The Estraneo had never gotten to that point with him, for one thing. In part, that had been his fault. So much of Chikusa's personality has been built from those days. Be quiet and don't cry where they can hear or see you. Shrink into the background, become a part of it, change into a ghost and let the other children be picked first so that he could survive longer. Inevitably, of course, someone remembered his number on the list, dragged him to experiments that left him writhing on the floor in agony so intense it drove his mind from his body...
But it had been better than nothing. It kept him from being the first to be used for experiments that stole the lives of other children. It helped him survive.
Habits like that don't leave so easily. If anything, they've simply become worse as the years have passed. Behind Mukuro's charisma and aura of danger and Ken's loud presence, it's easy to pass him over. Chikusa wouldn't want it any other way. The only thing that bothers him is that he's not as useful as he could be for Mukuro. He doesn't have any extraordinary abilities. Everything he's capable of, he's had to work on his own: his knowledge of poisons, his ability to engineer a complicated and inconspicuous device, keeping pace with some of Mukuro's thoughts, and, of course, becoming even better at taking targets out before they have a chance to respond.
Ironically, it's made him the most like the mafia they despise so much.
Chikusa doesn't complain about it. He simply uses it to his full extent.
That means it's not illusions that help him sneak into the Corvi Family estate, but simple skill. Hard learned stealth lets him slip into the mansion like a ghost, existing where other people don't look, and a lifetime of having to deal with the mafia lets him know exactly where to lurk and eavesdrop. Listening to the Corvi's men talk about their prisoner down in the basement, Chikusa stays detached and silent as he always has been. That's why it's a surprise when, after listening how they plan to keep him alive to try and get any information at all, Chikusa is surprised to find himself realizing his heart is descending from his throat.
Dammit, Ken.
For the first day, he takes in all the information he can including that the Corvi are having trouble even getting in the same room as Ken. The second, the third days, those are the ones he learns as much of the routine in the Corvi mansion as he can. It's a rushed job, but it's all he can do when Ken is on the line. The entire time, he stays detached. Forces himself to be detached.
When he's not, after all, there's his heart in his throat and a tremor in his hands, and Chikusa can't stand any of it.
The fourth day is when he decides that there's no more need to wait.
He takes out the civilian staff first. It's a basic poison, one that makes them drop to the ground and leaves blood pooling out from the entry points. He's a little bit proud of that one, honestly- a poison which keeps the blood from clotting up and closing the wound, encourages the flow of it. Nothing is more perfect for tracking someone than a continuously bleeding wound if they manage to survive the shock, and it's always been the best thing for Ken to track with his nose. It seems contradictory then, for him to switch the needles to the sedative sort, but he has plans. In other places, in different bodies and guises, Mukuro-sama is isolating this family on a political level. There'll be no cavalry for them, no one they can turn to.
That gives Chikusa plenty of time to tend to things in his preference.
After the staff, he patiently clears out the floors and rooms one by one starting from the top. It's work that really requires him to move quickly, never knowing if or when someone will hear the sound of bodies crumpling to the ground and come to investigate. He can't afford an alarm being raised. It's not pleasant work, and he sure as hell doesn't particularly like having to do it all... But in the end, it all pays off. A mansion full of unconscious mafiosos, and traps set up all around the mansion entrances for anyone who might come wandering in.
The only place left is the basement where Ken is being kept.
His shoes are removed and set aside neatly near the top of the stairs, his barefeet making him a much more silent entity as he makes his way down into the basement. Checking through the rooms is tedious, but he does it anyway to make sure there won't be any unexpected guests. When he finally reaches the room where Ken is being kept.... It looks like he's just in time.
Chikusa's stride looks almost deceivingly lax, if one can ignore the speed that's been added into it, and he's on the scene in a heartbeat. One hand sneaks around the Corvi interrogator's shoulder, needles placed inbetween his fingers, and he jerks his hand back so that they go straight into his throat. A wet gurgle, the knife shaking and then dropping, and Chikusa pulls him back with a grunt. He ignores the hands scrambling at his wrist, and even the blood that's bubbling against his palm and dripping down to stain crisp cloth. Chikusa waits, until finally the body slumps lifelessly against his own. Eager to be rid of it, he dumps it against the ground and a look of distaste crosses his face as he stares down at his bloodied palm.
Something much more complicated crosses his face as he looks over to Ken and sees the state he's in. It takes a second before he can force his expression back into blankness, slouching over to him.
As exhausted and injured and, admittedly, afraid as Ken's been - not afraid of pain or death, but afraid that no one would bother to come for him, that he wouldn't be considered worth the effort - he manages a huff. The pain's been constant enough that he's almost adapted to it by now, a scream of white noise he's still managed to tune out as long as he doesn't try to move his legs. Or his arms. Or...most of his body, really. Even talking hurts; he's roared his throat raw.
He does it anyway; his anger and shame at being captured, at needing to be rescued, at being too badly injured to help Mukuro, have him more self-conscious and defensive than ever.
"You're late, Kakipi." His voice manages to sound worse than he looks.
