New A/N

READER ALERT: This chapter has an extra 1,500-odd words added on. Because I thought they fitted better here than in the next chapter. And I like this length better. XD

Old A/N

All I can do is apologise for the delay. And for this chapter, which is insanely short, but vaguely necessary filler.

Thank you very, very much to Tootchy, PixxyDust, littlelil1991, LovelySinner7, Panda Pjays and essenceofzedak for your reviews. I really appreciate them.

As Kai had expected, the second he opened his door he was confronted by a sulking cat. Stupid creature was sat smack-bang in the middle of the floor giving him an icy look of utter contempt.

"If you were a dog, you'd be licking my face and barking with joy right now," he informed the cat. As if in reply, it twisted and started licking its arse.

Not even this rudeness put a dent in Kai's good mood. "Glaring and ignoring authority in favour of questionable activities. You're my cat, all right." He went to the cupboard and hunted for the cat food. How did it always migrate to the back?

The cat let out a demanding meow and headbutted his calf.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's coming." He bent down to stroke the cat's head. It backed off and regarded him with a hostile look. Kai rolled his eyes, found the tin … then realised he had no idea where the tin-opener was. The last time he'd fed the cat had been before his date when he'd been dithering around the flat like a fucking sissy, so God only knew where he'd put the stupid thing in his distracted state.

He fished around in the cutlery drawer, and realised that he was thinking about Ray at about the same time he noticed he was whistling. As if it had got bored of hiding, the tin-opener suddenly appeared under the sharp meat knife.

Still whistling, he crouched down again to scrape the stinking slop into the cat's bowl. The cat plunged its face straight in and started scoffing. As Kai watched, the cat raised its head briefly and gave him a look that seemed to say, 'What the hell happened to you?'

"Sex happened to me, you grumpy bastard," Kai informed it. It blinked and returned to its food. Kai thought about what he'd just said, then said it again. It sounded unreal still. Even with teethmarks all over him and strained muscles that he'd forgotten got used to do … stuff … and, though he keot tryuing to forget about that, embarrassingly stained trousers.

He'd had sex. Really, really great sex, with a gorgeous guy who was somehow funny as well, and why the fuck had he waited this long, anyway?

The cat yowled. It was sat upright next to its mostly empty food bowl, looking a lot like a statue of itself apart from the big disapproving eyes.

"What?" Kai stared at it, nonplussed. "You can't want more food, you haven't finished what you've got!"

The cat blinked at him and transferred its creepily intense stare to a patch on the floor near Kai's foot. Even though he knew the cat was crazy, Kai still checked the floor, just for a split second.

"Crazy fucking animal."

The cat started purring, and flopped down onto the kitchen tile like it was a luxury cat bed or something.

"What the fuck are you on?" Kai shook his head in disbelief.

Soon he was slumped in his usual position on the sofa, watching meaningless television and letting his mind wander. Except usually his mind wandered to work, and how much Tyson was annoying him, while today it was wandering to … well. The sex. And the second sex. And the bits before the sex, and after the sex. Post-coital action, now there was a new experience. Previously he would just had filed 'Roll over and go to sleep/get up and go back to the laptop or TV' under that category and shrugged.

Shit. Now he could really do with a wank, but the cat had just jumped up on the arm of the sofa and was eyeing his newly lumpy trousers with disgust.

"At least you didn't jump on it again," he muttered, stretching out a hand. The cat obligingly sniffed and nuzzled it, then swivelled to stare at the television with every sign of absorption.

Kai's ridiculously erotic daydreams were shattered by his mobile ringing. He'd left it on the counter top, so the vibration sounded like a dentist drill. The cat leapt off the sofa with a shriek and stared at the slowly moving phone with narrow hunter's eyes that were utterly belied by the terrified shape of its fur.

"I completely agree," Kai mumbled. He heaved himself out of his chair and across the floor just in time to catch the phone as it fell off the counter. In the time that it took him to press the button and raise the phone to his ear, his blood had run hot with the idea that it might be Ray, and freezing cold with the idea that it might be his grandfather. "Yeah?"

"You could have warned me before I gave you a holiday that you never ever delegate anything to anyone."

Better than Grandfather, much worse than Ray.

"Tala, you didn't give me a holiday, you forced me to leave!"

"Stop being pedantic."

"I'm not being pedantic, I'm – "

"Anyway, like I was saying, why the hell did you not tell me that no-one else in your office has any clue about what you do or how you do it?"

Kai grinned at the frustrated tone in Tala's voice, and sauntered back to the sofa. "Finding your actual job a bit tricky now, are you?"

