[JE] [JEF #1] Personal Space 2/4
Title: Personal Space (part 2/4)
Series: JE Fleet
Fandom: JE (primarily KAT-TUN)
Genre: Alternate Universe. Also: sci-fi, comedy, angst, romance. Oh, does 'crack' count as a genre?
Rating: R for violence and m/m activity between consenting adults (I don't know if it quite gets to NC-17)
Pairing: Primarily Akame, but many others are hinted at. Hopefully there is something for everyone to appreciate in there, including an Arashi OT5 for my dear friend kurorokoon.
Disclaimer: Yes, I'm writing about real people in an entirely fictitious universe. I do not own the following groups: KAT-TUN, NewS, Arashi, Kanjani8, Tackey & Tsubasa, though if I did I would be the happiest woman on Earth. I am making no money from this fic. (I don't own V6 either, but they're only in one line for cannon fodder.)
Summary: Akanishi Jin, former space pirate and current captain of the JE ship AT-TUN, accepts a mission that could put an end to the war ravaging the Sol System. Such a small thing, to remove the tactical advisor of the Fahngarlian fleet, but by no means simple. Not when said advisor happens to be his ex-partner.
Personal Space (2/4)
"You're sure they can't detect us?" Jin asked for the fifteenth time since the Beat Box had launched, leaving the AT-TUN hidden in an asteroid field.
Patiently, Nakamaru once again stopped his beatboxing ("Consider it in-flight entertainment, Captain!") and reassured Jin that yes, there was no way his fighter would be picked up on any of the alien sensors. He figured it didn't matter what he said, since the captain wasn't really listening.
Jin had barely spoken on the journey, except to ask about their cloaked status, and he'd done his best to avoid thinking about what he was going to do when he saw Kame again. A part of him wanted very much to greet his ex-partner with a right hook and a demand for an explanation. Another part, which he considered to be something of a traitor, yearned desperately to pin Kame to the wall and kiss him till he forgot why he'd walked out in the first place, much less signed up for the destruction of humanity.
"I'm sure once Kame sees you, he'll be his old self again," Nakamaru said. "He must still love you."
Jin snorted. "What makes you think so?"
"He didn't take your share of the profits, he didn't kill you on his way out and he didn't steal his favourite scarf back from your wardrobe. Shouldn't that mean something?"
"Well...he did like that scarf, didn't he?"
"Right. Though I suppose he could just have forgotten it, or thought it wasn't worth bothering about..."
"You're not helping!"
When they were at what Nakamaru declared to be "a safe distance", Jin slipped the extra teleport bracelet over his wrist and made sure his weapons were easily accessible beneath his long black coat.
"Comm check," he said as he tapped the small, stylized bulldog pinned to the inside of his shirt pocket. The words reverberated through the minuscule cockpit and Jin was satisfied that he could contact Nakamaru when he needed to be brought back - with or without Kame.
The pilot set the coordinates and wished him good luck, and Jin responded with a sickly grin. If he was ever going to go through with this, it had to be now. There was only one thing left to say.
"Teleport."
-----
The change in atmosphere hit Jin immediately, going from the stuffy, enclosed cockpit of the tiny fighter to the cool, dry air of the Fahngarlian ship. He'd had Nakamaru set him down in the cargo bay, figuring he could hide easily enough for as long as it took him to get his bearings. It was a night-cycle, but he had no way of knowing if the Fahngarlians would be asleep, or even if they slept at all, so teleporting directly into the living quarters would be too risky. Better to get the lay of the land first.
As Nino's report had mentioned, the cargo bay was full of chairs of all shapes and sizes, many of them with a tie attached to the back. Of life, however, it was empty. Jin wasted maybe thirty seconds gawking at the furniture, then checked his mental map of the ship.
There were only three decks, of which the lowest - his current location - had no crew quarters. The bridge was on the next deck up, and if Kame was playing the part of tactical advisor it was possible that he was there. If he was asleep or otherwise off-duty, it was probably on the uppermost deck, where all the cabins were to be found. The chances of Kame being on the lowest deck were so remote as to be non-existent, but Jin hadn't asked to be teleported there on a whim.
At the far end of the cargo bay was an emergency access shaft, fully enclosed, which ran straight up the height of the ship. There were exits built in at all three decks, and Jin intended to use the shaft to make his way, unseen, up to find Kame. He was counting on there being a ladder present, since the aliens obviously couldn't fly, and was happy to see he was right. Thanking his inner style guru that he'd remembered to put on gloves before leaving, he grasped the cold metal of the ladder and began to climb.
-----
What felt like hundreds of rungs later, Jin was beginning to wonder if Yamapi had accidentally forgotten to give him a couple of blueprints for, say, an extra deck or two. He'd passed one exit already, but the upper deck was nowhere in sight and he was getting tired of climbing. He reached a flat ledge, set opposite the ladder, and sat down for a rest, bracing his legs against the wall. He leaned back and promptly tumbled through the shaft exit.
Straight into a pile of clothing.
Jin picked himself up from the floor, removed the worn denim jacket that had somehow got tangled round his neck, and checked out his surroundings. He'd landed in a walk-in closet, stuffed with every variety of clothing he'd ever seen and a few more that were completely new to him. The shaft had been covered up by a hanging rail full of coats; he'd have been surprised if it had ever been used.
The was no light, but enough trickled in from the window pane set in the closet door that visibility wasn't a problem. Cautiously, Jin crept up to the window and peered out, hand poised over his comm badge to call Nakamaru for a rescue. What he saw was enough to make him disregard the risk and gently push open the door.
Kamenashi Kazuya, fast asleep.
His face was half-covered by blankets, but Jin would know it anywhere, pale in the lamplight and framed by dyed copper hair. He'd caressed that soft skin, run his fingers through the silken strands, and ached with need while the same was done to him. Old memories of better times surged from the depths of Jin's mind and he bit his lip to keep from waking the other man.
