Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyoriannaPairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma. okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day. Can they work together or will they end up destroying each other?
Author's Note: Alrighty, we're back with Past!Kame again.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!!
Warning: This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal -
The Things We Can't Control Master PostOn the akame_ Community -
The Things We Can't Control Master PostOn the akame_fanfics Community -
The Things We Can't Control Master PostOn the je_kamenashi Community -
The Things We Can't Control Master PostOn the kattun_fanfics Community -
The Things We Can't Control Master PostOn the jin_fics Community -
The Things We Can't Control Master Post Chapter 24 ~Tallying the Loot~
Back at the motel room, Kame changed out of his new clothes and back into the ones he’d stolen. Carefully he put the new clothes into the garment bag, trying to keep them from wrinkling too badly. Meanwhile, Ryuichi dumped everything they’d taken off of Domoto onto the bed. Kame could hear him mumbling to himself from the bathroom.
Kame left the bathroom and crossed the small room to sit on the bed, the pile of loot between the two boys. It didn’t really look like all that much. Snatching up the wallet, he pulled out all the cash he could find in it. Fifty-seven dollars and… ten… twenty… twenty-two cents. And the watch, but it didn’t look like it was worth that much.
“This is it? There’s not even as much as I spent on the clothes and the room!”
Ryuichi rolled his eyes. “You’re forgetting the credit cards and the ID. That’s where the real money is, right?”
Indeed, there were three credit cards and an ID card. Though Kame didn’t understand how an ID card could be worth all that much. Maybe some teenager who wanted to get in at a bar? But with the picture on it of Domoto, it wouldn’t really work, would it? As for the credit cards, “So what? We go find an ATM and take as much money out as it lets us?”
“You can be a real idiot sometimes.”
“What? What do you mean?”
With a laugh, Ryuichi said, “The word ‘idiot’ wasn’t clear enough?”
Great, now he was being made fun of. Kame’s patience was wearing thin. And he hadn’t forgotten how long it took for Ryuichi to intervene and knock Domoto out. Kame couldn’t prove it but he was absolutely sure Ryuichi had waited on purpose because he was still mad that Kame fought him off yesterday. “I know what the word means, you ass!” Kame snapped.
“We can’t go to an ATM. Those things have cameras and if he reports his cards as missing, they can check where it was used since then and see who uses it!”
“How are they any good to us, then? And the ID card… how is that going to make us money?”
Ryuichi started sorting the stuff on the bed into three piles. One was just the actual money. One was the credit cards, the ID, and the tattered checkbook. Everything else, like the watch and the wallet itself, went into a third pile. “Samuel or whatever name he’s using this week will buy everything here in this pile,” and Ryuichi gestured to the watch and wallet and an earring Kame had overlooked himself when they were looting. “Because they can’t trace ‘em, see? We won’t get a lot for it all, but we’ll get something at least. But everything in this other pile, they’re traceable. They got his name on them. Useless to us… but I know some people who pay real good money for this stuff. They sell identities or something like that and they have ways of making profit off the cards. I don’t know how it works, but whatever. We’ll get… let’s see, three cards plus a checkbook and ID… probably around five hundred dollars. Unless they’re still in a bad mood over that little incident… totally not my fault. I didn’t know she was their sister! If they’re pissed, we’ll barely get half that.”
Shaking his head, Kame said with no small amount of sarcasm, “You piss a lot of people off and it’s never your fault…”
But Ryuichi didn’t pick up on the sarcasm, instead saying, “I know, right? Stupid shit. I dunno what their problem is. They’re just wound too tight.”
“Yes, that’s probably it.” More sarcasm, just as lost on him.
Ryuichi suddenly looked thoughtful. “If they’re still mad at me… Hmm… You know, they do like pretty boys. If you let both of ‘em have a run at you, we might even get more than five hundred. They got bored with me ‘cause I won’t let ‘em tie me down…”
No way in hell. “Five hundred is enough, I think.”
“Aw, c’mon, it’s not that bad! No different than any other night, right? What’s the problem? If they like you, we might get that half over again. Seven hundred fifty dollars split between the two of us!”
Kame was getting really tired of people asking him that. Out of anyone in the world, they at least should understand. They were in the same position, weren’t they? Also… “Isn’t it kind of dangerous to carry around that much money? What’s to stop Hina from just taking it?”
“So buy a fake ID and get a bank account of your own, then.”
