“After I’m done.” Only so much can be done at any time, after all, and the sooner they get to his wounds the better. By now, the numbing agent has to have taken effect, so Chikusa takes a breath and starts to slice through damaged skin. So much care has to be taken around the joints, where the separation from skin and bone is so thin, and he’s almost not sure how he manages to go through with it so calmly. Because…
He’s still scared. Still terrified of what he’ll find, of discovering just how much Ken has been hurt.
There’s nothing but silence from him as he works, fighting back the terror by keeping his hands moving. What if he can’t even move his legs again- Slice, clean and simple, done a dozen times before. What if we need a surgeon- Pin the skin back, keep it out of the way, and he takes a deep breath as he goes to inspect the bone…
Fractured. Of course. But, as he stares at it, delicately inspecting the injury… It’s not displaced. His brain stutter-stops for a moment before he’s racing to think of the implications. That means no surgery, he thinks, which means all he has to do is stitch the skin back and keep the leg straight in a splint, or a cast, he’s done splints in the past-
There’s a strange feeling in his eyes, a kind of tug, but Chikusa is so detached from it, so unfamiliar with it, that he doesn’t even realize he’s started to cry as he quickly starts to stitch Ken back up. “I can fix this,” he rasps, so focused on his work that he’s oblivious to his voice’s own roughness or the tears slowly sliding down his cheeks.
Ken doesn't really feel much of anything, thanks to Chikusa's anesthetic. He's also not particularly bothered by Chikusa's cutting his legs open, even though he's conscious and bleeding and if he lifts his head he can watch.
They've been through worse. When it comes to most things, they've always been through worse.
Still, it's kind of weird to watch, not to mention boring. So he watches Chikusa instead...and when he sees those tears, he moves on instinct.
Chikusa hasn't cried since Mukuro saved them from Estraneo. Even when the Vindice caught Mukuro again, and Chikusa was as upset as Ken's ever seen him, his eyes had stayed dry. But Ken remembers him crying from when they were little. Chikusa would be dead silent, and then suddenly he'd be a shaking, crying mess with no warning. It had always scared and upset Ken, the way crying just exploded out of Chikusa for no reason - delayed reaction wasn't a thing Ken could understand very well even now, much less when he was a child - but he'd discovered that Chikusa calmed down easier whenever Ken curled up with him. Chikusa would cling to him and slowly wind down.
This...isn't like that at all. Never mind that it's been so long since Ken can remember Chikusa crying; he's never seen him cry like this, silently, like he doesn't even know the tears are there. Somehow that's even more unsettling, but Ken's response is the same as it always is whenever he senses Chikusa needs comfort - he reaches out. The fact that Chikusa is slicing into his legs, that Chikusa's got blades centimeters from veins that would kill Ken in minutes if they got cut...it doesn't occur to Ken to worry about them.
Chikusa is crying.
"Kakipi, why're you crying...?" He's never had to ask that before.
Except there’s something dripping onto the back of his hand, and Chikusa raises it up to stare uncomprehendingly at the drops along his skin. Good thing he does; his hands jerk as Ken reaches out to him. “Ken-” And there it is, a strangled sensation to his voice that even he can’t deny.
He… feels lost. And, for once, it’s a feeling that shows on his face as he looks back to Ken: brows drawn together, eyes and cheeks still wet, almost like the child he once was when they first looked out onto the carnage Mukuro had wrought and his outstretched hand an offering.
Chikusa tries again, stoic voice trembling. “Ken, I told you… You’re not supposed to move, I have to stitch up your leg, and set your leg, and your arms-” He takes a breath, shoulders shuddering, like that will do anything for how strange everything feels.
But Ken's not going to be deterred this time. He's seen Chikusa cry before, after all, no matter how rare it's been in recent memory, and it's always upset him. But it's also something he knows how to make better, at least to some degree.
So his open, bleeding legs, his broken bones, his aching shoulders and mangled wrists - they're shoved aside. Even Chikusa's enforced obedience is discarded. He lifts himself enough to dig his fingers into Chikusa's clothes - even without his channels, those nails are as good as claws - and jerks Chikusa to him, wrapping his arms around him and burying his nose against his partner's neck.
