kinkfest | Weiss Kreuz/Yami no Matsuei (Aya/Tsuzuki)

Title: This Too Shall Pass
Author:

daegaer
Rating: PG
Fandom: Weiss Kreuz/Yami no Matsuei
Pairing: Aya/Tsuzuki
Summary: The only sure things may be death and taxes, but sometimes it's not the living who face the auditor.

"I'm back!" Aya said, letting the door swing closed behind him. He dropped down into the chair and took a deep breath. "They didn't have strawberry, so I got chocolate. You still like chocolate, right? Remember when I found your secret store of it, and hid it in the back of my wardrobe? I didn't mind buying you more to make up for it when you found out. I'll buy you more today, if you like. Whatever sort you want, you just have to tell me."

She didn't answer, but he expected that. He was happy to do the talking for both of them. He spoke so much when he visited her that he had no words left to use at work. He spooned the very smallest amount of ice cream from the cone and touched it to the inside of her lips, watching it glisten and melt in her mouth.

"It's not all that good," he said apologetically. "When you're better, we can get really nice ice cream. You could have it for every meal, like you used to want to when you were little. All you have to do is wake up."

He spooned a tiny amount more into her mouth, just enough so she could have had the taste, if she were awake.

"She's not going to wake up."

Aya spun round. He hadn't heard anyone come in. The man facing him didn't look like he was trouble. He looked like a salaryman visiting the hospital on his lunch break.

"Fujimiya-san, your sister is very sick. She's not going to wake up."

Aya glared. One of the hospital's lawyers, again. "I pay the damn bills. I've told you, I'm not signing your damn forms, I haven't given up hope."

The man caught his wrist. Aya debated cutting off his hand. It was a pity, he thought, he'd left the sword in his room.

"You can't say no to me, Fujimiya-san. Please believe me, I wish you could." His shoulders slumped in misery. "Accounting has caught up with me, you see."

"What are you talking about?" Aya snapped, pulling his arm free. "It costs too much, is that your new tactic? I pay for her care, not the hospital!"

"No, it's just - the explosion, then being hit by the car; that's twice over I should have killed her . . . awwwk!" the man said as Aya punched him, sending him over the chair and onto the floor. "Wait!" he yelled as Aya caught up the chair to bash his brains in. "It's just my job!"

"I'm going to send you back to Takatori in pieces," Aya snarled, and slammed the chair down.

The man caught it easily in one hand, muttering something Aya couldn't make out. "I don't work for him," he said, throwing the chair aside. "And I don't like killing young girls, which is why I've left her alone." He warily got to his feet. "I'd really rather not do it now, but like I said, Accounting's on my –"

"What're you talking about?" Aya said, deciding the flower vase would do as a makeshift weapon.

"Oh. Sorry. I'm a shinegami." The man sighed as the vase came at his face, producing from nowhere a scrap of paper with characters beautifully inked on it. The paper vanished and the vase spun slowly and lazily in mid air.

"So you're a freak. I've fought people like you before," Aya said.

"Yeah," the man said. "You have no idea how glad I am the European branch has to deal with them; I don't particularly want to have to deal with you. Assassins just make more work for everyone." He frowned. "Don't even think of trying to strangle me with the curtains from the bed. I'm not technically alive, so asphyxiation wouldn't be such a success. Though I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy it." He stepped closer, his face sad. "Come on, Ran. Look me in the eyes – you've seen enough of death to know what I am." Aya flinched back from the pain he saw in the other's eyes, as violet as his own and far more despairing. He found it more difficult to doubt the man than before. "Yeah," the man whispered. "Everyone can see it if they look at me close enough."

"You don't get to kill her," Aya said, blocking his view of the bed. "I'm not letting anyone kill her. I've done too much to keep her alive."

"I've noticed," the man said. "And believe me, the only way you're going to avoid being reincarnated as something particularly nasty is through a long stay in the office. It'll be a relief when you see the amount of paperwork I've had to fill out because of people like you – never mind. It's too difficult to explain." He set the chair upright and sat down. "I don't want to kill your sister. How are you going to help me get that past Accounting? Tatsumi's very anal about his spreadsheets."

"Even if I believed you," Aya said, with more conviction than he felt, "What can I do?"

"Well," the man said. "You're already killing to pay her hospital bills. You could make sure I never have time to catch up on her case."

Aya looked at him. "You want me to kill more," he said flatly. "You've just told me I've already screwed up my next life by killing and now you're telling me to kill more."

"I'm not saying it's a great solution," the man said. "But you're doing it anyway -- just give me an excuse to keep her file permanently on the bottom of my towering stack of paperwork. And –" he looked bashful. "You could get me one of those chocolate ice cream cones, they looked good. I left my wallet in my desk."

Aya blinked. "You want an ice cream."

The man blushed. "I'm known for my sweet tooth. Food in the afterlife's kind of boring."

Aya thought about it, then opened the door. "After you." He ushered the man down to the ice cream shop and ordered him a large cone, watching as it was enthusiastically licked into oblivion. "So if I go on doing what I'm already doing," he said, signalling that they'd take another cone, "you'll neglect your work, as you've been doing all along. You never had any intention of killing her, did you?"

"Ask anyone in my department," the man said, "I've got a lot of experience, but I'm kind of a goofball screw-up. There's no way I'll ever be transferred, and no way I'll ever be ready to move on. Cases like your sister's just prove that to everyone's satisfaction."

"Do you like your work that much?" Aya asked.

The man smiled bitterly, and carefully took the second cone from Aya's hand. "Oh no, Fujimiya-san, I don't like it at all. But it does seem to be where my natural talents shine through. We all make our own hells, Fujimiya-san – but you already know that. I'll see you around."

He was gone. Aya walked back to the hospital, and held his sister's hand for the rest of the afternoon. Death didn't want her, he thought triumphantly. She'd wake up. All he had to do was wait.