covering the bulge neatly.
Gotou didn’t linger, finding his way to the stairwell and starting down the steps quickly, his new companion several steps behind. “Ah,” he said, stopping suddenly and Gotou hesitated, looking back up the stairwell at him. He was patting the pockets of his trousers, looking troubled. “I forgot something!”
“You’re kidding,” Gotou said, watching as he bounded down the handful of stairs past Gotou and then moving to follow. “We don’t have time for-”
Gotou’s eyebrows shot up when he raised up on his toes, smooth like a ballet dancer, caught him by the front of his shirt and kissed him.I
t was only a split second to startle him - then Gotou shoved him off, both hands on his chest. He wobbled back but didn’t lose his balance, blue eyes glinting in the stairwell’s dim light. “What the hell-” Gotou said, eyes flashing - and his companion smirked at him, pink little flash of his tongue as he wet his lips.
“My thanks,” he said slyly. “For before.”
“Kissing guys is not a thank-you-” Gotou snarled, and didn’t react in time as his companion vaulted the railing down to the next flight of stairs and then took them running, two at a time.
The realization struck him in an instant, and a quick pocket check confirmed that the thumb drive was now missing - or more accurately, in the hands of the other guy. “Son of a bitch,” Gotou yelled - and the door on a landing a flight up banged open. Without waiting around to see who was piling through the door, Gotou took off after the sandy-haired man.
Konno was a man of technology. His office was neat and clean, white and modern with a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that faced out to the busy city streets. He could often be found sitting with his feet up on the desk and a tablet in his lap - but today when Gotou let himself in he was standing, back to the door and cell phone to his ear.
Two days had passed. He’d been checked out and vetted and made to stay put in a hotel room with nothing but basic cable to keep him company, and that (among other things) had left Gotou in a very foul mood. He stood quietly just inside the door, awaiting acknowledgment, and Konno half-turned and stared at him before looking away again and ending his phone conversation curtly. He set the phone down gently on the desk, and Gotou braced for it.
“Three months,” Konno said, turning to face Gotou and leaning back against his desk. “Three months of intel down the drain, just like that.”
Gotou did not move from his position nor offer up any words of apology, because he was incensed himself. He’d lost the data, and he’d lost and opportunity - and worst of all, From Beyond now had him in their database. They’d see him coming, now. “Three months, and all I have to show for it…” Konno raised his empty hands, palm up. “Is a name.”
“It’s more than we had before,” Gotou murmured, and Konno gave him a sharp look.
“You don’t have any idea who else would have their fingers in the pie,” Konno said. “We haven’t been able to track down your brown-haired cross-dresser, either.”
It was hard resisting the urge to touch his lips, because that’s all Gotou had been thinking about for two days. “No, sir.”
“You’re placed on suspension,” Konno said, waved his hand in Gotou’s direction. “Indefinitely. Until we can figure out a new angle to go at this from.”
Suspension? “But-” Gotou started, caught himself and took a deep, angry breath.
“It’s not a punishment, Gotou-kun,” Konno said, his head tilted back. “You being in the field right now could compromise our other agents.”
“Yes, sir.” Which was true, and he knew it was true, but it didn’t make the anger and disappointment burn any less bright. “Understood.”
“Good.” Konno picked up his phone. “Make yourself scarce, someone will be in touch once things have died down a little with From Beyond.”
Gotou gritted his teeth, nodded, and let himself out of the office.
Gotou had a small little apartment a decent enough distance away from the headquarters that he sequestered himself in. He didn’t stay there often - it smelled of must when he unlocked the door - and he spent much of his day opening windows and airing the place out. Suspension. He’d never been placed on suspension before, told to take a vacation or a hiatus, but not this.
Whatever had been on that thumb drive must have been big.
He forgot how hard it was to sleep on this mattress, not quite full-sized, much smaller than the plush hotel room beds he’d been sleeping on for the past few months, and Gotou ended up standing out side and smoking a cigarette at quarter past two in the morning, before deciding to walk to the twenty-four hour convenient mart about a mile from the apartment.
There were a pair of teenagers squatting outside the store - Gotou ignored them, walked to the wall of beverages and started browsing around. He didn’t have anything in the under-counter refrigerator, so he pulled a six-pack of beer and decided on a bag of corn chips. He reached for a bag decorated in some sentai team he didn’t recognize at the same time as someone else, and Gotou darted his hand back, glancing in his direction to offer an apology.
He stopped dead, and stared.
Blue eyes widened more as they recognized each other, standing side by side in the aisle of a convenience mart.
“Nope,” blue-eyes brown-hair said, dropped his basket, and fled.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Gotou said, dropping his own basket, ignoring the shattering of the beer bottles behind him as he gave chase.
