"Cry Ophelia"
by s1ncer1ty
*A/N: Character death (nope, he's not coming back), too much angst, eventual KxO slashiness. Part 1/3.
how to live your life without tears
but we've been trying to do that
for thousands of years
so go on and cry ophelia
It was supposed to have been just a simple data retrieval mission. Get in, a quick download of certain essential files, get out. Clean, simple, boring as hell. Ken had never felt himself to be at all cut out for data retrieval -- Weiss hadn't hired him for his mental faculties, after all. He was the ground-man, the muscle, that extra leverage with bladed steel at his fingertips. When it came to obtaining data, he was all to often extraneous, simply a contingency should the mission turn sour... like tonight.
It was supposed to have been so simple, but before they knew it, he and Aya were suddenly fighting for their lives.
As they often did, they fought side-by-side, a dance of steel and crimson; together, Ken and Aya were all too efficient killers. But there were so many of them, black-clad troopers, giving even the well-seasoned assassins a run for their money. Ken had managed to avoid the worst of the attacks so far, but he was still aching, lip and cheeks starting to swell from blows that had snuck past his blades. Aya as well seemed to have escaped the worst, but blood dripped down his forehead from a laceration, mingling with the crimson of his hair, and his left leg visibly pulled in a limp.
Again, Ken cursed Yohji for backing out of this mission; they could use all the help they could get. As it stood, Omi had gone silent over the communications link for altogether too long. As he and Aya backed towards the staircase to the ground level, where Omi had been hacking into the facility's mainframe, Ken wondered if the younger boy was even still alive.
A scream of pain filtered up from the staircase -- Omi's voice -- as if in answer.
Ken pulled his bugnuks from the chest of one of the enemy, as always unable to ignore the sickening twist of bone and sinew, and snapped his head towards the stairs, exclaiming, "Oi! Omi!"
Aya backtracked his steps, drawing up to Ken's side. "Go. I'll hold them off here."
"Wait a minute -- Aya!" Ken pulled up short at the head of the staircase, practically toppling over his own feet.
"It's more important that the data is secure. Ken, go to Omi." Aya's words were cold, but the expression behind his sharp eyes was anything but that. Aya meant business.
Another shout filtered up the stairs, snapping Ken from his thoughts. Aya was barely an afterthought as he tore down the staircase two at a time. Aya would be fine, or so he told himself. Omi needed him more. His heart began to race as he sprinted the hallway leading to the back of security, where Omi had been positioned. His blades called out for blood, for the horrid stench of copper that already permeated the air, and he snapped his bugnuks to the ready...
Omi was surrounded, his crossbow knocked from his hands, and Ken burst in just in time to see one of four sink his knife deep into the boy's left arm, his reflexes too dulled to completely escape what was intended to be a direct shot to the heart. Ken simply couldn't make out the faces of the men -- he was too focused on the rush of blood that flew immediately from Omi's wound in a sweeping scarlet arc. It was no wonder Omi hadn't managed to dodge the strikes -- it wasn't the first time he'd been stabbed, as apparent from the fans of blood that stained the walls and spattered across the cold tile floor. Omi's clothing was dripping crimson like syrup.
Blood. Blood everywhere.
And with four swift slashes, straight to the chest, the blood of four criminals mingled with Omi's, spreading in a thick, viscous across the floor.
The final body had no sooner slid from the cold metal of his bugnuks that Ken found himself back-to-back with Omi, who was shakily shouldering his crossbow once more. The boy's breath was ragged in his throat, every movement an orchestra of pain. But it wasn't the ragged hiss that Omi let out as he bumped his back against Ken's, nor the steady patter of his blood dribbling to the floor, that gave Ken's heart a start -- it was the rasping quaver in Omi's voice.
"Ken-kun, do you smell that?"
Ken grunted, turning so his hand clasped Omi's uninjured shoulder. His head tilted up, nose in the air, eyes drifting shut as he sought to sense any smell beyond the copper spill of blood. Faintly, beneath that all-too-familiar stench was a whiff of something sharp, like rotten eggs, sulfur. Brimstone. Or it would be when the flames from the sparking computer equipment ignited...
Shit.