Every step closer to the bed was a small victory, and each a minor temptation. Could he somehow draw back the blankets, lock the bracelet round Kame's wrist and have them both teleported back to the Beat Box without a struggle? Or was Kame merely feigning sleep, lying in wait to attack him if he took another step?
Jin dismissed his last thought as paranoid and edged nearer to the bed before he could change his mind. Kame was within reach now, a softly slumbering mass of contradictions and treachery bundled under the blankets. Wishing like crazy that he'd had the good sense to delegate the task to someone else - preferably someone who'd never met Kame - Jin took hold of the corner of the outer blanket and gently tugged it aside.
And froze, as Kame stirred, murmuring Jin's name so faintly that Jin thought he might have been imagining things.
Heavy footsteps clomped outside the door and stopped. Jin darted back into the closet and camouflaged himself behind a set of bright red overalls, draping a blue feather boa round his neck for additional cover and topping it off with a pair of oversized yellow sunglasses. Confident that absolutely nobody in their right mind would be looking for that particular clothing combination, he settled down to watch through the window.
The cabin door slid open to reveal a Fahngarlian - the first living example of the species that Jin had ever seen. She was tall and fair-skinned, with long black hair that hung straight to her waist. Her uniform was simple, a light blue tunic over black leggings, and she wore an odd headset around her ears and mouth. Her face, though expressionless, did not look unfriendly.
The shockstick hanging from her side was another matter entirely.
Jin stopped breathing as the Fahngarlian approached Kame, then resumed when she showed no signs of posing a threat to him. Instead, she remained a respectable distance from the bed and said something in her own language. Whether or not Kame understood it, Jin didn't know, but it was sufficient to wake him up.
Kame yawned, blinked and sat up, looking more bored than anything else. "What is it?" he asked.
The alien switched on the overhead light, adjusted something on her headset and responded in heavily accented Japanese. "Your presence is required on the bridge, sir. We're approaching the planet Mars and Captain Jennifer wishes you to offer tactical advice."
Jin was puzzled. Jennifer? Why Jennifer? Wasn't that a human name? He'd been expecting something weird and outlandish. Maybe the Fahngarlians weren't satisfied with merely wiping out the entire human race - they wanted to steal their identities too.
Kame stared at the girl, making no attempt to move.
"Please," she tried again. "We need your expertise. The shipyards will be heavily defended - your people will not want to surrender them."
"My people?" Kame spat out. "My people? I left them a long time ago." He threw the blankets aside and stood up, revealing a pair of fuzzy yellow pyjamas. "I'll join you when I'm dressed. But...this is the last time. I'll help you capture the shipyards, then I'm leaving."
"Leaving?" The Fahngarlian sounded horrified. "Why? Haven't we given you everything you've asked for? Haven't we indulged your slightest whim? What more could you possibly want?"
Despite the image of childlike innocence projected by the pyjamas, there was nothing cute and adorable about Kame when he replied grimly, "I have to find someone."
"And what will you do when you find that person?"
"I haven't decided yet." The serious expression gave way to a sweet smile, and Jin's heart skipped a beat. "That depends on him."
Jin didn't dare hope that the person referred to was himself, though privately he thought he was the most likely candidate. He had no idea what he'd do if he came face-to-face with Kame right now.
It didn't look like the Fahngarlian was going to give him the chance to find out. She reached into the folds of her tunic and withdrew a syringe, seized Kame's arm and jabbed him before Jin could make a move.
Kame reeled back, sinking down onto the bed and cradling his arm. He glared up at his assailant, who said something Jin couldn't hear, and Kame's face changed. It was as if all the warm, human blood had been pumped from his body and replaced by molten lava.
"I said, I'll join you when I'm dressed," he snarled, batting the syringe out of the girl's hand. It clattered to the floor but didn't break, rolling out of sight. The Fahngarlian didn't retrieve it.
"That's right," she encouraged him. "Give voice to your anger. Why would you want to go elsewhere when here, with us, you have the means to take your revenge on all those who hurt you?"
She reached out with black-gloved hands, aiming for his face, but he backhanded her and sent her careening towards the door. She looked surprisingly happy at his display of temper...right up until Kame grabbed the lower half of her headset and broke it off.
"Always the same," he snapped. "If you don't have anything new to say, get out."
Clutching her damaged headset, the alien backed out the door, keeping a wary eye on Kame. He waited until the doors slid shut, then tapped a short code sequence on the lock before turning towards the closet.
Too late, Jin recalled that Kame had announced his intention to dress. Logically, that meant he was going to want clothes. Cute though the fuzzy pyjamas were, they were hardly suitable for the bridge of a warship. Jin could either climb back in the access shaft, call Nakamaru to beam him out, or wait for Kame to open the door and discover his former lover lurking in the closet.
None of the options were all that appealing, so Jin opted to surprise Kame instead. The current Kame was an angry brute, not at all the kind, funny partner who used to make him laugh - Jin kept one hand on his stunner, just in case. Whatever drug the aliens had been administering, they'd evidently been doing so for some time, if the Ohmiya report was any indication. Something to agitate Kame, to make him hostile enough to want to wipe out his own people?
There was no time left to think about it. Jin opened the door and leapt out of the closet, narrowly avoiding tripping over a pair of moonboots, and watched Kame's face transform from enraged to confused.
"Who...?" he muttered.
Jin realised he was still wearing his camouflage, and quickly divested himself of his borrowed clothing. "Sorry," he babbled, "I tried not to make a mess of your closet but there's so much stuff in there and I didn't want anyone to see me so-mph!"
He lost the end of his sentence when Kame grabbed a fistful of his long black coat and pushed him up against the wall, and suddenly it was like the early days of their partnership, when both of them were suspicious of each other and neither wanted to give an inch for fear the other would take a mile. Or, more importantly for men who made a living from piracy, take the money. Once they'd got to know each other better and put together a crew they could really trust, that suspicion had evaporated.
"Jin?" Kame said incredulously. "What are you doing in my closet?"
Jin would've felt a lot better about answering if Kame hadn't still looked so angry. He figured it was safer to leave all mention of the military out of it for the time being, try make it personal. "I came here to find you."
