This wasn't Kudou Youji's first choice for a place to spend a Wednesday evening. For one thing, what this bar called scotch wasn't worth thinking about, much less drinking. Still, the beer was vaguely drinkable. His sources agreed that he should be able to find the information he needed here, on a Wednesday night. He had known about this place for quite some time. Using it was quite another matter. His taste in clubs tended towards the more upscale. He'd used the front entrance tonight. The back entrance was for those selling drugs, guns, or flesh. The establishment frowned on the sale of such things by those they hadn't inspected. He concentrated on looking like any other mindless flirt, out for a good time.

Youji gyrated with a faceless woman in the crowd. He bent to her ear, whispering a sweet nothing. He'd been keeping tabs on the back door all evening, and frustration was starting to set in. Not that the company wasn't at least pleasurable to look at, especially after the first few beers. Still, he was waiting for someone, dancing where the light was bad in order to be able to hear when the back entrance was opened. His source still wasn't here. There. The click that meant the back door had been unlocked. He turned his whisper into an offer to get his partner a drink. Her tipsy agreement was enough; the fact that she didn't attempt to come with him, a bonus. He leaned on the bar, glancing casually down its length as if trying to get the bartender's attention. At the end of the bar was the foyer from the back entrance. He just happened to get a reasonably good look at it. What he saw caused the unflappable playboy to freeze for an instant before signalling the bartender.

Fujimiya Aya hated places like this. At least, the Aya that Youji thought he knew hated places like this. Youji ordered his beer without really hearing the bartender, forgetting his dance partner as she'd no doubt already forgotten him. Aya had come in the back entrance. Of this place. Aya didn't look well, either, which argued against him being here to either buy or sell drugs or guns. Users simply didn't come here, certainly not by the back entrance. Nor did hired muscle, unless accompanying someone selling. There was, according to Youji's sources, a fairly effective, if not overly bright, guard at the back entrance simply to keep the riffraff out. That left only one possibility, and that didn't bear thinking about. Youji shook his head and sipped his beer. There had to be another explanation. He must simply have missed seeing the person Aya was tailing. Shaking his head, he stepped away from the bar, eeling through the currents in the crowd to a place where he could watch Aya with little risk of being seen.

What he saw didn't offer him any reassurance. Aya wasn't dressed to impress in any noticeable way. Not that he needed to, with that hair and those eyes. A faint murmur marked those in the crowd who had noticed the stunning redhead. After ordering a beer without looking at the bartender, the swordsman simply stood at the end of the bar.

Within three sips of Youji's beer (about ten minutes), the whisperings of the crowd resolved into a rumpled businessman approaching Aya. The man's appearance alone disgusted Youji. What his breath must be doing to Aya was unthinkable. Youji stood, expecting to have to pick up the pieces after Aya tossed the salaryman into a laden table. Instead, Aya simply stood there while the creep reached around his waist and groped his ass. Youji stood dumbfounded for a moment. Aya closed his eyes and said something. Youji could tell that it was a figure, a price. Aya would fetch a reasonably high price on that market, Youji thought speculatively. Youji's teammates were fairly sure that Youji was straight, but that didn't mean he couldn't recognize those who weren't. Youji was fairly sure that Aya had never been straight. Asexual, maybe. But not straight. Still, there's a wide gulf between theoretical sexuality and actual sex, much less prostitution. The thought of the icy swordsman fucking anyone, for love or money, almost startled a laugh from Youji. The salaryman pulled Aya's head down for a kiss, and something in Youji broke. Without thought, he slipped through the crowd. His murderous expression helped his passage, at least among those not too drunk to notice it.

He slammed the drunk against the bar, bending his arm back to keep him from fighting back. "Don't you fucking _dare_ touch him again. Ever." He let the creep, frightened sober, scramble away and tried to get his own thoughts in order. It wasn't easy. He turned to meet the swordsman's familiar deathglare, excuses dying on his tongue.

"Shut. Up. Stop interfering in my business."

Business. What had happened to the construction business Aya had been in before? Why did he need this, this travesty? Unanswered, unasked questions made Youji sputter. "Business, yeah, I noticed. Was that what I think it was? What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing, Aya?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew they'd been the wrong thing to say. Not that there was likely to be any *right* thing to say, all things considered.

Aya snatched that familiar trenchcoat up and tried to make an escape back the way he'd come. Youji couldn't let that happen. He knew by reputation of a few other places Aya might try to find a client, and couldn't bear to think about the redhead in any of them. He pushed Aya back against the bar, pinning him with an arm on either side. "Answer me." He hoped the rest of the crowd thought he'd simply decided to buy the gorgeous prostitute for himself. At the same time, he hoped desperately that that thought didn't occur to Aya. The redhead's pride was one of the first things anyone sane noticed about him, and being bought by a friend wouldn't sit well.

