Samurai Flamenco (Nightbreed) - Gifts & Curses [4] [Gotoyoshi]

[scriveyner]

Title: gifts & curses [4]
Fandom: Samurai Flamenco
AU: Nightbreed
Characters/Pairing: Gotou/Masayoshi, Masanori, Keiko
Rating: T
Length: 1217
Summary: "Jeez, which one did it?"



He found Masayoshi sitting outside the bedroom that had been cordoned off, back to the door and nursing a large bite on his forearm. “Jeez,” Gotou said, as Masayoshi wrapped his tee shirt around the wound. “Which one did it?”

“It's kinda lucky that I'm already a werewolf,” Masayoshi said lightly, clearly in a bit of pain.

“Born wolves can't turn people,” Gotou reminded him, and Masayoshi looked up at him. “I read it,” Gotou clarified. “In Kaze's notebook. They don't carry the ability to turn people.”

“Ah.” Masayoshi thunked his head back against the door – if Gotou listened hard he could hear the scrabble of claws across bare floor, and a soft growling. “Why won't they trust me, Hidenori? I want to help.”

Gotou sat down next to Masayoshi. It had been two weeks already, and they'd never seen the kids in human form – they stayed mostly in the room, half-grown wolf forms huddled together, growling like they were injured. There was evidence they had been human – Masayoshi had heard a toilet flush, one day – but any time he approached he got attacked.

Masayoshi laid his head on Gotou's shoulder, and Gotou put his arm around Masayoshi. “They're traumatized, probably. Kennichi said that the place they were being held at was a real shithole.” Plus, they miss their real parents – but Gotou wasn't going to add that to the pile of things that Masayoshi was stressed over.

“It's lucky that group is already dead,” Masayoshi said, in a matter-of-fact tone. “Because if they weren't, they'd be that way soon.”

Gotou's heart jumped into his throat. He wondered, sometimes, if Masayoshi noticed the way he oh-so-casually talked about killing people sometimes, a thing he'd never really done before, before Gotou had bit him. “You wouldn't kill them,” he said softly, fingers rubbing into Masayoshi's back, and was quietly troubled when Masayoshi didn't respond.

#

“Why'd you have to pick the first fucking train of the day to leave on?” Gotou said, travel mug of coffee in his hand as he stood on the platform with Masayoshi. “We could have, I dunno, enjoyed the morning more.”

“Talk to Ishihara-san about that,” Masayoshi said. For it being only a little after five a.m., they were both bright eyed-and bushy-tailed – Masayoshi's hair was still damp from their shared shower, fluffing out slightly in the morning humidity. “You'll text me every day?”

“Like you even have to ask,” Gotou said.

They were the only two people on the platform yet – a handful of townspeople took the train to commute, but most who lived in the small community worked there as well. It let Gotou feel safer holding Masayoshi's hand – although the entire community knew their head police officer was married to a man, and no one bothered with it. There had been a bigger spike in salacious gossip when it became known that they'd taken in some foster kids.

Keiko and Masanori hadn't come home the previous night – or yet in the morning – but they'd done that before, stashed their school uniforms and turned up at school on time, wearing the same clothes with nary a person noticing. They had likely forgotten that Masayoshi was leaving in the morning, and now they were stuck with Gotou, the cranky one, for an entire week. (And a half.)

“Are you staying in one place for the tour?” Gootu asked. “I might come to visit you on the weekend. The kids'll be fine, I'll leave food in the fridge-”

“And then have me show up for an interview late, with sex hair and hickeys that the make-up people are gonna discuss for a week?” Masayoshi said, and laughed. “Don't leave them, they'll get up to shit in your absence.”

“They get up to shit with us here, what makes my absence the vital thing?”

Masayoshi said, quietly, “They're good kids. They miss their parents.”

“And Koji will find them. It just takes time, especially when you have to involve the international community.” Gotou nodded to a pair of younger men, wearing suits and ties and carrying briefcases – salarymen who commuted hours each day. They acknowledged him and moved down the platform, away.

The train was coming, they could hear it. Masayoshi leaned into his shoulder a moment, and Gotou caught him, turned him and kissed him, hand on his neck. He didn't care anymore, what people thought – hadn't for a long while. “I'll be watching the interviews,” he said, and Masayoshi smiled at him, kissed him a second time, a quick peck, as the train doors opened.

Then he boarded, and Gotou stood there and watched the train depart, coffee in his hand and feeling cold and empty, despite the heat of the summer morning.

#

“Headquarters called twice,” Ueno said as Gotou walked through the door of the koban. He glanced up at the wall clock – it wasn't even seven yet, he wasn't late.

“What's going on that they'd call this early?” he asked, setting his coffee on the desk.

“Apparently they're sending some additional officers to staff this koban,” Ueno said, clearly excited by this prospect. “Your requests got seen, finally.”

Gotou exhaled and sat down. It was one thing, to be in charge of a koban himself, and with one other officer it was more a partnership than a subordinate-superior relationship, but with more officers? That was going to be … different. “Did they say when they're going to arrive?”

“Today, apparently.” Ueno said. “I'm gonna wait, I want to meet them-”

“You've been here for fourteen hours today,” Gotou said. “Shoo. Go get some sleep, if we're getting more officers you'll have plenty of chances to meet them.”

Ueno sighed and stood up. “Understood, senpai.” He hesitated a moment. “If one's a hot chick....”

“They don't usually assign women to koban that are outside of the city,” Gotou said. “And I'm gonna pretend you didn't phrase it like that and chalk it up to you being a little sleep deprived.”

New officers, huh? Gotou watched Ueno head toward the changing room. It would be a nice change of pace – and it would also mean he could take a little more time off to help Masayoshi out attempting to keep a leash on the two terrors. This was definitely a good thing.

#

Gotou had his phone face down on the desk, so he missed the alert when it chimed through, and swiped past it when he did look at his phone. If he'd been paying more attention, and not distracted by Otsuka-san's complaints about her neighbor, he'd have seen that it was a notification from that card, he was tracking.

It came from the next town over - at the train station, two tickets purchased.