Honestly, there may be an element of comforting himself in this. But Chikusa crying is definitely the main focus, something he can't ignore or allow.
"Don't cry, stupid," he mutters, and it's exactly like they're kids again. There's even the same upset, choked up quality to Ken's voice that was so familiar back then, like Chikusa crying is enough to almost trigger him doing so, either in pain or sympathy. The words are similar, too - if not verbatim to what they told each other back then, it's still close enough. "I'm here, so don't cry."
Ken, if your legs just stay sliced open indefinitely without Chikusa stitching them shut, you won't be here much longer. But that's not the way Ken thinks, if Ken is thinking at all right now. It's reaction and instinct, blind and powerful and not concerned with common sense.
That is to say, he feels like a child again, knowing that he’s not, tentatively safe for a few seconds in the burning heat that Ken has almost always seemed to give off. All of it is just- too nostalgic.
His distress, the smell of coldness and blood in the air, Ken wrapped around him… And that gut wrenching need to never let go of his partner, to never be separated. It shake him to his core, always has, and he almost doesn’t let himself pull away.
But… He has to. Tears still staining his face and now Ken’s shirt, he pulls away with a slow but wet and ragged gasp. “Ken, you’re being an idiot, you’re going to bleed to death.”
"You can't fix me up if you're crying anyway, byon!" Ken contests hotly, even though he's feeling woozy already. Whether it's blood loss or exhaustion or starvation or pain or some hideous cocktail of them all, it doesn't really matter. He's not in a good state, and Chikusa will see he's pale. In fact, when Chikusa tears himself free, Ken falls back down with nothing to hold onto.
Ken's never cared about himself nearly as much as he's cared about the few people who mean anything to him. Seeing Chikusa's distress means that's all he can think about.
“I’ll fix you,” Chikusa mutters stubbornly, hastily moving into action. His quick hands have been one of his few blessings in life; he threads a needle through Ken’s skin to patch him back up together with well practiced speed. All the while, his mind is repeating in relief so potent that it’s a miracle he hasn’t fallen to his knees yet.
He can fix this. He can fix this.
Once that’s done, he sweeps an unsteady hand through Ken’s hair. It’s not a fond gesture he makes often, but everything about this situation has him feeling unlike himself. For a second, it felt as though he’d be alone for the first time in his life, that Ken might actually die, and that…
It only happens in a second before he pushes away, gathering the necessary supplies in the room so that he can make some splints for Ken’s wrists and leg. The other one he’s still not sure about yet, but it’s obvious that Ken isn’t in the condition for Chikusa to go poking about in it. That’s fine. “Just stay still through this, and I’ll get you food,” he promises his partner, starting with the leg first.
Ken leans into that touch weakly for a moment before Chikusa pulls his hand away, but with the blood loss and the pain and the exhaustion and the not-yet-abated starvation, even Ken's resilient body is giving out. By the time Chikusa finishes gathering supplies for the splints, Ken's barely conscious, eyelids fluttering a little at the promise of food.
It’s going to be okay. Chikusa repeats the words, over and over again, hastily working on splinting Ken’s limbs. It’s going to be okay. They’ve survived worse than this. They’ve survived hell, and a few other things besides. Ken will survive this.
When he’s finished up Ken’s arms, he doesn’t let himself stop. If he stops, even for a moment’s breath, Chikusa isn’t sure he’ll be able to start up again. That’s something he can’t do. So he cups Ken’s face again, tipping tiny drops of water into his mouth to see if that helps or at least wakes him up a little more.
Ken does stir a little, his throat working as the water touches his tongue. His eyes flicker open slightly. "K'kipi," he mutters, not particularly distinctly.
It's just as well he's out of it, honestly. He'd hate the splints. They feel like restraints, and only his dazed state and stillness stand between Ken tolerating them, and Ken trying to tear them off in a fit of kneejerk panicked rage.
“I’m still here, Ken.” Another few careful tips of water, making sure Ken doesn’t drink too much and throws it all up, before Chikusa sets the bottle to the side and starts to cut small slices of fruit. One small step at a time, and they’ll get through this. “Here- careful.” He presses a small chunk of banana to his mouth. Hopefully the squishiness means that there’ll be no problems even if he does just swallow the piece whole.