"Pursuing my own affairs on my own time. We don't work together any more, Kudou. Leave me alone."

Thinking aloud, Youji ignored the comment. "Let me get this straight." Pun not intended, he thought against the faint beer-induced buzz. "That was you. And that was some, some disgusting little creep about to kiss you. And you were _not_ beating the shit out of him." He made a show of counting on his fingers to add two and two. "So either you _liked_ it - you thought he was cute, Aya? That your type?" He held Aya's unforgettable eyes, catching the automatic, disgusted snort before the redhead could suppress it. "Ha. Thought not." He waved a finger at the swordsman. Maybe Aya would notice that he wasn't pinned anymore, and provide him with an excuse to get out of this place before that disgusting salaryman had time to think about the face he'd lost. "Which leaves the totally ridiculous idea that you were gonna -" Youji surveyed Aya's outfit from up close, which only provided sickening confirmation of everything he'd seen. The swordsman looked like he hadn't had a decent meal in weeks. Youji suspected that sleep had eluded him for nearly as long. "- God, Aya. Tell me it's something else. Please. Some kind of mission?"

The playboy's unvoiced prayers had apparently fallen on deaf ears. At times like this, he came as close as he ever wanted to come to understanding that lunatic Farfarello. Aya looked down at his boots. Retreating into silence again. Wonderful, just what Kudou Youji needed to make his evening complete.

The swordsman shook his head, and Youji relaxed slightly. Mistake number how many? Aya lunged forward, using momentum and surprise to break his hold. Youji hesitated for an instant. He really did want the information he'd come here for, but he wasn't going to get it tonight even if Aya hadn't decided to break and run. Cursing under his breath, he followed the redheaded maniac out the back entrance.

From bad to worse. Aya was kicking the shit out of the guard. Not that Youji had any illusions about the kid being innocent. Whatever Aya was punishing him for, he surely deserved. But Youji didn't have time to clean this up. No time for subtlety, either. He knocked Aya backwards by main force. "Tell you what, genius, why don't you just tell me about it somewhere else. It's not like I had other plans for this evening, you bastard." His sarcasm fell on obviously deaf ears. "We have to get _out_ of here, you stupid - are you even hearing me? Aya!"

He aimed a slap at the redhead's face, not expecting it to land. That made catching Aya's countering arm much easier. Dragging Aya around wasn't the way he'd planned to spend his evening, not by a long stretch. When realization of the mess they were leaving behind began to dawn on Aya's face, Youji let him 'escape', settling for guiding the swordsman towards the carpark. Not directly, of course, not with Aya leaving bloody footprints on the sidewalk. God, whatever made Aya forget basic safety precautions had better be worth this risk.

Youji had parked his car in a better area of town. His recent idleness had allowed him to install some nifty boobytraps, and he didn't want some punk frying himself trying to hotwire the Seven. The elderly gentleman minding the garage was the usual sort, near-blind and easily sweet-talked. That made it easier to avoid being described to the police, but didn't speed up the process of getting his car out. Aya, as impatient as ever, hauled the sliding door up himself. Youji tried to watch the redhead while fending off 'grandfather's teasing commentary about his love life. The last things he needed now were, in order, Aya stealing his car and Aya getting himself seriously hurt on one of the boobytraps the car now contained. Fortunately, the redhead seemed to be thinking slowly enough that Youji managed to pay the attendant before he'd come to a decision.

"Where do you think you're going?" Youji grabbed his friend by the shoulders as he turned to slip away. Add a third thing to that list: Aya simply taking off on foot. Calculating his tone to annoy, he carefully said, "Take. Off. Those. Boots. I doubt anyone will press charges - well, at least not if the guy lives - but you're still not getting evidence all over my car or in the house."

"I'm not going back to the house." Youji held Aya pinned. Something of his disbelief must have shown on his face, because Aya practically snarled at him. "Just leave me alone." Youji fought the desire to strangle the swordsman. He'd never left Aya alone. That had never prevented the swordsman from demanding it, though.

Exasperation got the better of Youji. He managed not to shout at Aya, simply because the attendant wasn't entirely deaf. "Why the hell not? What is wrong with you?" Something was definitely wrong. Something more than Aya's usual icy pigheadedness. The longer Aya stalled in public, the less convinced of the swordsman's sanity Youji became.