“I was busy.” What he’s busy with, well, Ken will see that soon enough. For now, Chikusa kneels down by him, working to undo the restraints. Times like this are why he’s glad that, however it happens, his body works independently of his mind. A cacophony of sound is going off in his skull, a rattling feeling that wants to undo him, but you’d never tell from the smooth motions of his hands. In seconds, Ken is free of his bonds, but Chikusa doesn’t let him move. Instead, he goes to inspect his body. A corner of his mouth spasms, a frantic motion that’s hidden away in a heartbeat.
"Tch." Ken huffs out a breath. "Only 'cause they couldn't get near me, byon." Which is an interesting point, actually. Ken injured himself in his wild thrashing, there's no doubt of that, but if he'd struggled less, presumably the Corvi would have been able to get at him and hurt him themselves more. It's hard to say whether he would have been better off being more at their mercy.
However, Ken pauses at the realization that he has no idea how he's getting out of here. He can't walk; even if he'd been fed recently and had his usual strength, his knees just flat won't work. He can't brace his legs enough to hold himself up. And his arms are a mess, too. Chikusa is there, but Chikusa's as thin as a rail and generally disinclined to effort; even if he was willing to stretch a point under the circumstances, Ken's not sure he has the strength to carry him. At least not for any distance.
He frowns.
"...if you get my cartridges and we wrap up my arms, I could probably get out of here using Kong Channel, byon." It'd be easier to walk on his arms than his legs right now, honestly.
As a general rule, Ken is actually right in that regard about him. Chikusa detests most exertion or effort if he can get away with even half. It’s partially because he simply doesn’t have the energy for it all. Ever since he was young, the experiments had almost seemed to rob it out of him save for sobbing fits in an isolated corner where no one could see, and then the outside world… It’d been so overwhelming... He supposes he’s never recovered. No- recovery would imply a situation where he could go back to being like other people, but he can never remember a time where he’s felt energetic at all.
Right now, however, it’s different. It’s terrifying in how different it is. Something spasms across his expression, a glitch in an otherwise smooth expression, and he hides it by reaching down to test how heavy Ken still is, head bowed. “We’re not leaving right away,” he says, grimacing at the fact that even a half starved Ken is still heavy. “And you can’t walk even with Kong Channel.”
Alright. He thinks he can do this. With all of Ken’s restraints removed, he shifts so that his back is to his partner and he tugs him against it. A lift is impossible, but letting Ken just rest against his back is doable. Unfortunately, this means that he’ll be able to feel the way every single breath Chikusa takes rattles his whole body in a quiet but definite way.
"I could walk on my arms, byon," Ken mutters, but he's not really fighting Chikusa on it. He seems almost relieved when Chikusa drapes him over his back, burying his face against the back of Chikusa's neck.
He'd hated every second of his imprisonment. Mostly he'd been angry and in pain, with no room for fear. But when he'd been alone, with nothing else to do or think about...he'd been scared. A lot of it had felt like their days with the Estraneo, although the Estraneo had been experimenting on them, not just torturing them. But, at the time, he'd been too young to really appreciate what their family had been doing to them. To him it had boiled down to his being restrained and hurt by people who didn't care if it hurt, maybe wanted it to hurt, and him not being able to get away. He knows the Corvi weren't experimenting on him, but in a practical sense, it had all been uncomfortably familiar. He'd felt small and helpless again. A lot of his fighting and his violence hadn't been against the Corvi; it had been his rebellion against the feeling that, even bigger and stronger, he still couldn't do anything. The people he'd managed to hurt or kill, the looks of fear on the faces of his tormentors - they'd been tiny fragments of reassurance that no, it wasn't all the same.
The best antidote to fear and insecurity, for Ken, has always been things that are warm and familiar and safe. Chikusa is all of that, and the smell of him while Ken is hurting and helpless relaxes him right down to his broken bones. Even with the pain, he could almost go to sleep like this.
Between simply breathing in Chikusa's scent and being generally exhausted, he almost does. It's certainly the reason why it takes him so long to notice something off with Chikusa, even with his heightened senses. But after almost a full minute, he stirs against Chikusa's back slightly. "...Kakipi?"
By the time Ken speaks up, Chikusa has managed to unsteadily make his way out of the interrogation chambers and is down the hall. Poking around in these rooms before rescuing his partner is coming in handy. There’s a medical room down here. Sure, it’s not the best- more intended for keeping prisoners from bleeding out or dying than anything genuine. However, it’ll do for Chikusa’s purposes. For Ken.
"You're breathing funny, byon." As tired and hungry and in pain Ken is, he still manages to sound genuinely curious. They've operated in conditions worse than this before; Ken's able to act somewhat normal even in this state.
Which isn’t the problem at all. Chikusa knows it’s not the problem. The problem is that he’d thought of Ken dying, or getting mutilated, and it had been worse than every single experiment the Estraneo had ever done to him combined all together. For once, energy is humming through his body, and staying still isn’t an option even as he doesn’t know what to do with it all. He can’t say that. It’s hard to figure out how.
So he doesn’t explain and simply drags Ken over to a cot that’s up against one of the walls. Putting him down gently isn’t an easy thing to do. Chikusa knows he doesn’t quite manage. Still, he tries the best he can as he puts him down onto the mattress and rolls him over onto his back. Standing up, he looks over Ken. His arms would be one thing, but his knees… That likely needs surgery. That needs surgery he’s not qualified to do, even for all his private studies on his own. Chikusa takes a breath, hides his shaking hands in his pockets, and tries to focus.