It's not hard to get Ken to eat, provided he's at least semi-conscious; it never is. And Chikusa doesn't appear to need to worry about Ken choking; Ken also doesn't need much excuse to bite things, and once the banana's in his mouth he chews automatically.
His eyes crack halfway open, looking up at Chikusa; they're glazed and unfocused, but they do seem to be aware of him. They flicker as Chikusa's hands work, loosely tracking his movements.
"Muk'ro...?" The tone he mumbles the word in - minus the honorific; it's the way they'd said it back in Italy - suggests that he's asking something about Mukuro, not mis-identifying Chikusa. (Not surprising; neither of them would ever expect this kind of care directly from Mukuro's hands, no matter how out of it they were.) Knowing Ken, he's almost certainly asking where Mukuro is; he fusses about that enough even when they're both perfectly healthy.
While Ken is still in any capacity conscious, Chikusa is going to take advantage of it. He keeps slicing small bits of fruit, wondering if he should look for meat whenever Ken falls fully asleep. After all, starvation has robbed him of all sorts of vitamins and nutrients. Water and fruit isn’t going to cut it.
“He’s going to be here tomorrow,” he promises his partner, pressing another slice of banana into his mouth and then following it up with a few grapes. This is good. Encouraging. So long as Ken can still eat, it’s fine. “And we’ll make sure you’re alright… I’ll clean up everything before we leave, Ken.”
"Don't wanna bath," Ken grumbles after his current mouthful. It's hard to tell if this misunderstanding of 'clean up' is a product of disorientation and blood loss, or if it's just Ken's usual lack of intellect.
Still, he's complaining. Another good sign, probably.
A Ken that can still whine about bathing is a Ken that’s perfectly fine. Chikusa adds it to his list of justifications, even as he sets down the knife he’d been using to slice up food. “I’ll be there. Maybe Mukuro-sama, if I can ask him. Now go to sleep, Ken.”
Any second now, he’s sure that the Corvo members will wake up fully. When he goes to take care of them… He’d like Ken to be resting instead of worrying about them.
Ken hardly needs the command; his eyes barely seem to be able to stay open, with all things taken into account. "Don't leave, Kakipi," he mumbles, though by all appearances he drifts off so quickly after the words leave his mouth that either he didn't expect an answer, or he couldn't maintain consciousness long enough to hear one.
It's hard to know if Ken wanted Chikusa to stay with him physically, or if he was worried Chikusa might be slipping away from him mentally again. Honestly, knowing Ken, he probably meant both. He's not likely to get either, but at least he's asleep (or unconscious; it's a fine line to draw right now) and won't know it.
For a few moments, Chikusa does just that. He stays right there with Ken, monitoring his condition, making sure that his leg is set properly and that he won’t bother his wrists, either. And…. Mostly, he just watches him sleep.
He’s alive. He’s alive, and he’ll recover. There’s even a chance, maybe, that his other leg is something Chikusa can fix himself. Maybe it’s a long shot, but it’s something to keep him going. And if nothing else, there’s always Mukuro-sama. Mukuro-sama will fix this, one way or another.
But soon the sounds of alarmed hisses and whispers from the hallway gets his attention, and he straightens up, hands going back into his pockets to find his needles and yoyos. Right…
The Corvi have a lot to answer for in regards to taking his partner.
Finding the perfect balance of poison to put into his needles is something that takes considerable effort. It’s why he tends to stick to a limited but proven selection in his needles, as much as he’s loathe to be so predictable. It’s a rare occasion that he can experiment so easily, finding that perfect balance. In that way, if there’s any silver lining to this, it’s that.
As he stands there, ignoring the vicious curses and desperate pleadings from the remaining Corvi as he patiently inflicts his needles through them… He can’t help but think of another place, below the earth, where torture and pain were a regular.
