Samurai Flamenco (Nightbreed) - Gifts & Curses [12] [Gotoyoshi]

[scriveyner]

Title: gifts & curses [12]
Fandom: Samurai Flamenco
AU: Nightbreed
Characters/Pairing: Gotou/Masayoshi, Keiko, Masanori
Rating: T
Length: 2054
Summary: Focus on the kids.



Focus on the kids.

Gotou stood in the doorway of the small room and looked in on them both, sleeping curled together tightly, fur overlapping and heads buried. There was so little of them visible it was hard to believe it was two mostly-grown wolves under the bed. They hadn’t returned to human form even when it was safe for them to do so, here in this safe-house that Koji and his network of preternatural beasties had set up.

He inhaled deeply, through his nose. Gotou had been fighting the overwhelming panic since he got the first phone call on his cell in the early morning hours, it had coalesced in his chest and made every breath feel weighted, like he was trying to breathe water instead of air. The training had kicked in at first, separate himself from the situation, act as an officer first, take care of the cubs, make certain that they were safe - take a step back. Masayoshi had been through so much weirdness in his life, mostly in the time that Gotou had known him - this should just be a drop in the bucket.

The broken chain of his wedding ring was pressing a deep pattern into the flesh of Gotou’s palm. The metal had been warm still when he picked it up - Keiko had been holding it, keeping it close - and he could imagine he felt Masayoshi’s warmth through that contact.

The door to the apartment safe-house opened and Gotou’s head shot up as Kennichi entered, followed by Koji and a woman that Gotou didn’t recognize, carrying a few bags. Clothing, Gotou realized belatedly. Keiko and Masanori’s clothes were in tatters.

Kennichi nodded his head at Gotou, while Koji quirked a smile that faded once he caught Gotou’s expression. “We’ll find him,” he said by way of greeting, and then inclined his head back at the woman. “This is Shika.”

She bowed her head a little and gave a faint smile, but did not speak. Then she lifted the bags in her hands and gestured broadly.

“I’ll take them,” Koji said, taking the bags. Hands freed, Shika brushed her long brown hair back and gestured again, quickly - and Gotou realized, finally, that she was using sign language.

“Is she,” Gotou started to ask, and Shika looked at him, her pale eyes slightly otherwordly. “Are you deaf?” he finished, feeling foolish.

She shook her head and tapped her throat with two fingers, then continued to sign quickly to Koji. At Koji’s blank stare, she made another huffed noise and pulled out her cell phone, typing quickly.

“She’s not deaf,” Kennichi reappeared from around the corner. “Shika is a selkie, and Koji doesn’t know the first thing about signing.”

“Excuse me for not being all-knowing,” Koji said, and thrust the bags into Gotou’s arms. “We didn’t know what size the kids were so we had to guess, that’s why we brought Shika. She bought the kids clothes when we had them before we left them with you.”

Shika looked up from her phone and smiled again at Gotou. “Thank you,” Gotou said. She curtsied this time, one hand on the pink flair of her skirt, and signed to Kennichi who nodded his head.

“We’ll see you later then, thank you, Shika,” he said. She waved her hand a little and let herself out the door - and Koji locked it behind her.

“I didn’t know selkies were mute,” Gotou said.

“Know many selkies, then?” Koji murmured, and Gotou flushed a little.

“Her voice was taken at the same time that her skin was,” Kennichi said. “Some selkies have siren in their heritage, and they didn’t want to chance it.”

Gotou held up his hand, trying to process this. “Selkies and sirens are - I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this, and yet.”

“You know, somewhere between one and five percent of the population is magical in nature,” Koji reminded him, and Gotou sighed loudly.

“How is it that I spent years between leaving the pack and meeting Masayoshi and not running across a single other person then?” he asked argumentatively as he sat himself on dingy couch in the safe house’s main room. The distraction of others, especially those he could argue with, was starting to fade and the mere mention of Masayoshi’s name made his throat close up in fear. Where was Masayoshi? What had happened?

He leaned forward and pressed his closed hand to his chest, felt the cool metal of his own ring press into the skin of his chest with the motion, and exhaled. He almost jumped when he felt a soft touch on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Kennichi with a mug of something steaming in his hand.

“It’s just tea,” he said, almost apologetically. “The coffee the last guy left behind bears closer resemblance to transmission fluid than anything drinkable.”

Gotou took the mug from Kennichi, and watched as the red-haired wolf sat himself on the opposite couch. Koji remained standing, hands on the back of an armchair that matched the couch Gotou was seated on in color and fabric.

“So,” Kennichi prompted, his tone softer than Gotou expected.