"That's not in, byon. I know what it sounds like when you're just outta breath, Kakipi." Ken's determined to be curious, to pry; it helps take his mind off the pain, honestly, but it's just as much that he's always had an uncanny knack for getting into things people would prefer he didn't. Chikusa will be able to feel how Ken buries his nose against his neck and takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with Chikusa's scent as if it'll answer him.
In a way, it kind of does. "You're upset," he says, with some surprise. Under the circumstances, this wouldn't be shocking information if it were anyone but Chikusa. It's hard to get Chikusa to feel anything, much less feel it strongly enough that even an unchanneled Ken can smell it on him.
It's perhaps fortunate Chikusa gets to disentangle himself now, to set Ken down and temporarily flee from him and any uncomfortable questions he might ask. To say nothing of the way the idea of Chikusa leaving him behind shifts Ken's thoughts away from the subject. As soon as Chikusa says 'stay here', and Ken realizes that means he's leaving, he tries to push himself upright in convulsive alarm. His attempting to do this on broken wrists wrings a hurt animal noise from him that, in his panic, he doesn't even notice. Chikusa leaving him alone of far more concern than mere physical pain.
"Don't leave me, byon!" He's suddenly scared, in a way he never was during his capture. Much worse than being alone, wondering if Chikusa or Mukuro would come from him, is having Chikusa there and then having to watch him walk away. Having to watch him leave, and being physically incapable of following him or bringing him back.
The sound of his own voice rising up almost throws Chikusa off balance- he rarely raises his voice if he can help it, finding it annoying how even that can tire him out and leave his throat rough. It's foreign to his own ears. The only reason he isn't left standing there bewildered is because his body surges forward even as he's yelling, thin fingers digging into Ken's shoulders and trying to force him down again.
With Chikusa, it's the little things. Adjusting his glasses is a substitute for grimacing or glaring. A sigh is his version of a frustrated groan. After all they've been through, a feeling of peace is the closest he'll ever get to smiling.
Right now, even a complete stranger could tell he's terrified.
Blown out pupils, a grimace stretching out his mouth, wide eyes, and frantically quaking hands that won't stop.
Ken freezes. He pretty much stops thinking when Chikusa yells. So only later will he think that, if Chikusa yelled like that, even Mukuro-sama would probably stop in his tracks - if only out of shock.
Chikusa doesn't yell. Chikusa doesn't get like this at all. Ken hasn't seen him this violently...anything since back when they were being experimented on. After Chikusa would come back from what they were doing to him. And not right after, either. It was always like Chikusa's reactions lagged behind, back then - sometimes he'd be silent for half an hour, just sitting, and then freak out without any warning. It had always kind of creeped Ken out, because he couldn't begin to understand it. (And, also, because at all other times Chikusa was so quiet and emotionless that seeing him break down felt completely wrong.)
Ken feels something of that fear now - and just like back then, it's mixed with confusion and uncertainty about where it's coming from, why now. He simply stares at Chikusa, wide-eyed and fearful himself, but - for perhaps the first time ever - Chikusa's driven obedience into him all the way down into his bones, as deeply as Mukuro ever has.
"Kakipi...?" His voice is small. He's flat on the bed, all the resistance having been leeched out of him at Chikusa's bellow, and only the twitch of his fingers indicates how badly he wants to reach up and grab Chikusa's clothes for something to hold onto. But obedience overrides it.
No answer. Not immediately. It's the labs all over again in that manner, the way his responses take so long to formulate while his expression crumples into something undescribable. He's shattered, broken, all jagged pieces that he hasn't figured out how to put together again. For a moment, he's not even breathing. Absolute stillness has its grip all around him as he keeps his fingers dug into Ken's shoulders, still looming over him.
Ken's voice forces air into his lungs again, and he jerks back as if he doesn't know how to use his limbs again. His expression starts to force itself back together again but it's... not as it usually is. It's almost there, almost blank, but there's a tension in it that can't be ignored and Chikusa's pupils are still blown out in panic. He twists away on his heel to hide it, back to Ken. His shaking hands, he puts in his pockets.
"...You need to stop hurting yourself, Ken." Quiet, only the slightest shake. "It's going to be harder to fix if you keep messing with broken bones."
Ken doesn't know what to make of how Chikusa looks, how he's acting. It's different from when they were kids, different from anything he really knows. (The difference is that it's just him hurt now, not both of them. And that Chikusa's had years to get close to him by now, whereas when they were kids they were part of a crowd that had gradually thinned down to just him, Chikusa, and Mukuro. They hadn't relied on each other so much back then, hadn't yet fused together at the hip.) He doesn't know how to handle it. But it feels wrong, like it always feels wrong when something bad forces emotion out of Chikusa. Ken likes it when Chikusa actually emotes, but not like this.