"How did you know I was here?"
"That's not important right now. Will you come back with me? Please? I don't know what that girl was injecting you with but I'm sure it can't be good for you."
Kame laughed harshly and released his hold on Jin's coat, letting the fabric slip through his fingers and fall loose. "Because I'm more irritable than I used to be? I don't need you to worry about me, Jin."
Jin pointed to the needle marks decorating Kame's arms. One of his ex-roommates had been a heroin addict, shooting up whenever he had enough cash for it, and he'd been in a similar state. In the brighter light, there was an unhealthy cast to Kame's skin. "Obviously you need somebody to worry about you."
"And that somebody is you, huh?" Kame cast his eyes down to the floor. "Even after I left?"
That was enough to crack Jin's heart all over again. "Yeah," he said thickly. "I couldn't get rid of my feelings. All I could do was bury them for a while, until I saw you again."
It was nothing more or less than the truth, though he hadn't realised it until now.
Some of the tension left Kame's face. "You flew all the way out here to tell me that?"
Jin shrugged and attempted a smile. "I thought we needed to talk."
The other man stepped back, shaking his head. "I don't believe this."
"I don't care if you believe it or not, just come with me," Jin pleaded. He was conscious that the Fahngarlians would be expecting Kame on the bridge, and when he didn't show up, they were bound to send someone to fetch him. They didn't have the time to hedge around the issue. "We can work out the details later."
Kame took several deep breaths, as if he were still trying to wrestle his rage into submission. "You really came to find me," he murmured.
"We've already established that."
Jin started to reach for his sleeve to remove the spare teleport bracelet, but Kame slipped behind him and got there first, running one hand lightly over Jin's arm, up to his shoulder where it rested, fingers squeezing gently inside the coat's voluminous collar. Pressure, butterfly-light, a caress Jin hadn't felt for far too long. He stood stock-still, not daring to move, caution warring with desire to see what happened next.
The fingers left his neck to brush aside the shoulder-length curtain of hair, tucking it out the way to make room for the lips that lingered teasingly close to his skin. Jin sighed deeply as the warmth of Kame's mouth descended on his pulse point, and allowed sentiment to overrule common sense. His eyelids fluttered closed and he gave himself up to sensation.
Unfortunately, that sensation happened to be the burning of a shockstick against his collarbone.
-----
Not for the first time since he'd met Kame, Jin woke up with a splitting headache, along with other, equally unpleasant sensations. White-hot fire where the shockstick had connected with his skin, for one, and pain in his wrists and ankles where the bindings were digging in. He looked down at his arms to find he'd been tied, quite thoroughly, to an uncomfortable and old-fashioned wooden chair.
With ties.
Silk ties.
Kame's silk ties.
Jin muttered a curse under his breath and vowed to get his own back the moment he was free. He knew he should've stunned Kame when he had the chance. His stunner was gone, now, as was his trusty blaster, and he'd be willing to bet that the knife hidden in his right boot had pulled a vanishing act too.
There was one ray of hope, however. Though he couldn't see them beneath his coat sleeves, Jin could still feel the teleport bracelets adorning both wrists. Evidently, Kame hadn't considered them to be anything other than normal jewellery.
Or perhaps he hadn't been worried that Jin would use them to escape. After all, if he couldn't reach his comm badge he couldn't call Nakamaru to teleport him out, and the pilot was under orders not to initiate contact himself.
"I heard that," came a voice from behind him, and Jin struggled to turn his head far enough to see.
"Kame?"
"Who else?"
While Jin was unconscious, Kame hadn't been idle. The fuzzy yellow pyjamas were gone, replaced by a modified version of the Fahngalian uniform. The tunic was still blue, but a darker shade and shorter of sleeve, and the high collar was unbuttoned close to halfway down the chest. He'd dispensed with the gloves.
"Hurry up and untie me!"
Kame strode round so he was facing Jin and perched on the edge of the bed. "Why would I go to all the trouble of knocking you out if I was just going to let you go, idiot?"
"That's right, I'm an idiot," Jin said bitterly. "An idiot for taking this stupid mission in the first place!"
"Mission? I knew you weren't here for me. Maybe now you'll finally stop lying."
Jin was baffled. "When did I ever lie to you? I mean, except the time I accidentally broke your turtle alarm clock by knocking it off the nightstand and I told you I was asleep when it happened, but other than that?"
His captor picked up the shockstick and twirled it like a baton. "I've turned the intensity down so you won't lose consciousness again," he said casually. "Though you might faint from the pain, of course..."
Jin didn't like this new, cruel side of Kame. "Threaten me all you want, but I don't know what you're talking about!"
The shockstick twirled perilously close to his neck. "You went straight, didn't you?"
"I wouldn't call it 'straight', exactly..." The stick brushed his skin and he winced in anticipation, but the power was off. "Me, Ueda and the others, we all joined the military, just like we talked about when Yamapi caught up to us. The president gave us a pardon."
Kame smirked. "Always 'Yamapi this' and 'Yamapi that'. You think I don't know the real reason you signed up?"
"There's no point in piracy if you can't make a profit, right? There was nothing out there for us, not anymore, and your new friends here were making life awkward for anyone who flew out too far. That's why we joined." And I needed something to distract me after you left, was the part Jin didn't add.
"You joined because you and your precious captain were still seeing each other behind my back."
"He's a commodore now," Jin correctly him, absently, then realised what he'd been accused of. "You really think that? C'mon, Kame, it was over before I even met you! Pi and I are just friends now."
"Such good friends that after half an hour alone with him, you changed your mind completely and stopped wanting to run. You'd have done anything he told you to."
"You knew about that meeting?" Jin struggled against his bonds, trying desperately to break free so he could knock some sense into his former partner. "All we did was talk. But I walked in there thinking that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be on the right side of the law for a change, and if I hadn't been, nothing he could've said or done would've convinced me."
"Where one idiot goes, the other follows like a lovesick puppy. Were you thinking about him the whole time you were with me, or just during the day?"