"Wha-"

"Come on, you know I do at least half your drudgery so you can schmooze with the potential clients."

"That's not the point. The point is that you should have warned me that without you, your little foursome subordinates would become about as useful as a chocolate kettle!"

Kai rolled his eyes and mouthed "Drama queen," at the cat. It blinked at him and curled up on the floor as if to listen from a safe distance. "You didn't give me a chance to tell you anything," he protested. "You barely even let me drive myself home, and then you stopped any of them speaking to me for three days!"

"It was necessary at the time." There was a short stubborn silence. "How are you, anyway? It's been, what, four days?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Relaxed and shit."

Tala snorted with laughter. "You wouldn't know relaxed if it kicked you in the balls."

"Nothing's going to kick me in the balls without me knowing about it. Unlike you."

Another snort of laughter. "Ok, maybe you are relaxed. You're insulting me jokingly instead of meaning it."

"Of course I'm relaxed. Watching some tedious daytime show right now, all sprawled out on the sofa."

"You're kidding me. Daytime tv? What is it, Help, my daughter's a big fat gypsy loser who wants to be a millionaire, get me out of here?"

Kai burst out laughing. The cat glared and stalked off to slide under Kai's bed.

"Because you don't watch any of those shows ever, do you?"

Tala scoffed. Sighed. "You are better, aren't you? I haven't heard you honestly laugh at a joke for ages."

"Yeah, well, that's because your jokes are fucking shit."

Eventually, Kai let the banter drop and they spent the next three-quarters of an hour discussing everything that needed to be done, or needed to be done again properly. In doing so, Kai discovered that Tala had been exaggerating. His team had held their own reasonably well given that he honestly didn't ever delegate and the filing system only existed in his head.

"So, I'm coming back next week, then." It was a statement, not a question, so he ground his teeth when Tala hummed thoughtfully. "Ivanov!" he snapped.

"You passed out mid-sentence, Kai."

"I didn't pass out," Kai muttered.

"Stop evading the point! How old are you?" Tala's voice was sharp and disdainful. Kai hated his automatic desire to shout back or sulk; teenage reactions that only seemed to mutely prove Tala's point. He watched the cat's tail flick back and forth.

"I didn't pass out," he repeated, just for something to say.

"No, you didn't pass out," Tala was definitely angry now, "but one second you were shouting in my face and the next you were too faint to hold your own fucking head up off the floor, so is there really a difference?"

"It doesn't matter." Kai stared at the cat's swishing tail. Something that had been niggling at the back of his mind suddenly sprang into sharp focus. He was so used to his grandfather knowing everything that happened in his life that he had completely forgotten that someone had needed to tell him. He wasn't telepathic. Luckily. "It definitely didn't need reporting up the way."

Tala made a bemused noise. Kai stayed silent. Tala was insanely intelligent. He'd figure it out. He liked that it didn't click immediately. Tala, Max and Tyson were the only people who didn't constantly remember that he was the Big Boss's grandson.

"Oh, so what was I supposed to do? Lie about sending a junior manager home for an entire week? I'm sorry if your granddaddy told you off, but the world does not revolve around you and your issues!"

"I - "

"Kai, if you dare try to say that you don't have issues, I'll hang up."

So Kai got there first. Call ended. Conversation over. Fuck him. He was coming back into work. Not negotiable.

He ranted at the cat for five or six minutes, then found himself tapping out a message to Ray;

"Boss thinks i hav issues. such an arrogant twat." After rereading it once or twice, he realised what was missing. "how r u? dead of pink yet?" Then he put the phone down and wandered aimlessly around the flat as he waited for a reply. The usual time-killing activity occured to him, but arguing with Tala drained all libido straight out of him.

Ha. Straight.

Ten twitchy minutes later, his phone beeped. He grabbed it.

Tala? He frowned and read the text.

"Have scheduled you in for a schmooze with Julia"

He took a second to scoff at Tala's relatively accurate grammar. Then the context hit him and he went on a swearing streak.

He had to go and be sociable. Worse, he had to go and be sociable with their best supplier so it actually counted. Worse, that meant he had to pretend to find her as funny and sexy as she thought she was.

He sent back, "punishment?" Almost imediately Tala replied. That probably meant he'd had the message already written, sneaky bastard.

"Thought you wanted to come back to work?"

Bastard.

"Welcome back, Kai!" Alan.

"Hope you're feeling better!" Tyson.

"Are you sure you don't want another day or two off? 'Cause, y'know, that's completely fine by me …" Andrew.