“Well, what do you do with your money?”
“There’s an old lady who has a check-cashing place on Coral and Third. It’s a pretty far walk from the stroll but she works like a bank for a couple of us, for a cut. She’s… um… mostly honest. If you make sure to get something in writing every time you leave or take money.” A pause. “She doesn’t like a lot of people knowing she does it but I guess I could take you to meet her, right?”
Mostly honest, huh? Well, that was still better than most of the people he’d met recently. But that was for tomorrow. It was starting to get late and they really needed some sleep after all that walking… only Kame suddenly noticed a rather big problem.
“Uh… there’s only one bed…”
With a bit of a sly smile, Ryuichi said, “Ah, you noticed that. Well, we could probably both fit…”
On that tiny bed? “Not a chance.”
“Suit yourself. I’m not sleeping on the floor, though.” And after moving all of the stuff off the bed and onto the night stand, he added, “Good night!” and crawled under the covers.
Oh, wasn’t this just great. Fucking fantastic. The first bed he’d seen in weeks and he’d still be sleeping on the ground. But he was so tired and even though the bed was a really crappy one…
Damn it.
Kame took off the belt he was wearing but left the clothes on. He climbed into bed on the other side of Ryuichi (though the bed was so small, it almost didn’t have sides) and pulled the blanket over himself. But it wasn’t long before he felt hands on him.
“Stop that!” Kame hissed.
But Ryuichi didn’t stop, instead offering the excuse that the bed was small so some touching was just unavoidable.
Kame would hear none of it. “Maybe, but not there.”
Only Ryuichi flat-out ignored him, instead shifting to be even closer. Kame felt his hand slip down into his pants but when he went to push Ryuichi off the bed he suddenly found his wrists pinned by Ryuichi’s free hand instead.
“I said to stop!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m a little deaf in that ear. You have to be louder. You should practice by screaming my name.” Only it sure as hell didn’t sound like an apology and definitely wasn’t what Kame wanted to do. He thought… well, he fought Ryuichi off already! He… he really thought that meant the boy would leave him alone after that…
Well, he did it once. He could do it again. Or… at least… try…
And he did try. Ryuichi’s grip on his wrists was pretty tight. He could roll off the bed and let gravity do the work of fighting against the hold, but that nightstand… he’d hit his head if he tried that. Maybe a reverse tactic, get in even closer. Close enough to bite.
So he leaned in, which Ryuichi took as an invitation apparently because he pulled his hand out of Kame’s pants to fiddle with the zipper. And that’s when Kame bit him as hard as he could on the side of the neck. Ryuichi let out an indignant screech, releasing Kame’s hands in favor of checking the mark left by Kame’s teeth. That was all the distraction Kame needed to slip out of the bed entirely.
“I told you no!” The two boys glared at each other.
When Ryuichi pulled his hand away from the bite and saw blood, he shouted back, “That doesn’t mean you can just BITE me!”
“Oh yes it does!”
“Fine, whatever. Either you sleep here or you go lock yourself in the bathroom. But if you stay here, this is gonna happen.”
“FINE!” And Kame snatched the pillow right out from under a protesting Ryiuchi and locked himself in the bathroom.
So much for a comfortable place to sleep… he was so tired of hard, grimy walls and dirty alleys. For a chance to sleep somewhere even slightly better, it was almost worth giving in to Ryuichi.
Almost.
When Kame left the bathroom the next morning after a night of fitful sleep (he still had nightmares about… well, those three days… but at least not as often and, truth be told, huge chunks of those days were missing from his memory), he was surprised to find Ryuichi still there, albeit in a foul mood. Honestly, Kame had expected to find him gone with all the loot. Nice to know he had at least a few scruples.
They divided everything up between them to carry (the team equivalent of hiding your money in more than one place on you so that robbers possibly wouldn’t get all of it) and walked back to the stroll. Hina made some crack about the honeymoon being over when he saw how bad a mood Ryuichi was in and Yoko seemed downright giddy at the thought of Ryuichi having a bad day.
While the three other boys chatted, Kame went and hid his clothes in the garment bag. Considering that he was playing hound for Ryuichi and this was the boy’s stroll, nobody would steal it. At least, not anyone local. But it was still good to hide it to protect against a stranger wandering by. Good thing he had the garment bag!
And once he’d stashed the clothes, he checked on the hiding place for his Snoopy. It was still there, thank goodness.