Between the residual trauma from the shockstick and Kame's unexpected accusation, Jin's head was spinning. There was also an uncomfortable chill in his stomach, like he was going to throw up, and he hoped like hell that Kame would untie him before then. He wouldn't have put money on it, though.
He tried another tack. "You think anybody lucky enough to have you would waste his time even looking at anyone else?" he purred, and was proud when it came out sounding seductive despite the pain.
"Well..." Kame's expression softened. Marginally.
"You know you're the only one for me, right? There hasn't been anyone since you left, either." Jin cocked his head at a particularly winsome angle and offered Kame a smile so sizzling you could've cooked a steak on it. "I looked for you everywhere, but the first real lead I got was from military intelligence three days ago. I had to take this mission so I could see you again."
Kame's body language had relaxed during Jin's speech, but it tightened back up again and the unfortunate captain knew he'd said the wrong thing.
"See me? You came here to kill me." Kame held up Jin's weapons. "Not that I can blame you for wanting me dead. I've probably been responsible for the deaths of thousands of your fellow soldiers...and I'm going to be responsible for millions more."
"Not just soldiers - civilians too," Jin growled. "If you know what you're doing, Kame, then why don't you stop? They're your people too!"
"Not anymore." There was an odd, detached quality to Kame's voice that Jin hadn't heard before. "They're your people, and they're all going to pay for your betrayal. The Fahngarlians are helping me see to that."
"I don't believe this. You're going to wipe out the entire human race because you think I cheated on you?" As the implications sank in, Jin collapsed in helpless giggles, laughing until the tears ran down his cheeks and he sagged against the hard back of the chair. The situation couldn't possibly get any worse. "Admiral Takki is going to kill me!"
"Not if I get there first."
While Jin tried to recover what little composure remained to him, Kame received an impatient-sounding call from the bridge, strongly suggesting that he get moving. He frowned, barked a reply, then turned to Jin. "You're a mess," he commented.
"So untie me and I'll clean myself up," Jin sulked.
"Maybe later." Kame strapped a sidearm to his thigh and headed for the door, eyes gleaming with a hint of madness. "I have to go capture some shipyards. Don't go anywhere."
"Like I could get up and walk out," Jin muttered as Kame left the room.
There was more at stake than just sorting out his complicated personal life. The bulk of the JE fleet was divided between Earth and Mars; with the Fahngarlians stationing themselves near Jupiter, President Tsubasa was worried - and rightly so - that Mars would be a target. Without the vast shipbuilding facilities that spanned a quarter of the red planet's surface, the inhabitants of the Sol System would have no way to replenish their numbers. They supplied civilian ships also, but since the start of the war, the new crafts built were exclusively military. Most of the independent shipyards still catered to civilian customers, but they were small and scattered, and would never be able to compensate.
Whatever else happened, Jin had to get a message back to Yamapi to warn them to prepare for an attack. Kame had said "capture", not "destroy", which meant he wasn't going to risk damaging the facilities themselves. That didn't mean he wouldn't kill everyone in them.
The Pin was too far away for Jin to contact her directly, but if he could contact Nakamaru, the pilot could pass on the message via the AT-TUN.
Of course, first he had to reach his comm badge.
Jin contemplated his bonds. Despite his best efforts, the fabric refused to give, and he only succeeded in chafing his skin further. Kame had a *lot* to answer for, he decided. Though flexible enough to reach the knots with his teeth, he couldn't do anything with them. He needed something sharper.
Something like the teleport bracelet, which, like almost everything MatsuJun designed, had a deadly hidden feature. The upper half of the outward-facing edge was mildly serrated, not enough to cut but more than sufficient to irritate if the wearer allowed it to dangle too close to the hand. A small, flower-shaped button on the upper surface, when held down for sixteen seconds, released and held for sixteen more, activated the edge's vibraknife function.
Jin bent down again, took hold of his coat sleeve with his teeth, and tugged until the bracelet slipped clear of the material. He raised his arm as much as he could to make the thin silver bangle fall against the tie - the less manoeuvring he had to do with his mouth, the smaller the risk of cutting himself. Now for the hard part. He used his tongue to press down on the button, mentally counting the required time. There was a soft whine and a judder against his skin, and the vibraknife came alive.
It wasn't nearly as easy as the old adventure holovids made it look. The heroes always freed themselves in seconds, escaping without so much as a scratch and making it off the burning ship just in time to save the captured princess and restore peace to the universe.
Akanishi Jin wasn't so lucky. He cut his wrist twice, and by the time he managed to untie the knots holding his other arm in place, the blood was dripping freely. He quickly untied his legs and rooted around in the medkit he'd spotted in the closet, coming up with an all-in-one antiseptic, bandage and sim-skin package. He applied the fix to his cuts, wincing as the cold liquid hit, then checked his pockets.
Thankfully, Kame hadn't found the comm badge. Jin had known it was a bright idea to pin it to the *inside* of his shirt pocket, even if the rest of the crew thought it was silly.
He touched his hand to the bulldog pin. "Nakamaru?" he said breathlessly.
"Captain? Are you all right? Have you got him?" The pilot sounded relieved.
"Yes it's me, I'm not really sure, and no I haven't. Listen, I need you to call the AT-TUN and have Taguchi relay a message for me to Commodore Yamashita. The Fahngarlian fleet is headed for Mars."
"They've been moving for a while now; I've been reporting back while I was waiting for you. Don't worry - I've been keeping up with them so you're still in teleport range. Did you at least find Kame?"
"Yes, and he knocked me out," Jin said miserably. "He's going to help the Fahngarlians capture the shipyards."
"How?"
"He didn't tell me that part."
"Do you want me to bring you back, Captain?"
The ship gave a sickening lurch, causing Jin's stomach to do the same thing. They were speeding up.
"Not yet. I'll call you when it's time. Kame's on the bridge; I can still get to him."
"You don't think they'll see you walking in and shoot to kill, then?"
Jin thought about the random assortment of clothing, make-up and accessories in Kame's closet, including a light blue, full-sleeved tunic and a long, black wig, and allowed himself a grin. "They'll never notice as long as I don't try to speak."