When he was young, he went back to the Estraneo Labs. Very young- he’d only had the briefest taste of freedom and fresh air before he’d snuck away from Mukuro and Ken (only numbers, then, not names, not yet). Even as a child, he’d seen the difference between him and the two other survivors of the massacre. He’d listened even before then, to the talk between the scientists of Mukuro’s eye, of Ken’s channels. It had been his one saving grace back then in the labs: so quiet, the scientists sometimes never noticed him at all when he listened to them talk, puzzling out their words.
He hadn’t been noticed when he went back, either, if only because the dull eyes of the dead could see nothing anymore. He’d picked through the discarded rotting corpses, searched tirelessly through the remnants of the labs, all for anything that could help him stay with the only two things in the world that he still knew. The only people that were familiar and who held his then tentative trust. Books, drugs, first aid- he’d gathered all he could in bags after bags, desperate.
When he’d left the smell of death and chemicals, he’d crumpled in a bush somewhere and vomited what little food he’d ever had since their escape.
Chikusa doesn’t do that now, for all the familiarity as he slowly and methodically goes through the Corvi, noting the effects of his poison and how much of it. Periodically, he checks the dummy phone he’d been given before coming to the mansion, and, hours later, it finally lights up with a message. It’s time to leave.
A snap of his wrist takes care of what few mafia are left behind, and Chikusa goes back into the room to search for a stretcher. It’ll be difficult to get Ken up the stairs, but a stretcher will make it easier. Then all he has to do is strap him in, get him up the stairs, into an escape vehicle…. And they can leave this place. They can go back to how things should be.
It feels like a long time before Ken wakes up next. It may be because it is a long time before Ken wakes up next.
What he wakes up to is blessed familiarity, though. The comforting, run-down ceiling of Kokuyo Land, the smell of their hideout in his nose. And the pain in his limbs has faded so significantly that he finds they barely hurt at all unless he moves them...which, of course, is his first instinct to do, in his own bleary surprise at feeling so much different.
He doesn't immediately process the dull warmth at his side, perhaps because that, too, is so familiar that its presence is almost unremarkable. Which means that Chikusa is probably going to raise his voice right in Ken's ear and Ken is probably going to jump out of his skin.
The entire time, Chikusa has refused to leave Ken’s side.
Mukuro has allowed it, doing very much the same with eyes that quietly burned whenever he glanced towards the blond’s condition and his gloved hands a reassuring presence as they’d stroked through Chikusa’s hair. So quiet and reliable, he hadn’t argued for Chikusa to be there. In fact, perhaps in a way, he was so reliable that it was fine to have him there in Mukuro’s place, like he is now, curled up at Ken’s side and only half in a state of awareness. It’s the movement that snaps him out of it, his head rising up. “Ken?”
Ken does jump a little, head turning to look at Chikusa. "Kakipi?" He relaxes again at the sight of him, no longer in any rush to move his injured body, simply peering at his partner. "What happened, byon? How long was I sleeping?"
Looking at Chikusa will reveal that his eyes are red and the skin beneath them are tired purple. For all that he's been exhausted in his concern, it hasn't been the kind of exhaustion that's been conducive to sleep. The opposite, in fact. Wearily, he rubs at his face.
"It's- a couple of days. Mukuro-sama said it'd be good for you. How do you feel?"
"Better," Ken replies readily, even as he rolls over to face Chikusa. There's twinges of pain from a number of areas in his body at the movement, but he doesn't care. "You look like shit, Kakipi." And he reaches for Chikusa's face, dragging down Chikusa's bottom eyelid with a rough thumb and ignoring the bandages around his own wrists in the process.
“Ken…” But he can’t even deny it. Chikusa is well aware that he’s been a mess from start to finish with all of this. All he can do is sigh, reaching up to cradle Ken’s hand in one of his own. “You keep moving too much… If you do that, then you’ll just make your injuries worse again.” This is why it’s such a troublesome matter when Ken gets severely hurt. He never wants to stay still.
Chikusa's response is a predictable whine. It's true; Ken hates being injured, if only because it restricts his ability to do whatever he wants. "When can I move around again, Kakipi? I wanna do stuff. I wanna fight, byon. I wanna have sex. I want gum, byon. I want to see Mukuro-sama."
Basically, all the things he couldn't do or couldn't have while he was captured. Knowing Ken, he'd do all of them at once if he could.