He lies still like he's been told, even though his limbs quiver when Chikusa turns his back again. Chikusa's back says I'm leaving. And Ken's never sure. Never. It's one of his most dog-like traits, that he hates when people leave because he's never entirely sure if they're coming back. (And why he's always so ecstatic when Mukuro appears.) He'd seen lots of kids leave and not come back when they were with the Estraneo. Mukuro's not showing up at Kokuyo Land after their prison break had been like a knife to his gut. Now Chikusa's leaving, and Ken knows anything could happen. To him, to Chikusa. Chikusa's leaving and he might not come back, for any reason at all, and Ken can't go after him if he doesn't.
"...don't leave me, byon." He doesn't even know what Chikusa could be leaving him here for.
"I'm..." He doesn't want it to be seen. To be acknowledged. But he's sick, and scared, and he can hear it in the soft tremors of Ken's own voice too. Slowly, still shaking, he slides one hand out of his pocket and presses it against one of Ken's hands. His back stays to him.
"I'm not going far. I need to take care of the rest of the Corvi, Ken."
Ken feels the shaking immediately; physical gestures, things he can feel and hear and smell and see, always speak to him loudest. It's the first moment he realizes that Chikusa's scared, too.
Really scared. Chikusa has to be really something before he has a physical reaction. And Chikusa's usually only comfortable feeling, and expressing, nothing. Of what, Ken doesn't know - he's no smarter just because the cue was physical - but he doesn't even consider the Corvi as a possibility. It'd take more than one hostile mafia family to get Chikusa to emote at all, much less to frighten him.
Ken's fingers twitch with the urge to catch Chikusa's hand, make him stay...but Chikusa told him to stay. To stop making his injuries worse. So Ken doesn't move his hand any more than that.
...he hadn't known any of the Corvi were alive. That's a new thing to worry about. He can't not fight back if they find him while Chikusa is gone.
"Won't they come here, byon?" Ken has to ask, if only because he's trying to get a better idea if where Chikusa's reaction is coming from. It doesn't occur to him it's the state he's in; he's been in worse shape than this. In truth, it's the circumstances that have Chikusa upset.
Being reminded of what he still has to do, what he has planned, helps calm Chikusa. No, wait, that’s not right to say. It helps steady him, gives him something to refocus on instead of the emotions destroying his usually calm and apathetic demeanor. Slightly, bit by bit, his hand starts to stop shaking. “They won’t be able to come in here,” he murmurs slightly, eyes going cold again. “They’re too drugged to do anything.” The potent mix that he coated his needles with would put anyone out of commission. He still has a good long while before any regular humans start to come out of that.
...But he shouldn’t test that. Carefully, he undoes the buttons of his jacket and slides it away from his shoulders. “I’ll come back…” Turning around again, he drapes it across Ken’s body and makes sure that it’s close to his face. “So… Just stay here… I’m not leaving the house.”
"You drugged them?" Now Ken's baffled, and for once not from a general lack of intellect. That just doesn't seem to make sense. "What'd you drug them for? You could've just killed 'em, byon." Ken knows his partner, as well as he knows anything. If Chikusa hit someone with a drug that wasn't lethal, that was a deliberate choice on his part. Ken just can't imagine what the purpose would be for keeping any of this family alive.
He relaxes when Chikusa drapes his jacket over him, almost against his will. The smell of Chikusa is on his jacket, and it definitely calms him down a little. He's still not happy about being left behind, but his eyes are less panicked than before when he looks up at Chikusa. "Hurry up, then, byon."
Chikusa will come back, Ken reassures himself. He wouldn't leave his jacket unless he was coming back for it.
"...For reasons..." But he's already thinking of the huge amount of work that's laying before him. His mind and body, for the first time, are in disagreement. It's exhausting, his mind says, but his body doesn't care, and it's his body which is calling the shots. His fingers drag down along Ken's palm.
"...I'll be back."
And he shuffles out of the medical room.
It's a good thing he has no investment in making sure the Corvi have a comfortable time of things. Chikusa forces himself to move quickly again, ignoring the ache starting up in his back from where he carried Ken. Tying up the members he took out is easy, and getting them downstairs is easy- all he has to do is drop them on the floor and kick. Dragging them across each floor to stairs is the annoying part.
Funny, how there's a satisfied dark twist in him at every meaty thump of a body hitting hard stairs. He's not usually like this. In fact, it's completely opposite to how he is at all. Mukuro, Ken, that's not unusual even if it's too entirely different senses of satisfaction as far as Chikusa can tell. Ken likes the feeling of the fight. Mukuro relishes in his own sadism against the world that wronged them. Chikusa? Chikusa does his job, because that's all it is. There's no pleasure in it for him.
Even with his relaxed stairs method of moving the Corvi bodies, it still takes some time to get them all down into the basement, and longer still for him to put them all in the same kind of chains that they'd trapped Ken in. Chikusa does a very solid job. There's no getting out of this. A few of them are already dead. That's not surprising. Not everyone reacts to drugs so well, whether from overdose from their particular body type or an allergic reaction. There's even one whose neck snapped from the fall down the stairs. Chikusa leaves them where they lay after making sure they're dead. It saves him extra work from having to move them.
Only when he's done and traps have been set up just in case anyone does get free does Chikusa shuffle back to the medical room. He's starting to feel tired, now, and it's a mixed blessing. There's still so much to do.... Coming inside, his eyes go to is partner.