Series: JE Fleet
Fandom: JE (primarily KAT-TUN)
Genre: Alternate Universe. Also: sci-fi, comedy, angst, romance. Oh, does 'crack' count as a genre?
Rating: R for violence and m/m activity between consenting adults (I don't know if it quite gets to NC-17)
Pairing: Primarily Akame, but many others are hinted at. Hopefully there is something for everyone to appreciate in there, including an Arashi OT5 for my dear friend kurorokoon.
Disclaimer: Yes, I'm writing about real people in an entirely fictitious universe. I do not own the following groups: KAT-TUN, NewS, Arashi, Kanjani8, Tackey & Tsubasa, though if I did I would be the happiest woman on Earth. I am making no money from this fic. (I don't own V6 either, but they're only in one line for cannon fodder.)
Summary: Akanishi Jin, former space pirate and current captain of the JE ship AT-TUN, accepts a mission that could put an end to the war ravaging the Sol System. Such a small thing, to remove the tactical advisor of the Fahngarlian fleet, but by no means simple. Not when said advisor happens to be his ex-partner.
Personal Space (2/4)
"You're sure they can't detect us?" Jin asked for the fifteenth time since the Beat Box had launched, leaving the AT-TUN hidden in an asteroid field.
Patiently, Nakamaru once again stopped his beatboxing ("Consider it in-flight entertainment, Captain!") and reassured Jin that yes, there was no way his fighter would be picked up on any of the alien sensors. He figured it didn't matter what he said, since the captain wasn't really listening.
Jin had barely spoken on the journey, except to ask about their cloaked status, and he'd done his best to avoid thinking about what he was going to do when he saw Kame again. A part of him wanted very much to greet his ex-partner with a right hook and a demand for an explanation. Another part, which he considered to be something of a traitor, yearned desperately to pin Kame to the wall and kiss him till he forgot why he'd walked out in the first place, much less signed up for the destruction of humanity.
"I'm sure once Kame sees you, he'll be his old self again," Nakamaru said. "He must still love you."
Jin snorted. "What makes you think so?"
"He didn't take your share of the profits, he didn't kill you on his way out and he didn't steal his favourite scarf back from your wardrobe. Shouldn't that mean something?"
"Well...he did like that scarf, didn't he?"
"Right. Though I suppose he could just have forgotten it, or thought it wasn't worth bothering about..."
"You're not helping!"
When they were at what Nakamaru declared to be "a safe distance", Jin slipped the extra teleport bracelet over his wrist and made sure his weapons were easily accessible beneath his long black coat.
"Comm check," he said as he tapped the small, stylized bulldog pinned to the inside of his shirt pocket. The words reverberated through the minuscule cockpit and Jin was satisfied that he could contact Nakamaru when he needed to be brought back - with or without Kame.
The pilot set the coordinates and wished him good luck, and Jin responded with a sickly grin. If he was ever going to go through with this, it had to be now. There was only one thing left to say.
"Teleport."
-----
The change in atmosphere hit Jin immediately, going from the stuffy, enclosed cockpit of the tiny fighter to the cool, dry air of the Fahngarlian ship. He'd had Nakamaru set him down in the cargo bay, figuring he could hide easily enough for as long as it took him to get his bearings. It was a night-cycle, but he had no way of knowing if the Fahngarlians would be asleep, or even if they slept at all, so teleporting directly into the living quarters would be too risky. Better to get the lay of the land first.
As Nino's report had mentioned, the cargo bay was full of chairs of all shapes and sizes, many of them with a tie attached to the back. Of life, however, it was empty. Jin wasted maybe thirty seconds gawking at the furniture, then checked his mental map of the ship.
There were only three decks, of which the lowest - his current location - had no crew quarters. The bridge was on the next deck up, and if Kame was playing the part of tactical advisor it was possible that he was there. If he was asleep or otherwise off-duty, it was probably on the uppermost deck, where all the cabins were to be found. The chances of Kame being on the lowest deck were so remote as to be non-existent, but Jin hadn't asked to be teleported there on a whim.
At the far end of the cargo bay was an emergency access shaft, fully enclosed, which ran straight up the height of the ship. There were exits built in at all three decks, and Jin intended to use the shaft to make his way, unseen, up to find Kame. He was counting on there being a ladder present, since the aliens obviously couldn't fly, and was happy to see he was right. Thanking his inner style guru that he'd remembered to put on gloves before leaving, he grasped the cold metal of the ladder and began to climb.
-----
What felt like hundreds of rungs later, Jin was beginning to wonder if Yamapi had accidentally forgotten to give him a couple of blueprints for, say, an extra deck or two. He'd passed one exit already, but the upper deck was nowhere in sight and he was getting tired of climbing. He reached a flat ledge, set opposite the ladder, and sat down for a rest, bracing his legs against the wall. He leaned back and promptly tumbled through the shaft exit.
Straight into a pile of clothing.
Jin picked himself up from the floor, removed the worn denim jacket that had somehow got tangled round his neck, and checked out his surroundings. He'd landed in a walk-in closet, stuffed with every variety of clothing he'd ever seen and a few more that were completely new to him. The shaft had been covered up by a hanging rail full of coats; he'd have been surprised if it had ever been used.
The was no light, but enough trickled in from the window pane set in the closet door that visibility wasn't a problem. Cautiously, Jin crept up to the window and peered out, hand poised over his comm badge to call Nakamaru for a rescue. What he saw was enough to make him disregard the risk and gently push open the door.
Kamenashi Kazuya, fast asleep.
His face was half-covered by blankets, but Jin would know it anywhere, pale in the lamplight and framed by dyed copper hair. He'd caressed that soft skin, run his fingers through the silken strands, and ached with need while the same was done to him. Old memories of better times surged from the depths of Jin's mind and he bit his lip to keep from waking the other man.
Every step closer to the bed was a small victory, and each a minor temptation. Could he somehow draw back the blankets, lock the bracelet round Kame's wrist and have them both teleported back to the Beat Box without a struggle? Or was Kame merely feigning sleep, lying in wait to attack him if he took another step?