Well. All these questions are almost hilariously predictable. Chikusa answers them in the same quiet bland tone he always uses with Ken when he’s shooting down his ideas. “No. Maybe if you’re still. You can have some when I give you real food. Mukuro-sama will come back soon after he finishes some things.”
But that’s logic. Logic doesn’t have anything for an upset Ken, especially when it’s telling him things he doesn’t want to hear. So Chikusa tries for something else, reaching over to thread his fingers through what’s slightly oily but not actually dirty hair; he cleaned his partner when changing out his bandages. “Just… let your bones heal properly, Ken. Please.”
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
warmskies) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
badliifechoiice22016-01-08 10:36 am
no subject
He’s still scared. Still terrified of what he’ll find, of discovering just how much Ken has been hurt.
There’s nothing but silence from him as he works, fighting back the terror by keeping his hands moving. What if he can’t even move his legs again- Slice, clean and simple, done a dozen times before. What if we need a surgeon- Pin the skin back, keep it out of the way, and he takes a deep breath as he goes to inspect the bone…
Fractured. Of course. But, as he stares at it, delicately inspecting the injury… It’s not displaced. His brain stutter-stops for a moment before he’s racing to think of the implications. That means no surgery, he thinks, which means all he has to do is stitch the skin back and keep the leg straight in a splint, or a cast, he’s done splints in the past-
There’s a strange feeling in his eyes, a kind of tug, but Chikusa is so detached from it, so unfamiliar with it, that he doesn’t even realize he’s started to cry as he quickly starts to stitch Ken back up. “I can fix this,” he rasps, so focused on his work that he’s oblivious to his voice’s own roughness or the tears slowly sliding down his cheeks.
no subject
They've been through worse. When it comes to most things, they've always been through worse.
Still, it's kind of weird to watch, not to mention boring. So he watches Chikusa instead...and when he sees those tears, he moves on instinct.
Chikusa hasn't cried since Mukuro saved them from Estraneo. Even when the Vindice caught Mukuro again, and Chikusa was as upset as Ken's ever seen him, his eyes had stayed dry. But Ken remembers him crying from when they were little. Chikusa would be dead silent, and then suddenly he'd be a shaking, crying mess with no warning. It had always scared and upset Ken, the way crying just exploded out of Chikusa for no reason - delayed reaction wasn't a thing Ken could understand very well even now, much less when he was a child - but he'd discovered that Chikusa calmed down easier whenever Ken curled up with him. Chikusa would cling to him and slowly wind down.
This...isn't like that at all. Never mind that it's been so long since Ken can remember Chikusa crying; he's never seen him cry like this, silently, like he doesn't even know the tears are there. Somehow that's even more unsettling, but Ken's response is the same as it always is whenever he senses Chikusa needs comfort - he reaches out. The fact that Chikusa is slicing into his legs, that Chikusa's got blades centimeters from veins that would kill Ken in minutes if they got cut...it doesn't occur to Ken to worry about them.
Chikusa is crying.
"Kakipi, why're you crying...?" He's never had to ask that before.
no subject
Except there’s something dripping onto the back of his hand, and Chikusa raises it up to stare uncomprehendingly at the drops along his skin. Good thing he does; his hands jerk as Ken reaches out to him. “Ken-” And there it is, a strangled sensation to his voice that even he can’t deny.
He… feels lost. And, for once, it’s a feeling that shows on his face as he looks back to Ken: brows drawn together, eyes and cheeks still wet, almost like the child he once was when they first looked out onto the carnage Mukuro had wrought and his outstretched hand an offering.
Chikusa tries again, stoic voice trembling. “Ken, I told you… You’re not supposed to move, I have to stitch up your leg, and set your leg, and your arms-” He takes a breath, shoulders shuddering, like that will do anything for how strange everything feels.
no subject
So his open, bleeding legs, his broken bones, his aching shoulders and mangled wrists - they're shoved aside. Even Chikusa's enforced obedience is discarded. He lifts himself enough to dig his fingers into Chikusa's clothes - even without his channels, those nails are as good as claws - and jerks Chikusa to him, wrapping his arms around him and burying his nose against his partner's neck.
