Author's Notes: Fourth in the AU series. Here is where some of the magic from the world I'm basing parts of this on starts seeping into the story. It's shorter than some of the earlier parts, but it can't be helped. And yes, I know that I'm mean to end it there.
Rating: R for some violence
Pairing: Ken/Davis, Matt/Tai/Sora
Written: 2004
Just outside Ken's apartment, Davis was pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. He was muttering to himself, bits of phrases and sentences. "What if he... but I came all this way... move on... probably forgotten about me... have to try... just once... can't just go back after all this."
It had taken him hours to track down Ken's residence. He'd gotten lost once, had to double back, and had finally managed to stumble across Ken's apartment building While he had gotten an address for Ken's apartment he had forgotten to get directions. Usually he was pretty good about finding his way around Tokyo, but after so many years the city had changed. Not a whole lot, but enough that some of the landmarks he used to navigate around had been replaced.
The more Davis walked, the more agitated his movements became. He had thought he was ready for this: had in fact spent most of his journey around Tokyo psyching himself up to be ready for this. However, when confronted with the solid reality of Ken's apartment - the wooden door, he brass numbers, the small plaque with 'Ichijouji' in stark black kanji - Davis's confidence had broken.
He was now well on his way to working himself into a full-blown fit.
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In the stairwell, one of Ken's neighbors was carrying the day's groceries to her apartment. Suddenly she froze, cocking her head to one side. She heard... music if it could be called that. Notes and beats that jarred against and ran over each other in their frantic haste. It was more noise than melody, at least in her opinion.
The music was there and gone again. The woman shook her head. Maybe one of the apartments had their radio turned up too loud. Probably tuned to some rock station where there was more screaming than singing.
Oh well. It was gone now. She put a hand on the doorknob, her mind already skipping ahead to the things she needed to do once she was home. Then she paused. Something... something told her she didn't want to open the door.
It whispered to her in a delicate run of notes. There was something she had left in the car, wasn't there? Maybe she should go back down and check. It might be important.
Abruptly the woman turned and started back towards the street where her parking spot was. There was something she'd forgotten in her car. Maybe her wallet or perhaps her apartment keys. It wouldn't be the first time she left her keys in the car. Better to check now and get it done with.
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Davis felt it when the spell triggered. He had set it on the doorknob in the stairwell. It was a minor distraction spell that would work once, maybe twice on a person if they were weak willed enough. His original intent had been to keep the curious at bay in case Ken reacted... badly to his return.
Now the small surge of power served to snap Davis back into reality.
Calm down. Davis took a deep breath, trying to relax tightly strung nerves. He needed to relax. He needed control. Having a hysterical fit in the hallway was not going to help. Star was always telling him to control his powers and instincts. That letting them and his emotions get away from him was never a good idea.
Maybe there were times when he should actually listen to her advice sometimes. Besides, whoever had triggered the spell was going to return. Eventually. It would be better to face them calmly. Having a fit would only be suspicious.
"It's not even 5pm, right? Ken might not even be home yet. So I could be getting all worked up for nothing. It might be... hours before he comes home."
Now there was a depressing thought. Davis sighed having ridden the emotional roller coaster from a frantic high to a dismal low. "Might as well knock and find out."
He knocked. There was no response. It figured. Davis felt the rest of the tension he'd been feeling drain out of him. Nothing to do now but wait till Ken got home. Hopefully, he'd be able to convince Ken to let him inside, to let him explain before he called the police.
The sound of the door being unlocked was loud enough to cause Davis to jump. He watched it slowly swing open. Ken's home? Davis didn't even have time to truly feel anything as his mind took in the scene before him. Rumpled hair, ragged shorts, a loose gray shirt T-shirt that looked like it had been slept in, white socks and no shoes. In the background, Davis could hear a TV with an announcer telling the audience the scores of a game.
It was not Ken.