Ryuichi’s voice, calling for him from the street. Shoving the toy back into its hiding place, he walked back out of the alley and out onto Pearl Street. “Let’s talk to Samuel first-”
Hina interrupted. “He’s going by Antony this week.”
“… whatever. Let’s go talk to him first and then I’ll take you to see the twins.”
“So you were doing Hound and Hunter. How’d you two make out?” Yoko addressed Ryuichi.
“Since when is that your business?” Ryuichi teased playfully. “Though it was so hard watching that man grope my Kame-chan…”
Right. Hard. That’s why Ryuichi had just stood there watching for so long. No, the sight was definitely not what was hard at the time…
“Since when am I your Kame-chan?”
“Since I said you are.”
As he glared silently at Ryuichi, Kame could hear the faint whisper from Hina, “Ooh, trouble in paradise.”
But Ryuichi just ignored him, gesturing for Kame to follow. And when they got to the van Samuel… er, scratch that… Antony operated out of and Ryuichi started to bargain with the guy, Kame had to admit he was impressed. Ryuichi was crazy-good at maneuvering the best prices, though Antony wasn’t particularly happy to see him (another one of the boy’s “totally innocent misunderstandings” it seemed). Apparently Ryuichi could do more than just attack helpless boys.
Five minutes later, the money total had gone up by $55 and Ryuichi led the way to see the twins, whoever they were. Kame could only assume they were the guys who would buy the credit cards. They ended up in front of an apartment building that looked rather nice for being south of the river. Actually, a whole row of them, stretching down State Street for several blocks in either direction. Oh, the building was still dingy as hell but…
“Let me do the talking,” Ryuichi whispered as they both walked up the few steps leading to the front door. He pushed a button on the intercom and said, “Looks like rain,” which confused the hell out of Kame since the sun was shining brightly.
But then a buzzer sounded and Ryuichi had the door open. Maybe it was some kind of code phrase. A good thing to remember.
Once they were inside, Ryuichi told him, “The elevator works but it’s a trick. If you’re here, don’t ever take the elevator up. See, if someone overhears the password and gets inside, like the cops or something, right? Well, like most people, they’ll take the elevator up. But Akira and Aoi, they tell you to take the stairs because nobody does if there’s a working elevator. And that means you’re supposed to be here. The twins get kinda paranoid except for when they’re thinking with their dicks.”
Two more good things to remember.
The two boys climbed the stairs all the way to the fourth floor and when they opened the door out onto the floor itself, a sudden loud honk sounded. Ryuichi point up to the doorframe and, sure enough, the thing was wired. The sound wasn’t loud enough to carry to the other floors or even very far on this one, but it was loud enough for the tenants in apartment 4-B right across the hall and Kame knew this because the door swung open as they closed the stairwell door behind them.
“Alright, c’mon,” Ryuichi whispered to him and the two boys crossed the hall. But the man who’d opened the door to 4-B was blocking their way in. “Aw, Akira-san, what’s the big problem?”
The man, Akira, was twenty-five at most which was a bit surprising but it was the spiky short blond hair with the black tip and the tattoo of a red dragon circling down from along his jaw line to the side of his neck and along the shoulder down his right arm almost all the way to the wrist, that caught Kame’s immediate intention. He didn’t mean to stare but he’d never met someone who looked like that before. Kame was barely aware of what was going on at the moment because he was still just floored by the man.
“We told you to never come back. You’re not welcome h-”
Akira stopped mid-sentence and there was a short pause. “Is that for us?” He didn’t sound nearly as pissed as before.
“Maybe. Let us in and we’ll talk about it,” Ryuichi teased.
“Uh huh…” but Akira moved out of the doorway, allowing them access.
Kame wasn’t sure he liked Akira. The man kept staring at him. Oh, god, he hadn’t recognized him, had he? Did Akira know his father? But… Ryuichi didn’t like Papa K. He wouldn’t come here if Papa K came here, right? There had to be another reason Akira was staring at him.
“Business first,” Ryuichi insisted. Seemingly out of nowhere, a second man appeared next to Akira. He looked almost completely identical except his blonde hair wasn’t spiky but rather very neatly trimmed. Oh, and his dragon tattoo was blue and went from his cheek down to nearly his wrist on the left arm instead of the right.
Guess they really were twins!
“And that isn’t business?”
“No, that’s pleasure.”