Honestly, there may be an element of comforting himself in this. But Chikusa crying is definitely the main focus, something he can't ignore or allow.
"Don't cry, stupid," he mutters, and it's exactly like they're kids again. There's even the same upset, choked up quality to Ken's voice that was so familiar back then, like Chikusa crying is enough to almost trigger him doing so, either in pain or sympathy. The words are similar, too - if not verbatim to what they told each other back then, it's still close enough. "I'm here, so don't cry."
Ken, if your legs just stay sliced open indefinitely without Chikusa stitching them shut, you won't be here much longer. But that's not the way Ken thinks, if Ken is thinking at all right now. It's reaction and instinct, blind and powerful and not concerned with common sense.
no subject
That is to say, he feels like a child again, knowing that he’s not, tentatively safe for a few seconds in the burning heat that Ken has almost always seemed to give off. All of it is just- too nostalgic.
His distress, the smell of coldness and blood in the air, Ken wrapped around him… And that gut wrenching need to never let go of his partner, to never be separated. It shake him to his core, always has, and he almost doesn’t let himself pull away.
But… He has to. Tears still staining his face and now Ken’s shirt, he pulls away with a slow but wet and ragged gasp. “Ken, you’re being an idiot, you’re going to bleed to death.”
no subject
Ken's never cared about himself nearly as much as he's cared about the few people who mean anything to him. Seeing Chikusa's distress means that's all he can think about.
no subject
He can fix this. He can fix this.
Once that’s done, he sweeps an unsteady hand through Ken’s hair. It’s not a fond gesture he makes often, but everything about this situation has him feeling unlike himself. For a second, it felt as though he’d be alone for the first time in his life, that Ken might actually die, and that…
It only happens in a second before he pushes away, gathering the necessary supplies in the room so that he can make some splints for Ken’s wrists and leg. The other one he’s still not sure about yet, but it’s obvious that Ken isn’t in the condition for Chikusa to go poking about in it. That’s fine. “Just stay still through this, and I’ll get you food,” he promises his partner, starting with the leg first.
no subject
no subject
When he’s finished up Ken’s arms, he doesn’t let himself stop. If he stops, even for a moment’s breath, Chikusa isn’t sure he’ll be able to start up again. That’s something he can’t do. So he cups Ken’s face again, tipping tiny drops of water into his mouth to see if that helps or at least wakes him up a little more.
no subject
It's just as well he's out of it, honestly. He'd hate the splints. They feel like restraints, and only his dazed state and stillness stand between Ken tolerating them, and Ken trying to tear them off in a fit of kneejerk panicked rage.
no subject
no subject
His eyes crack halfway open, looking up at Chikusa; they're glazed and unfocused, but they do seem to be aware of him. They flicker as Chikusa's hands work, loosely tracking his movements.
"Muk'ro...?" The tone he mumbles the word in - minus the honorific; it's the way they'd said it back in Italy - suggests that he's asking something about Mukuro, not mis-identifying Chikusa. (Not surprising; neither of them would ever expect this kind of care directly from Mukuro's hands, no matter how out of it they were.) Knowing Ken, he's almost certainly asking where Mukuro is; he fusses about that enough even when they're both perfectly healthy.
no subject
“He’s going to be here tomorrow,” he promises his partner, pressing another slice of banana into his mouth and then following it up with a few grapes. This is good. Encouraging. So long as Ken can still eat, it’s fine. “And we’ll make sure you’re alright… I’ll clean up everything before we leave, Ken.”
no subject
Still, he's complaining. Another good sign, probably.
no subject
Any second now, he’s sure that the Corvo members will wake up fully. When he goes to take care of them… He’d like Ken to be resting instead of worrying about them.
no subject
It's hard to know if Ken wanted Chikusa to stay with him physically, or if he was worried Chikusa might be slipping away from him mentally again. Honestly, knowing Ken, he probably meant both. He's not likely to get either, but at least he's asleep (or unconscious; it's a fine line to draw right now) and won't know it.
no subject
He’s alive. He’s alive, and he’ll recover. There’s even a chance, maybe, that his other leg is something Chikusa can fix himself. Maybe it’s a long shot, but it’s something to keep him going. And if nothing else, there’s always Mukuro-sama. Mukuro-sama will fix this, one way or another.