Ken doesn't respond. He's either passed out or gone to sleep waiting for Chikusa; he seems to have moved or wriggled Chikusa's jacket up so that the fabric's almost pressed to his nose, which may account for his being able to relax enough for sleep. If it's not sleep...well, he's got more than enough excuses for simply passing out.
He looks worse than before, somehow. Perhaps because any form of unconsciousness looks uncomfortably like death when someone's in a bad enough physical state.
[Just when he’d thought himself losing energy, it spikes up again, propelling him forward to Ken’s side. Immediately, his hands start fluttering over him doing diagnostics: his heart beat, his breathing, if his broken limbs have been twisted further. Chikusa’s voice comes out soft and trembling as though he’s a child clinging to his best friend’s shirt.]
[At least there's no unnecessary suspense. Almost from the first touch, even before Chikusa speaks, Ken is jerking awake, with an actual little snarl as reflexive defensiveness in the face of pain and uncertainty takes hold. But the smell of Chikusa is strong in his nose, and the sight and sound of him are there too as his other senses kick on, and he relaxes almost immediately. Just as well; any more of a violent wake-up and he probably would've compounded his injuries a little more.]
Kakipi? [As he realizes there's no immediate alarm and the tiny burst of adrenaline dissipates, exhaustion and disorientation settle back in, and he blinks blearily at him. Then, with a frown, his gaze sharpens.] ...what's wrong?
[Strings of tension are cut loose from his shoulders, they drop so fast. Trying to hide the shaking in his hands- adrenaline or fear, he’s not sure- Chikusa adjusts his glasses.]
...I need to tend to your wounds now. I need to figure out how bad your knees are broken.
[Ken frowns. He wants to get out of this place entirely - he won't feel properly safe until they're back in Kokuyo Land, although he knows Chikusa and Mukuro and he doubts there's any living threat left within ten miles of them that hasn't been dealt with in some way or another - but there's also not a damn thing he can do about it. So he just huffs out a grumble.] Dunno what you can do about it here, byon... [Chikusa has the most extensive medical knowledge of all of them, but knowledge only goes so far. You need supplies and equipment and stuff, Ken knows, and his injuries are definitely extensive. He doesn't know what Chikusa can do about it all, right here and now.]
[Pulling a small utility knife out of his pocket, he starts to cut through Ken’s pants- that’ll be easier to do than figuring out how to get them off normally. When he sees the extent of the damage from bruises to blood, a grimace actually spasms across his face violently. Considering that Chikusa keeps moving onto the next leg casually… It’s highly likely that he hasn’t even realized what he’s done.]
[Everything is getting distant again. His body moves, does its work, but Chikusa feels detached and away from the action. Like so many times, he welcomes the sensation. He doesn’t want to be near this… near the broken bones, the bloodied skin. He just wants to fix Ken and make things like they were again. Every trickle of blood and line of skin over the mismatched shape of Ken’s knee, he can make out in excruciating detail while simultaneously seeing the whole picture. It’s more than a little disorienting, but that’s fine. His mind is allowed to do that so long as his body does what it’s supposed to do.] [Someone’s speaking. Him? He thinks it’s him. This has happened before.]
If it’s not displaced, we could put you in a cast. No surgery.
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badliifechoiice22016-01-08 10:36 am
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The Estraneo had never gotten to that point with him, for one thing. In part, that had been his fault. So much of Chikusa's personality has been built from those days. Be quiet and don't cry where they can hear or see you. Shrink into the background, become a part of it, change into a ghost and let the other children be picked first so that he could survive longer. Inevitably, of course, someone remembered his number on the list, dragged him to experiments that left him writhing on the floor in agony so intense it drove his mind from his body...
But it had been better than nothing. It kept him from being the first to be used for experiments that stole the lives of other children. It helped him survive.
Habits like that don't leave so easily. If anything, they've simply become worse as the years have passed. Behind Mukuro's charisma and aura of danger and Ken's loud presence, it's easy to pass him over. Chikusa wouldn't want it any other way. The only thing that bothers him is that he's not as useful as he could be for Mukuro. He doesn't have any extraordinary abilities. Everything he's capable of, he's had to work on his own: his knowledge of poisons, his ability to engineer a complicated and inconspicuous device, keeping pace with some of Mukuro's thoughts, and, of course, becoming even better at taking targets out before they have a chance to respond.
Ironically, it's made him the most like the mafia they despise so much.
Chikusa doesn't complain about it. He simply uses it to his full extent.
That means it's not illusions that help him sneak into the Corvi Family estate, but simple skill. Hard learned stealth lets him slip into the mansion like a ghost, existing where other people don't look, and a lifetime of having to deal with the mafia lets him know exactly where to lurk and eavesdrop. Listening to the Corvi's men talk about their prisoner down in the basement, Chikusa stays detached and silent as he always has been. That's why it's a surprise when, after listening how they plan to keep him alive to try and get any information at all, Chikusa is surprised to find himself realizing his heart is descending from his throat.
Dammit, Ken.
For the first day, he takes in all the information he can including that the Corvi are having trouble even getting in the same room as Ken. The second, the third days, those are the ones he learns as much of the routine in the Corvi mansion as he can. It's a rushed job, but it's all he can do when Ken is on the line. The entire time, he stays detached. Forces himself to be detached.