Ken's grip on Omi's shoulder tightened, causing the boy to cry out in pain as he was shoved forward, and Ken shouted, "Omi, RUN!" Before he knew it, he was at Omi's back, shoving hard to get him to run faster, faster...
As they thundered down the hallway, the smell of leaking gas grew stronger, the crackle from the electrical equipment louder, and a wave of heat followed fast at their heels. No matter how fast they ran, it seemed the door at the end of the hallway only grew smaller and smaller. It would be a miracle if they made it out alive, and yet...
"No!" exclaimed Omi, skidding fast and nearly toppling Ken in his tracks as he turned back towards the control room. "Ken-kun, we've got to go back! Aya-kun -- If Aya-kun is still upstairs, we have to go back!"
"We can't do that!" Barely in time, Ken managed to catch Omi across the shoulders, placing himself between the other boy and a scorching, flaming demise. "Aya can take care of himself!"
"But we can't leave him!" Omi's voice broke, and he struggled, flailing, but his injuries and the pain had weakened him, and he was held fast in Ken's grip. "We're a team!"
"We're assassins! Not an army!" A larger crackle of heat, and Ken felt the floor rumble as an explosion rocked the upper level of the building. "Omi, we've got to leave!"
"But Aya-kun..."
"Can take care of himself! Now come on!" Forcibly, Ken spun Omi around on his feet, flinching at the slick of blood that had soaked through the younger boy's black windbreaker, and gave him another sharp shove against the back.
It all happened so quickly. Rumbling, shaking, the floor almost seemed to give way as something large and something explosive thundered fast on their heels as they raced against time to escape.
A crackle and a miasma of flame engulfed the hallway a split second after Ken had thrown Omi out the door, and his body atop his, so that the hair on the back of his neck singed from the hellish heat of the explosion.
And somehow, even as the debris continued to fall, in spite of the heat and the pain, Ken managed to drag Omi's squirming, struggling, bleeding body clear of ground zero. He'd managed to dislocate his knee, either from the fall or from the impact, but it was a sweet, welcome pain. It meant that he was still alive, if he could still feel.
Ken twisted himself around and gathered Omi into his arms as the complex seemed to collapse in on itself, filling the air with a black smoke that singed their lungs.
Omi was weeping, soft moans of anguish escaping him, each word a choked sob: "Aya-kun... Aya-kun..."
Ken could do nothing more than hold him, tightly, praying that the world would just stop shaking and burning long enough to get both himself and Omi home alive.
As the sirens started to wail from the distance, emergency vehicles -- and crawling media -- on their way to such a mighty fire, Ken gave Omi's shoulders a light shake. He winced; Omi's blood had begun to seep through even the thick leather of his gloves. "Hey. Come on."
Omi shook his head, burying it fast against Ken's chest. There was blood even in his hair, although Ken couldn't tell who it belonged to.
"No, stop it." Ken pulled Omi's body from his, shaking him more sharply. "I need you to pull yourself together. Can you do that?"
Omi swiped his good arm across reddened eyes and shivered, but nodded all the same.
"Omi, I need you. You can stand, right?"
"Yeah, I think so." Omi's voice was thin, strained, disconnected.
"You think you can support some extra weight?"
"Ken-kun?"
"It'd be easier for both of us. Do you think you can?"
"I don't know... But I will." Omi staggered to his feet, drying crimson contrasting all the more starkly against grey-pale skin. He pulled Ken's arm around his shoulders, looped his own around the other's waist, and somehow, as the world collapsed around them, they managed to stagger away beneath the cover of darkness, to a payphone where they could touch base with Yohji... and with Persia.
It was supposed to have been such an easy mission, too. It seemed almost too simple a way for Aya to go, so simple it was insulting.
"He won't die. He can't die," Ken whispered, swaying on his feet against Omi's trembling support.
But Omi wouldn't respond and merely hung his head, bloodied hair spilling across his eyes in a futile effort to hide his tears.
"Come on, just do it."
"Now, now, Ken, kissing your wounds better isn't my job. You're on your own."
"Look, it's dislocated. Just pop it back into place, I'll try not to deck you, and it'll all be over."
"Isn't Omi the one who should be doing this?"