“Sou desu ne…”
Great, now both Akira AND his brother were staring, though the brother had thus far not said a word. Kame finally had enough; he had to know. “W-why are you starring at me?”
Ryuichi elbowed him and hissed something about being quiet.
“I would think it was obvious,” Akira said simply. Then to Ryuichi, “This one has a bit of a mouth on him.”
“Yeah, he does. But…” and Ryuichi made some sort of hand signal but Kame couldn’t tell what it was since Ryuichi’s body was blocking the view.
“Oh?” A very interested ‘oh’ to boot.
Ryuichi nodded.
Kame had alarms going off in his head but he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He had his knife but there was no way he could fight off so many people. At least he was the closest one to the door. What exactly was going on?
“So, business then?” Akira asked, turning his attention completely to Ryuichi finally.
“Yeah. Three credit cards, one partial checkbook, and one photo ID, all same guy.” Ryuichi snapped his fingers and then gave a little gesture which Kame interpreted as the rude way of saying “please hand me shit” so he gave the stuff to Ryuichi with a bit of a glare for the rudeness.
This time it was Akira who gestured and Aoi who responded by wordlessly accepting the stuff from Ryuichi. Turning to consult with his brother, Akira asked, “Legit?”
As far as Kame could tell, Aoi didn’t say or do anything except turn to look Akira face to face; he didn’t even otherwise gesture. But somehow it still managed to convey a “yes” to Akira. Eerie… Leaning in, Kame whispered to Ryuichi, “Can he talk?”
“Who knows?” he whispered back. “Now shut up. I said to let me do the talking. Didn’t I say that?”
Kame rolled his eyes.
“Three hundred dollars,” Akira said. That wasn’t anywhere near the amount Ryuichi had estimated. Apparently, yes, they were both still mad. Great… but three hundred dollars was still one-fifty each. And he didn’t have to spread his legs (at least, not all the way…) to get it. THAT was something he could get used to. But Kame was pulled back out of his thoughts and to the room by Akira, who continued with, “Unless…”
And the twins were once again staring at him.
“He’d love to. Wouldn’t you, Kame-chan?” But it didn’t sound so much like a question.
Did he mean… Oh, right. Kame finally clued in to what was going on. It was as Ryuichi had told him last night at the motel: the twins liked the pretty boys. But… that was all well and good and whatnot but…
“Six hundred if you agree.”
That was three hundred each. God, that was a lot of money… he could rent a motel room without Ryuichi and get a better night’s sleep! But…
Apparently he was taking too long to answer. Akira and Aoi looked at each other for a moment and then turned back to Kame. “One grand, you stay the rest of the day and we get whatever we want. We’ll set you loose in time for you to get back to Pearl Street for prime hours.”
Five hundred dollars each…
He just couldn’t refuse it.
His breath caught in his throat and his voice shook as he answered, “Okay…”
“We’ll send him and the cash along directly. You can go,” and Akira dismissed Ryuichi like he wasn’t worth another second of their time. Kame couldn’t help but notice Ryuichi’s expression as he left, which was both excited at getting so much money and pissed that Kame rejected him but not the twins.
Still… “whatever we want” was kind of… vague. Would Ryuichi have left him here if it was dangerous? After all, he left without the money, so he obviously expected Kame to come out of this in decent enough shape to make it back to the stroll…
But… Ryuichi’s words at the motel were not very reassuring…
They got bored with me ‘cause I won’t let ‘em tie me down, he had said. The last time he’d been tied down…
It hadn’t gone so well.
And that was as deep as Kame allowed himself to go down that train of thought.
+++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 25 ~The Next Stage~ A/N: Hmm... not as long as I intended (I'd originally intended for them to get the money and then go on to Yuriko's Check Cashing (aka secret street bank), and then do a sort of "and things passed like this for x amount of time" to move the story ahead a couple month or so. But, alas, spastically spitting words onto a page changed the plan, because I realized, if Kame will have sex in an alley for $20, no matter how much he'd like to turn down the twins, he wouldn't be able to do it. It was a different sort of thing than sleeping with Ryuichi or Hina.
Anyway, so now I have to write what happens the rest of this day in chapter 26, because Akira and Aoi aren't just into identity theft and sale and stolen credit cards. They also have other interests. You'll see in chapter 26. Meanwhile, next chapter starts with a Kizuna + Jin meeting about Tatsuya and what they should do next.