When he's not, after all, there's his heart in his throat and a tremor in his hands, and Chikusa can't stand any of it.
The fourth day is when he decides that there's no more need to wait.
He takes out the civilian staff first. It's a basic poison, one that makes them drop to the ground and leaves blood pooling out from the entry points. He's a little bit proud of that one, honestly- a poison which keeps the blood from clotting up and closing the wound, encourages the flow of it. Nothing is more perfect for tracking someone than a continuously bleeding wound if they manage to survive the shock, and it's always been the best thing for Ken to track with his nose. It seems contradictory then, for him to switch the needles to the sedative sort, but he has plans. In other places, in different bodies and guises, Mukuro-sama is isolating this family on a political level. There'll be no cavalry for them, no one they can turn to.
That gives Chikusa plenty of time to tend to things in his preference.
After the staff, he patiently clears out the floors and rooms one by one starting from the top. It's work that really requires him to move quickly, never knowing if or when someone will hear the sound of bodies crumpling to the ground and come to investigate. He can't afford an alarm being raised. It's not pleasant work, and he sure as hell doesn't particularly like having to do it all... But in the end, it all pays off. A mansion full of unconscious mafiosos, and traps set up all around the mansion entrances for anyone who might come wandering in.
The only place left is the basement where Ken is being kept.
His shoes are removed and set aside neatly near the top of the stairs, his barefeet making him a much more silent entity as he makes his way down into the basement. Checking through the rooms is tedious, but he does it anyway to make sure there won't be any unexpected guests. When he finally reaches the room where Ken is being kept.... It looks like he's just in time.
Chikusa's stride looks almost deceivingly lax, if one can ignore the speed that's been added into it, and he's on the scene in a heartbeat. One hand sneaks around the Corvi interrogator's shoulder, needles placed inbetween his fingers, and he jerks his hand back so that they go straight into his throat. A wet gurgle, the knife shaking and then dropping, and Chikusa pulls him back with a grunt. He ignores the hands scrambling at his wrist, and even the blood that's bubbling against his palm and dripping down to stain crisp cloth. Chikusa waits, until finally the body slumps lifelessly against his own. Eager to be rid of it, he dumps it against the ground and a look of distaste crosses his face as he stares down at his bloodied palm.
Something much more complicated crosses his face as he looks over to Ken and sees the state he's in. It takes a second before he can force his expression back into blankness, slouching over to him.
"...You're an idiot."
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He does it anyway; his anger and shame at being captured, at needing to be rescued, at being too badly injured to help Mukuro, have him more self-conscious and defensive than ever.
"You're late, Kakipi." His voice manages to sound worse than he looks.
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“...You’ve hurt yourself more than they have.”
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However, Ken pauses at the realization that he has no idea how he's getting out of here. He can't walk; even if he'd been fed recently and had his usual strength, his knees just flat won't work. He can't brace his legs enough to hold himself up. And his arms are a mess, too. Chikusa is there, but Chikusa's as thin as a rail and generally disinclined to effort; even if he was willing to stretch a point under the circumstances, Ken's not sure he has the strength to carry him. At least not for any distance.
He frowns.
"...if you get my cartridges and we wrap up my arms, I could probably get out of here using Kong Channel, byon." It'd be easier to walk on his arms than his legs right now, honestly.
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Right now, however, it’s different. It’s terrifying in how different it is. Something spasms across his expression, a glitch in an otherwise smooth expression, and he hides it by reaching down to test how heavy Ken still is, head bowed. “We’re not leaving right away,” he says, grimacing at the fact that even a half starved Ken is still heavy. “And you can’t walk even with Kong Channel.”
Alright. He thinks he can do this. With all of Ken’s restraints removed, he shifts so that his back is to his partner and he tugs him against it. A lift is impossible, but letting Ken just rest against his back is doable.
Unfortunately, this means that he’ll be able to feel the way every single breath Chikusa takes rattles his whole body in a quiet but definite way.
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He'd hated every second of his imprisonment. Mostly he'd been angry and in pain, with no room for fear. But when he'd been alone, with nothing else to do or think about...he'd been scared. A lot of it had felt like their days with the Estraneo, although the Estraneo had been experimenting on them, not just torturing them. But, at the time, he'd been too young to really appreciate what their family had been doing to them. To him it had boiled down to his being restrained and hurt by people who didn't care if it hurt, maybe wanted it to hurt, and him not being able to get away. He knows the Corvi weren't experimenting on him, but in a practical sense, it had all been uncomfortably familiar. He'd felt small and helpless again. A lot of his fighting and his violence hadn't been against the Corvi; it had been his rebellion against the feeling that, even bigger and stronger, he still couldn't do anything. The people he'd managed to hurt or kill, the looks of fear on the faces of his tormentors - they'd been tiny fragments of reassurance that no, it wasn't all the same.
The best antidote to fear and insecurity, for Ken, has always been things that are warm and familiar and safe. Chikusa is all of that, and the smell of him while Ken is hurting and helpless relaxes him right down to his broken bones. Even with the pain, he could almost go to sleep like this.