"If you haven't noticed, genius, Omi's barely got use of his arms after being sliced open by those maniacs."
"Guess you shouldn't have let your guard down. Like this, then?"
"Don't lecture me about keeping my guard down. You weren't there, you don't know. Move your hands down about two inches and push up as hard as you can."
"Whatever you say. You want a little warning?"
"Doesn't matte -- AGH! Argh... Fuck, you could have warned me!"
"You said it didn't matter. Feeling better, Ken-Ken?"
"Goddammit, motherfucking..."
"Thanks for not decking me, by the way."
"Fuck... Huh. Yeah, anytime. It's not pretty, but I think it's back in the joint. I might actually be able to walk again tomorrow."
"That's not a very pleasant thought."
"Nope."
"What about Omi, then?"
"What about him?"
"Is he okay?"
"... No. No, he isn't."
"I suppose I can understand, to a certain extent."
"I can't say I'm completely all right myself, either."
"You know, Ken, people die. It's part of the job. I go into every job thinking I'll die, or one of you will die. That way, I won't miss any of you schmucks when you're gone."
"Yeah, but who would have thought it? Aya was the one that went first. Not me, not you, not Omi. Aya."
"Freaky, isn't it? I can't say he was the one I ever expected to die."
"You can't say that you're not the least bit shaken up over this."
"Look, I never said I wasn't shaken. But I also never went into this mission expecting one of us wouldn't go."
"Yeah. Well. Shit."
"Ah, eloquent as always, I see."
"Shut up. My leg fucking hurts."
"You got it. One thing before I go, Ken-Ken?"
"Hrm?"
"Be nicer to Omi than you were to me, okay? It sounds like he's taken this really rough."
"Huh? Yeah, I'll... I'll try."
"Hey."
Omi raised his head, slowly, as if even just that small movement were painful. "Ken-kun."
"Yeah." Ken limped across the room, slid down onto the couch beside Omi with a soft thud. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine. You?"
"Pretty shitty."
"I'm sorry to hear that." He almost sounded genuinely sorry, but the previous night's events had drained away all feeling, leaving behind only the empty shell of his words.
"Remind me never to hire Yohji as my full-time doctor," said Ken wryly.
Omi smiled a ghost of a grin and sat up straighter, freeing up the middle space on the couch. "Put your leg up if it hurts."
Ken frowned. "Lie back down already. You lost a lot of blood." He suppressed a shudder, recalling the slick way Omi's windbreaker had slid away beneath his hand, so sodden with blood.
"Ken-kun --" Omi protested, only to be silenced with a glare and a dismissive wave of Ken's hand.
"I said lie down."
Omi closed his eyes, too weary to argue, nodding sadly as he slid back down against the couch's arm. He propped his feet upon the center cushion, toes nearly brushing against Ken's thigh. Briefly, Ken felt a twinge of remorse, Yohji's words still ringing in his ears -- be nice to Omi. He was trying.
"So. Ah. How many stitches?"
"Thirty."
"Scar?"
"Yes, it probably will."
"Heh. Lucky. All I got for my trouble was a recurring knee injury that could have happened at any time." Though he tried to sound light-hearted, Ken's words were strained.
Omi was silent, head resting against his arm so Ken couldn't see his face. After a time, Ken heard a soft sniffle and suspected, with a sinking feeling, that Omi was crying again.
"Yeah. Recurring injury. And maybe some mental scars that'll never really heal," Ken whispered.
Omi made a half-choked sound, a cross between a hiccup and a sob, but was otherwise quiet.
"Oi, Omi. Don't do that, okay?"
"Ken-k-kun..." Ken sighed.
"Come here, then."
Omi pushed himself away from the couch's arm and practically collapsed into Ken's lap, face burying against the other boy's thigh. One hand clutched weakly at the edge of Ken's shorts, and Ken rested his hand against Omi's back.
"Take it easy. I know it hurts, but... take it easy." Ken never did have quite the way with words that any of the other boys had.
"Is Aya-kun really -- really --" Omi somehow managed to whisper.
"I - guess so...."
Omi whimpered, burying his head further into Ken's lap, crying so silently that Ken thought his heart might just break, if it weren't so numb to anything and everything but Omi's tears.
...tbc