He clutched the mug between his hands, the chain of Masayoshi’s ring threaded through his fingers, ring itself pressed to the palm of his hand, and he looked down into the drink itself. “What do you know about white wolves?”

#

His clothes felt weird and rough, uncomfortable in a way that Masayoshi was unfamiliar with. He was a model and an actor, he remembered that much, and he was at home in just about any outfit he’d been asked to wear - but these clothes just felt wrong. He sat on the ground and resisted the urge to wiggle around and take off his shirt.

The room he had woken up in was one of the few finished rooms on the floor. After he’d been dressed and eaten he’d padded barefoot out of the room into an unfinished office building. There were exposed girders, and the walls hadn’t gone up yet on this floor, although the outer walls had been completed. The sunlight through the dirty glass, and the general layer of filth over everything led him to suspect that this was an abandoned construction project - an oddity in such a busy, always-changing city where space was at a premium.

Curiously, he could not find an elevator. Or stairs. He tried every door that was up and found them all unlocked - a water closet, a small kitchen area, another few rooms with beds made up to resemble hotels - but no exit. Also, no dark-haired boy, who he knew he recognized, but the name escaped him. Something foreign - he’d think of it eventually. His memory had been running in circles for hours, and it was frustrating.

He kept himself busy by trying to figure out how to get off this floor - when he stood at the dingy windows and stared out, it was down to a semi-busy, unfamiliar street. They were at least ten stories up, though, so it was unlikely anyone could see him.

Masayoshi put his palm on the glass, and stared at his hand. He was human - but he wasn’t. He was a werewolf, he’d been one for years, he could feel the moon in his blood even now, it called to him like a living thing, pulling him like the ocean tides. It wasn’t full, but that didn’t matter, he could feel it still, could see it fat and heavy behind his closed eyes - and Masayoshi’s eyes snapped open, he yanked his hand away from the glass and took a step back, his breath loud and echoing in the empty space.

He could feel it, little pinpricks under his skin, like what happened in that space before the moon rose - but this was daylight, the middle of the day, he couldn’t be getting ready to change, that was impossible.

A door slammed. It sounded like it was right behind him, loud as a gunshot - and Masayoshi leaped into the air, came down on all fours, teeth bared and fur bristling, clothing shredded behind him. It was the dark-haired boy, the boy who smelled of blood and - something else, something he didn’t quite understand. He froze when he saw Masayoshi, his back flat against the door he’d emerged from, and Masayoshi moved slowly, deliberately, toward him.

“You’ve ruined your clothes,” the boy said crossly, but he was watching Masayoshi carefully, pupils shrinking, eyes inhuman in a different way than his turned, before the moon rose. “Again.”

The growl escaped his throat before he could stifle it, but why would he want to?

“If you kill me,” the boy’s voice was level, calm, but he could see the tremors of his arms, hands pressed flat against the door behind him. “It will set us both back quite a bit, Hazama-san.”

Hazama. No one called him Hazama unless they were proposing a business deal. Masayoshi wet his lips, found himself human again, crouched on the bare concrete. “Masayoshi,” he said, his throat not quite caught up with him, voice forming around the syllables oddly.

The boy exhaled, relaxing just slightly. “If you’re going to practice changing, you shouldn’t be wearing your clothes,” he said, and Masayoshi held up his hand and stared at it again.

“Changing,” Masayoshi repeated, as if he was learning the word for the first time. It brought to mind television, sentai - henshin transformation sequences, comfort, warmth, the smell of stale cigarette smoke…. Masayoshi curled his hand into a fist, pressed it against his chest and closed his eyes. Why couldn’t he remember, it was important, so important - golden eyes, no - not always, gold, dark….

He lifted his head, tears streaked down his cheeks, and stared at the other, this stranger. “Why can’t I remember?” he asked hoarsely. “What is happening to me, why-? I’m a werewolf, how is this happening?”

“Are you so certain,” the boy asked, still leaned back against the door. “That you are?”

#

They sat side by side at attention, ears upright and muzzles on tightly. “Three left,” the woman said with a sigh, tapping her pen to the clipboard in disappointment. One of the white wolves flicked an ear at the noise, but there was no other visible movement from the animals except the rise and fall of their chests.

“Four, if you count this mongrel,” the man in the hat said. He aimed a kick at the body of the white wolf with one eye, laying on its side in the sawdust, blood seeping from its mouth.

“You’ll kill it,” the woman said idly, not even looking up. “He can still be useful to us.”

“We know of two replacements,” the third man in the room spoke finally. They had forgotten his presence just that quickly, dressed all in black, seated in a chair observing them.

“Three,” the man in the hat kicked the white wolf again, and the beast whimpered in pain. He looked up at the creature in black, for he wasn’t a man at all. “And this one’s an adult.”