Jin dismissed his last thought as paranoid and edged nearer to the bed before he could change his mind. Kame was within reach now, a softly slumbering mass of contradictions and treachery bundled under the blankets. Wishing like crazy that he'd had the good sense to delegate the task to someone else - preferably someone who'd never met Kame - Jin took hold of the corner of the outer blanket and gently tugged it aside.
And froze, as Kame stirred, murmuring Jin's name so faintly that Jin thought he might have been imagining things.
Heavy footsteps clomped outside the door and stopped. Jin darted back into the closet and camouflaged himself behind a set of bright red overalls, draping a blue feather boa round his neck for additional cover and topping it off with a pair of oversized yellow sunglasses. Confident that absolutely nobody in their right mind would be looking for that particular clothing combination, he settled down to watch through the window.
The cabin door slid open to reveal a Fahngarlian - the first living example of the species that Jin had ever seen. She was tall and fair-skinned, with long black hair that hung straight to her waist. Her uniform was simple, a light blue tunic over black leggings, and she wore an odd headset around her ears and mouth. Her face, though expressionless, did not look unfriendly.
The shockstick hanging from her side was another matter entirely.
Jin stopped breathing as the Fahngarlian approached Kame, then resumed when she showed no signs of posing a threat to him. Instead, she remained a respectable distance from the bed and said something in her own language. Whether or not Kame understood it, Jin didn't know, but it was sufficient to wake him up.
Kame yawned, blinked and sat up, looking more bored than anything else. "What is it?" he asked.
The alien switched on the overhead light, adjusted something on her headset and responded in heavily accented Japanese. "Your presence is required on the bridge, sir. We're approaching the planet Mars and Captain Jennifer wishes you to offer tactical advice."
Jin was puzzled. Jennifer? Why Jennifer? Wasn't that a human name? He'd been expecting something weird and outlandish. Maybe the Fahngarlians weren't satisfied with merely wiping out the entire human race - they wanted to steal their identities too.
Kame stared at the girl, making no attempt to move.
"Please," she tried again. "We need your expertise. The shipyards will be heavily defended - your people will not want to surrender them."
"My people?" Kame spat out. "My people? I left them a long time ago." He threw the blankets aside and stood up, revealing a pair of fuzzy yellow pyjamas. "I'll join you when I'm dressed. But...this is the last time. I'll help you capture the shipyards, then I'm leaving."
"Leaving?" The Fahngarlian sounded horrified. "Why? Haven't we given you everything you've asked for? Haven't we indulged your slightest whim? What more could you possibly want?"
Despite the image of childlike innocence projected by the pyjamas, there was nothing cute and adorable about Kame when he replied grimly, "I have to find someone."
"And what will you do when you find that person?"
"I haven't decided yet." The serious expression gave way to a sweet smile, and Jin's heart skipped a beat. "That depends on him."
Jin didn't dare hope that the person referred to was himself, though privately he thought he was the most likely candidate. He had no idea what he'd do if he came face-to-face with Kame right now.
It didn't look like the Fahngarlian was going to give him the chance to find out. She reached into the folds of her tunic and withdrew a syringe, seized Kame's arm and jabbed him before Jin could make a move.
Kame reeled back, sinking down onto the bed and cradling his arm. He glared up at his assailant, who said something Jin couldn't hear, and Kame's face changed. It was as if all the warm, human blood had been pumped from his body and replaced by molten lava.
"I said, I'll join you when I'm dressed," he snarled, batting the syringe out of the girl's hand. It clattered to the floor but didn't break, rolling out of sight. The Fahngarlian didn't retrieve it.
"That's right," she encouraged him. "Give voice to your anger. Why would you want to go elsewhere when here, with us, you have the means to take your revenge on all those who hurt you?"
She reached out with black-gloved hands, aiming for his face, but he backhanded her and sent her careening towards the door. She looked surprisingly happy at his display of temper...right up until Kame grabbed the lower half of her headset and broke it off.
"Always the same," he snapped. "If you don't have anything new to say, get out."
Clutching her damaged headset, the alien backed out the door, keeping a wary eye on Kame. He waited until the doors slid shut, then tapped a short code sequence on the lock before turning towards the closet.
Too late, Jin recalled that Kame had announced his intention to dress. Logically, that meant he was going to want clothes. Cute though the fuzzy pyjamas were, they were hardly suitable for the bridge of a warship. Jin could either climb back in the access shaft, call Nakamaru to beam him out, or wait for Kame to open the door and discover his former lover lurking in the closet.
None of the options were all that appealing, so Jin opted to surprise Kame instead. The current Kame was an angry brute, not at all the kind, funny partner who used to make him laugh - Jin kept one hand on his stunner, just in case. Whatever drug the aliens had been administering, they'd evidently been doing so for some time, if the Ohmiya report was any indication. Something to agitate Kame, to make him hostile enough to want to wipe out his own people?
There was no time left to think about it. Jin opened the door and leapt out of the closet, narrowly avoiding tripping over a pair of moonboots, and watched Kame's face transform from enraged to confused.
"Who...?" he muttered.
Jin realised he was still wearing his camouflage, and quickly divested himself of his borrowed clothing. "Sorry," he babbled, "I tried not to make a mess of your closet but there's so much stuff in there and I didn't want anyone to see me so-mph!"
He lost the end of his sentence when Kame grabbed a fistful of his long black coat and pushed him up against the wall, and suddenly it was like the early days of their partnership, when both of them were suspicious of each other and neither wanted to give an inch for fear the other would take a mile. Or, more importantly for men who made a living from piracy, take the money. Once they'd got to know each other better and put together a crew they could really trust, that suspicion had evaporated.
"Jin?" Kame said incredulously. "What are you doing in my closet?"
Jin would've felt a lot better about answering if Kame hadn't still looked so angry. He figured it was safer to leave all mention of the military out of it for the time being, try make it personal. "I came here to find you."
"How did you know I was here?"