Davis had two thoughts almost simultaneously. One was that he recognized the guy standing before him. The name TK came to mind. With it came flashes of memories: the goofy white hat TK would always wear, him laughing at some joke Kari had made, Ken telling him that TK and Kari were dating at some point while he was in the institution.
The other thought was less pleasant. How dare this... this... person be in Ken's apartment? He looked like he'd just rolled out of bed. Maybe he'd rolled out of Ken's bed. Bastard. Didn't he know he wasn't good enough to wipe Ken's shoes much less touch him?
Rage, white hot and bitter, rose up from the back of his throat. TK's eyes widened and he took a step back as Davis snarled at him. Without thought, Davis reached for power. It came swiftly and easily, like lightning trained to heel.
Words and melody flooded his notes; sharp staccato notes and clipped, brassy phrases. Davis gave voice to the song. He watched with primal satisfaction as TK's eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled at Davis's feet. That would teach him.
It was only when the notes had faded and Davis was staring down at the body lying at his feet that he had the thought that maybe, just maybe, Ken had a roommate.
"Shit," Davis said. The anger and power drained out of him leaving only a hollow feeling in its wake. "Shit. Shit. Shit. I killed him."
The thought prompted him to action. Davis scrambled to find a pulse, feeling a sense of relief at the steady beat of TK's heart under his fingers. "Alive. He's alive."
He hadn't killed TK. It scared him how close he'd come though. He could just as easily have used a spell that would have killed him. Davis hadn't thought about it, he'd only reacted. It was something he hadn't done in a long, long time.
Now what?
Davis looked around suddenly, as if Ken were going to suddenly appear out of thin air and condemn him. There was nothing but an empty hallway.
"Okay, okay. Don't panic. Think Davis. You have to think." Davis paced a little, stopped, returned to where TK lay in the doorway, and paced some more. Part of him just wanted to leave and pretend all this never happened. Another part of him, a greater part of him, didn't want to leave without seeing Ken. "You can do this. It's going to be okay. First things first, You can't just leave TK lying in the doorway. Move him and deal with the rest later."
It didn't take long for Davis to discover that TK was heavy. "You need to lay off the snack food," Davis told the unconscious TK. He pushed and pulled TK into the apartment as much as possible. Finally, when he was slightly out of breath, Davis resorted to kicking TK through the door. That worked, thought Davis imagined TK would have several mysterious bruises when he woke up.
"Right. TK is in the apartment. I can close the door. Now instead of immediately knowing something is wrong, Ken can wait until he trips over TK." This was not going to work. Davis was going to have to think of something better.
A loud commercial with cheery pop music came on the TV. Davis's head came up and he turned towards the sound. A couple of pillows and a blanket laying on the cough caught his eye. Next to it sat a small bag filled with clothes. Oh. That was where TK was sleeping.
A tiny little voice in the back of his head cheered. Not in Ken's bed. Not with Ken. Davis ignored the jubilation he felt at the realization.
"If I put him on the couch everyone will think he's sleeping. No one will know." Davis grabbed TK under his arms and dragged him to the couch. Then he managed to get TK on the couch. Face down on the couch. "Oh yeah, Davis. That looks natural. Because everyone goes to sleep with their nose buried in a couch cushion."
By flipping TK over and pulling the blanket up over his prone body, Davis managed to make it look like he had just fallen asleep. A pillow shoved behind his head and a TV remote in TK's hand completed the look.
"See? Everything's fine. TK isn't dead. Ken will never know I did anything." David fidgeted nervously while the TV reported the final score for the game. Hours. It could be hours before Ken returned home. "I need to relax. I need to keep my mind off of things."
Davis's eyes fell on the remote in TK's hand.
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"You know what, TK. You're not bad company when your unconscious. You definitely listen to me more this way," Davis said from the kitchen as he raided Ken's fridge. There was some sort of food in dishes: opaque tupperware containers with nothing more substantial than a date on them to identify what was inside. When Davis poked through them he found a fairly well balanced dinner. "Huh. Figures. Ken has dinner already made. I bet he plans his entire meals for the week on Sunday."