Between simply breathing in Chikusa's scent and being generally exhausted, he almost does. It's certainly the reason why it takes him so long to notice something off with Chikusa, even with his heightened senses. But after almost a full minute, he stirs against Chikusa's back slightly. "...Kakipi?"
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“What?” he grunts, shuffling into the room.
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Which isn’t the problem at all. Chikusa knows it’s not the problem. The problem is that he’d thought of Ken dying, or getting mutilated, and it had been worse than every single experiment the Estraneo had ever done to him combined all together. For once, energy is humming through his body, and staying still isn’t an option even as he doesn’t know what to do with it all.
He can’t say that. It’s hard to figure out how.
So he doesn’t explain and simply drags Ken over to a cot that’s up against one of the walls. Putting him down gently isn’t an easy thing to do. Chikusa knows he doesn’t quite manage. Still, he tries the best he can as he puts him down onto the mattress and rolls him over onto his back. Standing up, he looks over Ken. His arms would be one thing, but his knees… That likely needs surgery. That needs surgery he’s not qualified to do, even for all his private studies on his own. Chikusa takes a breath, hides his shaking hands in his pockets, and tries to focus.
“Stay here. I need to do something.”
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In a way, it kind of does. "You're upset," he says, with some surprise. Under the circumstances, this wouldn't be shocking information if it were anyone but Chikusa. It's hard to get Chikusa to feel anything, much less feel it strongly enough that even an unchanneled Ken can smell it on him.
It's perhaps fortunate Chikusa gets to disentangle himself now, to set Ken down and temporarily flee from him and any uncomfortable questions he might ask. To say nothing of the way the idea of Chikusa leaving him behind shifts Ken's thoughts away from the subject. As soon as Chikusa says 'stay here', and Ken realizes that means he's leaving, he tries to push himself upright in convulsive alarm. His attempting to do this on broken wrists wrings a hurt animal noise from him that, in his panic, he doesn't even notice. Chikusa leaving him alone of far more concern than mere physical pain.
"Don't leave me, byon!" He's suddenly scared, in a way he never was during his capture. Much worse than being alone, wondering if Chikusa or Mukuro would come from him, is having Chikusa there and then having to watch him walk away. Having to watch him leave, and being physically incapable of following him or bringing him back.
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The sound of his own voice rising up almost throws Chikusa off balance- he rarely raises his voice if he can help it, finding it annoying how even that can tire him out and leave his throat rough. It's foreign to his own ears. The only reason he isn't left standing there bewildered is because his body surges forward even as he's yelling, thin fingers digging into Ken's shoulders and trying to force him down again.
With Chikusa, it's the little things. Adjusting his glasses is a substitute for grimacing or glaring. A sigh is his version of a frustrated groan. After all they've been through, a feeling of peace is the closest he'll ever get to smiling.
Right now, even a complete stranger could tell he's terrified.
Blown out pupils, a grimace stretching out his mouth, wide eyes, and frantically quaking hands that won't stop.
"Stop it- stop!"
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Chikusa doesn't yell. Chikusa doesn't get like this at all. Ken hasn't seen him this violently...anything since back when they were being experimented on. After Chikusa would come back from what they were doing to him. And not right after, either. It was always like Chikusa's reactions lagged behind, back then - sometimes he'd be silent for half an hour, just sitting, and then freak out without any warning. It had always kind of creeped Ken out, because he couldn't begin to understand it. (And, also, because at all other times Chikusa was so quiet and emotionless that seeing him break down felt completely wrong.)
Ken feels something of that fear now - and just like back then, it's mixed with confusion and uncertainty about where it's coming from, why now. He simply stares at Chikusa, wide-eyed and fearful himself, but - for perhaps the first time ever - Chikusa's driven obedience into him all the way down into his bones, as deeply as Mukuro ever has.
"Kakipi...?" His voice is small. He's flat on the bed, all the resistance having been leeched out of him at Chikusa's bellow, and only the twitch of his fingers indicates how badly he wants to reach up and grab Chikusa's clothes for something to hold onto. But obedience overrides it.
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Ken's voice forces air into his lungs again, and he jerks back as if he doesn't know how to use his limbs again. His expression starts to force itself back together again but it's... not as it usually is. It's almost there, almost blank, but there's a tension in it that can't be ignored and Chikusa's pupils are still blown out in panic. He twists away on his heel to hide it, back to Ken. His shaking hands, he puts in his pockets.
"...You need to stop hurting yourself, Ken." Quiet, only the slightest shake. "It's going to be harder to fix if you keep messing with broken bones."
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He lies still like he's been told, even though his limbs quiver when Chikusa turns his back again. Chikusa's back says I'm leaving. And Ken's never sure. Never. It's one of his most dog-like traits, that he hates when people leave because he's never entirely sure if they're coming back. (And why he's always so ecstatic when Mukuro appears.) He'd seen lots of kids leave and not come back when they were with the Estraneo. Mukuro's not showing up at Kokuyo Land after their prison break had been like a knife to his gut. Now Chikusa's leaving, and Ken knows anything could happen. To him, to Chikusa. Chikusa's leaving and he might not come back, for any reason at all, and Ken can't go after him if he doesn't.