"Did you miss us?" Max.

Kai walked straight past the four of them. He put his hand on his office door handle and waited in silence until the atmosphere had sharpened and tensed.

"You useless bastards should be glad I'm back. Tala had to ring me mid-week to try and fix the fuck-ups you made from absurdly simple tasks. Clearly nobody here can actually do what they're paid to do."

The silence nearly burst at the seams with defiance and sulking in equal measures, but sensibly no-one spoke up. Grinning inside, Kai opened the door and went inside, making sure to give them all a dark, contemptuous look as he turned. The door swung shut behind him, wedging neatly on the metal pencil sharpener he used as a doorstop and so stopping a finger's width from full closure.

This meant he could still hear and be heard in the main room, but it was private enough still that he didn't worry about anyone seeing the grin as it crept out of his mind and over his face. It was fun, cowing grown men like that. They'd had a week off from him. And hell, even before that he'd been getting a bit soft. Allowing insubordination. Well, they'd soon learn he was back.

He sat at his desk and skimmed through the pile of papers neatly stacked there. One near the middle made him scowl and lean forwards to shout out the door;

"The next person who speaks, writes, types or in any way mentions the name of that whiny green shite known as 'Kevin' will be out doing the rounds in place of their sales rep for a week!"

More resentful silence. Then, of course;

"But, Kai, he's really persistent!"

"I'll show you persistent if you don't stop whining! And the next person to call me 'Kai' is also out on the roads! Now get the fuck back to work, you useless piles of shit!"

For the rest of the day, the mood in the main room reminded Kai exactly of his many teenage after-school detentions; bubbling resentment barely restrained by sullen silence. It bothered him, but only to the extent that yes, he had clearly been too soft on them lately. That hadn't been a particularly damning lecture by any means. For fuck's sake, that was practically just him saying hi. Spineless wimps, the lot of them.

He managed three phone-calls and six emails to Tala without losing his temper once. He would have thought nothing of this, if not for the fact that Tala's efforts not to comment on said cool head were more obvious than simply saying it and getting it over and done with. That pissed him off. (Which, ok, he was self-aware enough to recognise was … ironic or some such shit.) The memory of Tala telling him he had a personality disorder came back to him with crunching force and his psyche shrunk away from it in a bewildered mix of rage, shame and denial. He did not. Anger issues, yes, ok, he should probably accept that. But he didn't need to be patronised and tiptoed around like some invalid or a stick of dynamite with a millimetre fuse!

He just needed everything to go back to normal. Forget the blackouts had ever happened. Forget –

Beep. He glared at his phone then checked the screen.

Ah. Ray. He didn't want to forget Ray. He opened the text.

Hi how r u? at work? sorry if so! mariah's jst found out bout her hair bobble, I am in doghouse

It took a second for Kai to remember where a hair bobble had been in the scheme of things that night. Once he'd remembered, it took him a couple of seconds more to stop remembering. He closed the text to reply to it later, and couldn't help but double-take at his inbox.

Inbox (1/263)

[Ray] Hi how r u? at work?[ …]

[Ray] xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Ray] night night sleep well

[Ray] lol u r impossible […]

[Ray] ok then but what [ …]

[Ray] no i think i win bcz [ …]

He carried on scrolling until he finally found a text from someone who wasn't Ray. It was from his mobile service provider, but that counted, right? It was text number 159.

They had texted back and forth all weekend, he knew that, but it hadn't quite sunk in until he'd properly looked at the evidence. Like the timestamps. It had started at ten past eleven on Thursday with his rant about Tala, and finished with Ray sending that excessive line of kisses at two-thirty this Monday morning.

What was that, forty texts a day? When was the last time he'd sent forty texts in a week?

He gritted his teeth and put the phone down. Halfway through checking a spreadsheet Tala had just emailed through, he picked it up again to reply to Ray's text.

Yes at work. cleaning up shit, fml. Why she upset? Stained? Always washes out!

Ray's reply was made of capital letters. So Kai utterly ignored the meaning and instead replied,

Oh, so you've found capital letters again! And here was me thinking you'd only used them that once to check if I was still up for it!

Ray's reply made him snort with laughter and flush with arousal simultaneously. He was just about to send a reply along the lines of 'My place or yours?' when he remembered that bloody dinner Tala had set up for him with Julia Fernandez.

Got to be nice to a girl tonight.

Ray took a while to reply.

LOL nice knowing you!