"That's not important right now. Will you come back with me? Please? I don't know what that girl was injecting you with but I'm sure it can't be good for you."
Kame laughed harshly and released his hold on Jin's coat, letting the fabric slip through his fingers and fall loose. "Because I'm more irritable than I used to be? I don't need you to worry about me, Jin."
Jin pointed to the needle marks decorating Kame's arms. One of his ex-roommates had been a heroin addict, shooting up whenever he had enough cash for it, and he'd been in a similar state. In the brighter light, there was an unhealthy cast to Kame's skin. "Obviously you need somebody to worry about you."
"And that somebody is you, huh?" Kame cast his eyes down to the floor. "Even after I left?"
That was enough to crack Jin's heart all over again. "Yeah," he said thickly. "I couldn't get rid of my feelings. All I could do was bury them for a while, until I saw you again."
It was nothing more or less than the truth, though he hadn't realised it until now.
Some of the tension left Kame's face. "You flew all the way out here to tell me that?"
Jin shrugged and attempted a smile. "I thought we needed to talk."
The other man stepped back, shaking his head. "I don't believe this."
"I don't care if you believe it or not, just come with me," Jin pleaded. He was conscious that the Fahngarlians would be expecting Kame on the bridge, and when he didn't show up, they were bound to send someone to fetch him. They didn't have the time to hedge around the issue. "We can work out the details later."
Kame took several deep breaths, as if he were still trying to wrestle his rage into submission. "You really came to find me," he murmured.
"We've already established that."
Jin started to reach for his sleeve to remove the spare teleport bracelet, but Kame slipped behind him and got there first, running one hand lightly over Jin's arm, up to his shoulder where it rested, fingers squeezing gently inside the coat's voluminous collar. Pressure, butterfly-light, a caress Jin hadn't felt for far too long. He stood stock-still, not daring to move, caution warring with desire to see what happened next.
The fingers left his neck to brush aside the shoulder-length curtain of hair, tucking it out the way to make room for the lips that lingered teasingly close to his skin. Jin sighed deeply as the warmth of Kame's mouth descended on his pulse point, and allowed sentiment to overrule common sense. His eyelids fluttered closed and he gave himself up to sensation.
Unfortunately, that sensation happened to be the burning of a shockstick against his collarbone.
-----
Not for the first time since he'd met Kame, Jin woke up with a splitting headache, along with other, equally unpleasant sensations. White-hot fire where the shockstick had connected with his skin, for one, and pain in his wrists and ankles where the bindings were digging in. He looked down at his arms to find he'd been tied, quite thoroughly, to an uncomfortable and old-fashioned wooden chair.
With ties.
Silk ties.
Kame's silk ties.
Jin muttered a curse under his breath and vowed to get his own back the moment he was free. He knew he should've stunned Kame when he had the chance. His stunner was gone, now, as was his trusty blaster, and he'd be willing to bet that the knife hidden in his right boot had pulled a vanishing act too.
There was one ray of hope, however. Though he couldn't see them beneath his coat sleeves, Jin could still feel the teleport bracelets adorning both wrists. Evidently, Kame hadn't considered them to be anything other than normal jewellery.
Or perhaps he hadn't been worried that Jin would use them to escape. After all, if he couldn't reach his comm badge he couldn't call Nakamaru to teleport him out, and the pilot was under orders not to initiate contact himself.
"I heard that," came a voice from behind him, and Jin struggled to turn his head far enough to see.
"Kame?"
"Who else?"
While Jin was unconscious, Kame hadn't been idle. The fuzzy yellow pyjamas were gone, replaced by a modified version of the Fahngalian uniform. The tunic was still blue, but a darker shade and shorter of sleeve, and the high collar was unbuttoned close to halfway down the chest. He'd dispensed with the gloves.
"Hurry up and untie me!"
Kame strode round so he was facing Jin and perched on the edge of the bed. "Why would I go to all the trouble of knocking you out if I was just going to let you go, idiot?"
"That's right, I'm an idiot," Jin said bitterly. "An idiot for taking this stupid mission in the first place!"
"Mission? I knew you weren't here for me. Maybe now you'll finally stop lying."
Jin was baffled. "When did I ever lie to you? I mean, except the time I accidentally broke your turtle alarm clock by knocking it off the nightstand and I told you I was asleep when it happened, but other than that?"
His captor picked up the shockstick and twirled it like a baton. "I've turned the intensity down so you won't lose consciousness again," he said casually. "Though you might faint from the pain, of course..."
Jin didn't like this new, cruel side of Kame. "Threaten me all you want, but I don't know what you're talking about!"
The shockstick twirled perilously close to his neck. "You went straight, didn't you?"
"I wouldn't call it 'straight', exactly..." The stick brushed his skin and he winced in anticipation, but the power was off. "Me, Ueda and the others, we all joined the military, just like we talked about when Yamapi caught up to us. The president gave us a pardon."
Kame smirked. "Always 'Yamapi this' and 'Yamapi that'. You think I don't know the real reason you signed up?"
"There's no point in piracy if you can't make a profit, right? There was nothing out there for us, not anymore, and your new friends here were making life awkward for anyone who flew out too far. That's why we joined." And I needed something to distract me after you left, was the part Jin didn't add.
"You joined because you and your precious captain were still seeing each other behind my back."
"He's a commodore now," Jin correctly him, absently, then realised what he'd been accused of. "You really think that? C'mon, Kame, it was over before I even met you! Pi and I are just friends now."
"Such good friends that after half an hour alone with him, you changed your mind completely and stopped wanting to run. You'd have done anything he told you to."
"You knew about that meeting?" Jin struggled against his bonds, trying desperately to break free so he could knock some sense into his former partner. "All we did was talk. But I walked in there thinking that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be on the right side of the law for a change, and if I hadn't been, nothing he could've said or done would've convinced me."
"Where one idiot goes, the other follows like a lovesick puppy. Were you thinking about him the whole time you were with me, or just during the day?"