"...don't leave me, byon." He doesn't even know what Chikusa could be leaving him here for.
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"I'm not going far. I need to take care of the rest of the Corvi, Ken."
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Really scared. Chikusa has to be really something before he has a physical reaction. And Chikusa's usually only comfortable feeling, and expressing, nothing. Of what, Ken doesn't know - he's no smarter just because the cue was physical - but he doesn't even consider the Corvi as a possibility. It'd take more than one hostile mafia family to get Chikusa to emote at all, much less to frighten him.
Ken's fingers twitch with the urge to catch Chikusa's hand, make him stay...but Chikusa told him to stay. To stop making his injuries worse. So Ken doesn't move his hand any more than that.
...he hadn't known any of the Corvi were alive. That's a new thing to worry about. He can't not fight back if they find him while Chikusa is gone.
"Won't they come here, byon?" Ken has to ask, if only because he's trying to get a better idea if where Chikusa's reaction is coming from. It doesn't occur to him it's the state he's in; he's been in worse shape than this.
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“They won’t be able to come in here,” he murmurs slightly, eyes going cold again. “They’re too drugged to do anything.” The potent mix that he coated his needles with would put anyone out of commission. He still has a good long while before any regular humans start to come out of that.
...But he shouldn’t test that. Carefully, he undoes the buttons of his jacket and slides it away from his shoulders. “I’ll come back…” Turning around again, he drapes it across Ken’s body and makes sure that it’s close to his face. “So… Just stay here… I’m not leaving the house.”
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He relaxes when Chikusa drapes his jacket over him, almost against his will. The smell of Chikusa is on his jacket, and it definitely calms him down a little. He's still not happy about being left behind, but his eyes are less panicked than before when he looks up at Chikusa. "Hurry up, then, byon."
Chikusa will come back, Ken reassures himself. He wouldn't leave his jacket unless he was coming back for it.
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"...I'll be back."
And he shuffles out of the medical room.
It's a good thing he has no investment in making sure the Corvi have a comfortable time of things. Chikusa forces himself to move quickly again, ignoring the ache starting up in his back from where he carried Ken. Tying up the members he took out is easy, and getting them downstairs is easy- all he has to do is drop them on the floor and kick. Dragging them across each floor to stairs is the annoying part.
Funny, how there's a satisfied dark twist in him at every meaty thump of a body hitting hard stairs. He's not usually like this. In fact, it's completely opposite to how he is at all. Mukuro, Ken, that's not unusual even if it's too entirely different senses of satisfaction as far as Chikusa can tell. Ken likes the feeling of the fight. Mukuro relishes in his own sadism against the world that wronged them. Chikusa? Chikusa does his job, because that's all it is. There's no pleasure in it for him.
Even with his relaxed stairs method of moving the Corvi bodies, it still takes some time to get them all down into the basement, and longer still for him to put them all in the same kind of chains that they'd trapped Ken in. Chikusa does a very solid job. There's no getting out of this. A few of them are already dead. That's not surprising. Not everyone reacts to drugs so well, whether from overdose from their particular body type or an allergic reaction. There's even one whose neck snapped from the fall down the stairs. Chikusa leaves them where they lay after making sure they're dead. It saves him extra work from having to move them.
Only when he's done and traps have been set up just in case anyone does get free does Chikusa shuffle back to the medical room. He's starting to feel tired, now, and it's a mixed blessing. There's still so much to do.... Coming inside, his eyes go to is partner.
"...Ken?"
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He looks worse than before, somehow. Perhaps because any form of unconsciousness looks uncomfortably like death when someone's in a bad enough physical state.
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[Just when he’d thought himself losing energy, it spikes up again, propelling him forward to Ken’s side. Immediately, his hands start fluttering over him doing diagnostics: his heart beat, his breathing, if his broken limbs have been twisted further. Chikusa’s voice comes out soft and trembling as though he’s a child clinging to his best friend’s shirt.]
Ken?
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Kakipi? [As he realizes there's no immediate alarm and the tiny burst of adrenaline dissipates, exhaustion and disorientation settle back in, and he blinks blearily at him. Then, with a frown, his gaze sharpens.] ...what's wrong?
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...I need to tend to your wounds now. I need to figure out how bad your knees are broken.
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[Pulling a small utility knife out of his pocket, he starts to cut through Ken’s pants- that’ll be easier to do than figuring out how to get them off normally. When he sees the extent of the damage from bruises to blood, a grimace actually spasms across his face violently. Considering that Chikusa keeps moving onto the next leg casually… It’s highly likely that he hasn’t even realized what he’s done.]
[Everything is getting distant again. His body moves, does its work, but Chikusa feels detached and away from the action. Like so many times, he welcomes the sensation. He doesn’t want to be near this… near the broken bones, the bloodied skin. He just wants to fix Ken and make things like they were again. Every trickle of blood and line of skin over the mismatched shape of Ken’s knee, he can make out in excruciating detail while simultaneously seeing the whole picture. It’s more than a little disorienting, but that’s fine. His mind is allowed to do that so long as his body does what it’s supposed to do.]
[Someone’s speaking. Him? He thinks it’s him. This has happened before.]
If it’s not displaced, we could put you in a cast. No surgery.
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Later...
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