To Kai's surprise, he found the dinner tolerable until now. Julia's ability to produce wittily sarcastic comments about everyone from her brother to her boss to her hairdresser was admirable. Second only to Kai's own ability, of course. She was a typical businesswoman; workaholic, perfectionist, highly-strung, brash, and very, very clever with a razor-sharp tongue which was generally turned against any men in her vicinity.

He left out 'vain and selfish with a disproportionate sense of self-importance and a brother complex the size of the moon,' because he was feeling generous.

Most importantly, as long as he made noises and eye contact every now and again, she happily held forth until food, wine or lack of oxygen temporarily derailed her. This left Kai free to fiddle with his food or drink and think about other things.

This latest tale had dragged his ghoulishly fascinated awareness back like a commuter passing a road accident. It involved her detailing how she frightened away cold-callers.

By pretending to have phone sex with them.

"... and then I hung up and Raul is just sat there staring at me, all 'Sis, why?' Because it's hilarious, of course!" She laughed. Brayed, more accurately.

Ok, a small part of Kai's brain noted, she's had more to drink than I thought. Must have had. Please don't let this be the start of the drunken tales.

The larger part of his brain was ordering him to stare fixedly at his plate while emergency thoughts flailed frantically around his head with sponges, mops and bleach.

" ... you think?"

Kai grunted in reply, hoping that would pass muster. No such luck;

"Kai?"

Reluctantly he raised his head.

She was leaning slightly forward and staring at him expectantly. Her arms were folded. These two postural choices led to exaggeration of her already ample cleavage to the point where her bra (ew, he could see it) looked under strain.

The frantic cleaning inside his head redoubled.

He got a grip on himself, and carried on moving his head up until he met her eyes. Hers gleamed and the corners of her mouth twitched, and he realised with a magnificent internal swearing monologe that she had taken his momentary hesitation at chest level for the exact opposite of its actual motivations.

Oh fucking fuck, she was flirting with him, and thought he was flirting back.

Damn Tala. Damn him to hell. He sliced a piece of spaghetti into tiny pieces and imagined it was Tala's skinny white arm.

He didn't even know why she felt it worth her while to flirt with him. If she were buying from him, then yes, that would make unfortunate, reputation-damaging/making-sense, but he was looking to buy from her. So by that logic he should be the one flirting.

As a matter of fact, yes he should be. It might lower prices. That was how he was paid to think, wasn't it?

It wasn't like hetrosexual flirting was a new job tactic; he'd done it several times before. He wasn't good at it, though. (Hm, wonder why?) Tala and Max were the best, though they had completely opposite approaches. Max was all smiles and compliments and jokes and general fluffy bunnies, while Tala practised the 'strong and silent' approach.

If forced to try, Kai usually just switched his nasty sarcasm for the lighter brand. Nothing else. No smiles or laughter, no compliments, no eye contact, no anything contact please, thank you. And yet some girls went loopy around him. Personally, he thought it said a lot for their mental insecurities. But then, he wasn't paid to insult girls. Males, yes. Girls who worked for him (which made them honorary males, right?), yes

"Another drink?" Her arch suggestion yanked him from the internal musings. (They distracted him from The Cleavage.) He met her green eyes and did not shudder at the interest glittering there.

"Nah." He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. Gave her a few quiet minutes to recognise that both their plates were empty and their conversation at an end.

"Ok, then." She got to her feet. He copied her. "It was very nice meeting you, Kai."

He nodded stiffly and held out his hand. Her eyes flickered from his hand to his face for a second, then she shook his hand. Her firm grip took him completely by surprise and he had to make a split-second adjustment back to his usual handshake as opposed to the half-or-less he usually gave women.

There was none of the fluttering he associated with females who inexplicably found him appealing. Her gaze (she was tall, he wasn't; they were nearly eye-to-eye) was as steady as her handshake, and he might even be imagining that rueful curve of her lips.

Well. He approved of people who retreated gracefully.

"Nice meeting you too, Julia."

Old A/N

Again, I'm so sorry about the nearly year-long wait for -this-. Let me assure you all that things will start happening properly from now on in.

I've also decided to start replying to every review I recieve, just to show everyone how much their input is worth to me.

It amuses me how well K&T are getting on in this. I don't usually write anything with them even interacting much.

New A/N

I don't write Julia enough. I rather like her. If Julia came across a bit fanservicey or if Mariah ever does, someone yell at me because it can be hard for a Kinsey 5.9 bi to write about cute anime girls from a grumpy gay git's PoV. XD

Next chapter will hopefully be up by Friday/Saturday. If not then, then next Saturday when I'm back from holiday.

Hope people liked the new scenes. Please let me know!

xIlbx