Aya's stomach grumbled audibly. He closed his eyes, and Youji bit his lip. Beauty like Aya's, even on a male face, should never be that forlorn. "I need money," the redhead mumbled. The words didn't really sound as if they had been meant for Youji's ears, but the playboy reacted without thought. "Aya, you _know_ -"

"If I wanted your pity, I'd have asked for it in the first place," Aya snapped. Youji wrestled down the urge to punch some sense into Aya. He shook his head instead. This damnable White Knight complex of his was going to get him killed someday. Especially if Aya figured out that the swordsman had become its most recent focus tonight. He thought with faint regret about the woman whose errant husband he'd been investigating. Ah, well, she'd either figure it out herself or hire a PI. He'd been taking his payment in less... tangible forms. Aya shifted inside his trenchcoat.

"You really think of it that way, don't you? You are one screwed-up stupid bastard, Fujimiya." He sighed and let his hands drop to avoid shaking Aya. "What does it take to get you to listen to me?"

"Nothing." The redhead began backing away. To Youji's eyes, he looked more like a trapped animal than the cool leader Weiss had known. Something was definitely very wrong. "Weiss is finished. Just forget about it." And Weiss being finished means I'm worse than a stranger? Youji clenched his teeth on the angry words until they faded. He needed to try another tactic, or the police would show up before he got Aya into the car. His sharp eyes watched Aya until the redhead turned.

"How much?" He tried to keep his tone light and annoying. He'd spent years baiting this man, and had a pretty good idea of where his buttons were. The redhead paused, seemingly off-guard. "What?"

"That creep. How much did you tell him to give you?" He expected that Aya had undervalued himself. Plus, it would give him an idea of how bad his teammate's, okay, his former teammate's situation was. He lounged against his car, one arm resting easily along the roof.

"Seventy thousand. What does it matter?" Youji managed not to whistle. Aya hadn't undervalued himself by much, and his situation must be rather bad indeed. Still, even if Aya didn't think of him as anything more than an ex-coworker, Youji couldn't let a friend do this to himself. "So fine. I'll give you eighty."

Aya turned slowly on his heel. Miracle of miracles, Youji wasn't the recipient of a deathglare this time. Youji smiled sardonically at Aya. He had to get a real reaction from the swordsman. Watching this shell of his teammate was no fun at all. "You need the money, right, Aya?" He forced himself to relax against the Seven. Genuine caring ranked only a little behind pity on the list of things Fujimiya Aya didn't accept from anyone. Except maybe his sister.

"There's nothing I can give you worth eighty thousand, Kudou." 'You are so wrong, Aya,' thought Youji. He was sure he could find several men willing to spend more than eighty thousand for the privilege of enjoying the devastating redhead's body for an evening. He wasn't, at present, one of them, but there was something that could give him almost as much value for the money.

"Oh yes there is," Youji drawled, letting that dangerous smile widen. "You do exactly whatever the fuck I tell you to do for the rest of the night, and you answer _all_ my questions, and you stop being such a god damned prick for once and it'll be more than worth it." He paused to see if his words had made an impression, smirking when he discovered hints that he was succeeding. "I take it back. There's not enough money on the stock exchange to make you stop being a prick."

"Fuck you," the redhead choked out. Damn, overshot the mark. Youji moved quickly, catching up to Aya before the redhead began swaying. Both to trap Aya and to prevent him from falling over, Youji wrapped his arms around him. He evaded the stomp Aya aimed at his instep by only the thinnest of margins. Youji revised his opinion. He'd more than overshot the mark. He'd missed the target entirely. Aya wasn't necessarily any more mentally ill than he'd ever been, but he did have a raging fever.

"Fuck, Aya, you're _sick_," Youji hissed. "Just - whatever it is, just come back with me and get warmed up. Okay? Sit down, eat some soup, take an aspirin. Can you handle that?" If the redhead was too feverish to listen to sense, Youji decided, he'd knock him over the head and drag his sorry ass home. He might even have some Motrin in the glove compartment. He'd certainly spent way too much time arguing this cause in public.

To his relief, the redhead slumped slightly in his arms. It wasn't much, but it was the beginning of a surrender. He dropped his arms immediately, but didn't move away. He still wasn't sure the redhead wasn't going to bolt, but his instincts said that Aya needed the illusion of independent movement.

Back at the car, Aya seemed to have just enough energy to buckle himself into the passenger seat while Youji rummaged in the trunk for something to contain those damnable boots. Plastic. He needed... Ah! The cover he'd pulled off his dry cleaning the other day would do. He mentally shook his head as Aya stuck out each foot in turn to have it de-booted.

He shut the door carefully on his prize and tossed the boots into the trunk. He'd have to find some bricks to weight the boots down, then stop by the harbor. Tomorrow. He slid into the driver's seat of his beloved car with an inward smile of satisfaction. He intended to enjoy this evening, however different it was proving to be from his initial plans.

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