Between the residual trauma from the shockstick and Kame's unexpected accusation, Jin's head was spinning. There was also an uncomfortable chill in his stomach, like he was going to throw up, and he hoped like hell that Kame would untie him before then. He wouldn't have put money on it, though.
He tried another tack. "You think anybody lucky enough to have you would waste his time even looking at anyone else?" he purred, and was proud when it came out sounding seductive despite the pain.
"Well..." Kame's expression softened. Marginally.
"You know you're the only one for me, right? There hasn't been anyone since you left, either." Jin cocked his head at a particularly winsome angle and offered Kame a smile so sizzling you could've cooked a steak on it. "I looked for you everywhere, but the first real lead I got was from military intelligence three days ago. I had to take this mission so I could see you again."
Kame's body language had relaxed during Jin's speech, but it tightened back up again and the unfortunate captain knew he'd said the wrong thing.
"See me? You came here to kill me." Kame held up Jin's weapons. "Not that I can blame you for wanting me dead. I've probably been responsible for the deaths of thousands of your fellow soldiers...and I'm going to be responsible for millions more."
"Not just soldiers - civilians too," Jin growled. "If you know what you're doing, Kame, then why don't you stop? They're your people too!"
"Not anymore." There was an odd, detached quality to Kame's voice that Jin hadn't heard before. "They're your people, and they're all going to pay for your betrayal. The Fahngarlians are helping me see to that."
"I don't believe this. You're going to wipe out the entire human race because you think I cheated on you?" As the implications sank in, Jin collapsed in helpless giggles, laughing until the tears ran down his cheeks and he sagged against the hard back of the chair. The situation couldn't possibly get any worse. "Admiral Takki is going to kill me!"
"Not if I get there first."
While Jin tried to recover what little composure remained to him, Kame received an impatient-sounding call from the bridge, strongly suggesting that he get moving. He frowned, barked a reply, then turned to Jin. "You're a mess," he commented.
"So untie me and I'll clean myself up," Jin sulked.
"Maybe later." Kame strapped a sidearm to his thigh and headed for the door, eyes gleaming with a hint of madness. "I have to go capture some shipyards. Don't go anywhere."
"Like I could get up and walk out," Jin muttered as Kame left the room.
There was more at stake than just sorting out his complicated personal life. The bulk of the JE fleet was divided between Earth and Mars; with the Fahngarlians stationing themselves near Jupiter, President Tsubasa was worried - and rightly so - that Mars would be a target. Without the vast shipbuilding facilities that spanned a quarter of the red planet's surface, the inhabitants of the Sol System would have no way to replenish their numbers. They supplied civilian ships also, but since the start of the war, the new crafts built were exclusively military. Most of the independent shipyards still catered to civilian customers, but they were small and scattered, and would never be able to compensate.
Whatever else happened, Jin had to get a message back to Yamapi to warn them to prepare for an attack. Kame had said "capture", not "destroy", which meant he wasn't going to risk damaging the facilities themselves. That didn't mean he wouldn't kill everyone in them.
The Pin was too far away for Jin to contact her directly, but if he could contact Nakamaru, the pilot could pass on the message via the AT-TUN.
Of course, first he had to reach his comm badge.
Jin contemplated his bonds. Despite his best efforts, the fabric refused to give, and he only succeeded in chafing his skin further. Kame had a *lot* to answer for, he decided. Though flexible enough to reach the knots with his teeth, he couldn't do anything with them. He needed something sharper.
Something like the teleport bracelet, which, like almost everything MatsuJun designed, had a deadly hidden feature. The upper half of the outward-facing edge was mildly serrated, not enough to cut but more than sufficient to irritate if the wearer allowed it to dangle too close to the hand. A small, flower-shaped button on the upper surface, when held down for sixteen seconds, released and held for sixteen more, activated the edge's vibraknife function.
Jin bent down again, took hold of his coat sleeve with his teeth, and tugged until the bracelet slipped clear of the material. He raised his arm as much as he could to make the thin silver bangle fall against the tie - the less manoeuvring he had to do with his mouth, the smaller the risk of cutting himself. Now for the hard part. He used his tongue to press down on the button, mentally counting the required time. There was a soft whine and a judder against his skin, and the vibraknife came alive.
It wasn't nearly as easy as the old adventure holovids made it look. The heroes always freed themselves in seconds, escaping without so much as a scratch and making it off the burning ship just in time to save the captured princess and restore peace to the universe.
Akanishi Jin wasn't so lucky. He cut his wrist twice, and by the time he managed to untie the knots holding his other arm in place, the blood was dripping freely. He quickly untied his legs and rooted around in the medkit he'd spotted in the closet, coming up with an all-in-one antiseptic, bandage and sim-skin package. He applied the fix to his cuts, wincing as the cold liquid hit, then checked his pockets.
Thankfully, Kame hadn't found the comm badge. Jin had known it was a bright idea to pin it to the *inside* of his shirt pocket, even if the rest of the crew thought it was silly.
He touched his hand to the bulldog pin. "Nakamaru?" he said breathlessly.
"Captain? Are you all right? Have you got him?" The pilot sounded relieved.
"Yes it's me, I'm not really sure, and no I haven't. Listen, I need you to call the AT-TUN and have Taguchi relay a message for me to Commodore Yamashita. The Fahngarlian fleet is headed for Mars."
"They've been moving for a while now; I've been reporting back while I was waiting for you. Don't worry - I've been keeping up with them so you're still in teleport range. Did you at least find Kame?"
"Yes, and he knocked me out," Jin said miserably. "He's going to help the Fahngarlians capture the shipyards."
"How?"
"He didn't tell me that part."
"Do you want me to bring you back, Captain?"
The ship gave a sickening lurch, causing Jin's stomach to do the same thing. They were speeding up.
"Not yet. I'll call you when it's time. Kame's on the bridge; I can still get to him."
"You don't think they'll see you walking in and shoot to kill, then?"
Jin thought about the random assortment of clothing, make-up and accessories in Kame's closet, including a light blue, full-sleeved tunic and a long, black wig, and allowed himself a grin. "They'll never notice as long as I don't try to speak."