But soon the sounds of alarmed hisses and whispers from the hallway gets his attention, and he straightens up, hands going back into his pockets to find his needles and yoyos. Right…
The Corvi have a lot to answer for in regards to taking his partner.
Finding the perfect balance of poison to put into his needles is something that takes considerable effort. It’s why he tends to stick to a limited but proven selection in his needles, as much as he’s loathe to be so predictable. It’s a rare occasion that he can experiment so easily, finding that perfect balance. In that way, if there’s any silver lining to this, it’s that.
As he stands there, ignoring the vicious curses and desperate pleadings from the remaining Corvi as he patiently inflicts his needles through them… He can’t help but think of another place, below the earth, where torture and pain were a regular.
When he was young, he went back to the Estraneo Labs. Very young- he’d only had the briefest taste of freedom and fresh air before he’d snuck away from Mukuro and Ken (only numbers, then, not names, not yet). Even as a child, he’d seen the difference between him and the two other survivors of the massacre. He’d listened even before then, to the talk between the scientists of Mukuro’s eye, of Ken’s channels. It had been his one saving grace back then in the labs: so quiet, the scientists sometimes never noticed him at all when he listened to them talk, puzzling out their words.
He hadn’t been noticed when he went back, either, if only because the dull eyes of the dead could see nothing anymore. He’d picked through the discarded rotting corpses, searched tirelessly through the remnants of the labs, all for anything that could help him stay with the only two things in the world that he still knew. The only people that were familiar and who held his then tentative trust. Books, drugs, first aid- he’d gathered all he could in bags after bags, desperate.
When he’d left the smell of death and chemicals, he’d crumpled in a bush somewhere and vomited what little food he’d ever had since their escape.
Chikusa doesn’t do that now, for all the familiarity as he slowly and methodically goes through the Corvi, noting the effects of his poison and how much of it. Periodically, he checks the dummy phone he’d been given before coming to the mansion, and, hours later, it finally lights up with a message.
It’s time to leave.
A snap of his wrist takes care of what few mafia are left behind, and Chikusa goes back into the room to search for a stretcher. It’ll be difficult to get Ken up the stairs, but a stretcher will make it easier. Then all he has to do is strap him in, get him up the stairs, into an escape vehicle…. And they can leave this place. They can go back to how things should be.
Later...
What he wakes up to is blessed familiarity, though. The comforting, run-down ceiling of Kokuyo Land, the smell of their hideout in his nose. And the pain in his limbs has faded so significantly that he finds they barely hurt at all unless he moves them...which, of course, is his first instinct to do, in his own bleary surprise at feeling so much different.
He doesn't immediately process the dull warmth at his side, perhaps because that, too, is so familiar that its presence is almost unremarkable. Which means that Chikusa is probably going to raise his voice right in Ken's ear and Ken is probably going to jump out of his skin.
no subject
Mukuro has allowed it, doing very much the same with eyes that quietly burned whenever he glanced towards the blond’s condition and his gloved hands a reassuring presence as they’d stroked through Chikusa’s hair. So quiet and reliable, he hadn’t argued for Chikusa to be there. In fact, perhaps in a way, he was so reliable that it was fine to have him there in Mukuro’s place, like he is now, curled up at Ken’s side and only half in a state of awareness. It’s the movement that snaps him out of it, his head rising up. “Ken?”
no subject
no subject
"It's- a couple of days. Mukuro-sama said it'd be good for you. How do you feel?"
no subject
no subject
no subject
Basically, all the things he couldn't do or couldn't have while he was captured. Knowing Ken, he'd do all of them at once if he could.
no subject
But that’s logic. Logic doesn’t have anything for an upset Ken, especially when it’s telling him things he doesn’t want to hear. So Chikusa tries for something else, reaching over to thread his fingers through what’s slightly oily but not actually dirty hair; he cleaned his partner when changing out his bandages. “Just… let your bones heal properly, Ken. Please.”
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)