There was absolutely no alcohol in the fridge. It shouldn't have surprised him -- if Davis had thought about it he couldn't imagine Ken ever getting drunk-- but it still caught him off guard. "Ken hasn't changed that much. Still too concerned with others will think of him. He doesn't have any alcohol. Not that I should drink. I have enough problems without getting drunk."
He took the containers out of the refrigerator, put two of them with today's date in the microwave, and pressed random buttons until it started cooking. "How long do you think I should cook this? Three minutes? Four?"
At four minutes, Davis opened the microwave door. He stuck his finger into the food and yelped. "That's hot!" Nursing his scalded finger, Davis opened drawers around the kitchen. After a few seconds of digging, he found a pair of cheap wooden chopsticks. "Score!"
The food wasn't bad. Or at least he didn't think it was bad. It was hard for Davis to tell when it was that hot. He could wait until it cooled off, but that wasn't his style. "Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot."
He was half way to the living room when he heard the key in the lock.
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It had been a long day for Ken. He'd left the office over an hour late, having stayed to finish up some paperwork. The trip home was always stressful. Too many people crowded into too small a space, everyone rushing to get on the trains or get off them. It was enough to make someone claustrophobic if he wasn't so use to it.
At least dinner was already taken care of. All he had to do was put it in the microwave and it would be done. It was a trick he'd learned from Izzy, who often worked odd hours at the computer lab. Take one day out of the week to make all your meals, and just warm them up when you needed them. It was one less thing to worry about at the end of the day.
He was always grateful for the fact that his building had elevators. Ken didn't think he was up to facing stairs. The doors slid open and Ken stumbled into the hallway. Luckily there was no one there to see him. No reason for him to pretend that he wasn't as tired as he felt.
Ken tried to open the door, but found it locked. He had to stare at the door for a few seconds before his tired brain processed the fact that he needed a key to open it. That's right. Izzy was doing something at the University tonight. He'd leave the door locked.
His keys were in his right pocket and Ken shifted his briefcase to his other hand so he could get them. The sounds of the TV filtered through the doorway, barely audibly in the hallway. That would be TK. He was staying at their apartment for a few days until his roommate's girlfriend left. Sexiled was what Izzy called it.
Keys in hand, Ken put them in the lock and turned. The door opened. "I'm home."
TK was on the sofa, asleep, a line of drool beginning to trickle from his mouth. The TV continued to play whatever show was on. Ken sighed. So much for a quiet night spent sitting on his couch with a laptop zoning out with the radio on.
It wasn't that Ken didn't like TK. It was that he'd had to deal with people all day long. He was tired of dealing with people, even people he knew and liked. At least computers didn't turn threatening if you were late getting your project done or continuously rate you as mediocre no matter how hard you worked.
There was a stranger standing behind the sofa. A stranger with red-brown hair, wide brown eyes, and golden skin. A stranger wearing tight jeans and a loose blue T-shirt with yellow English words on it. A stranger who was eating his dinner.
Except... the stranger looked like someone he knew. Or had known. Ken blinked, still saw someone who looked vaguely familiar standing there, and blinked again. Was this a friend of TK's? Or maybe someone that Izzy had invited over? No name would come with the face though and Ken felt silly when he realized he was staring.
"I'm sorry..." he started, but the achingly familiar stranger cut him off.
"You cut your hair."
"Excuse me?" Ken's hand automatically went to touch his hair. It was cut short, but it had been cut short for several years now. Ever since he'd started an office job just after college. "Do I know you?"
There was pain in those brown eyes. Ken sucked in a breath, feeling slow and stupid and not understanding what he had done. "Ken?" It was the voice that finally clued him in. Lost and hurt, and it had been so long since he'd heard that voice that he'd forgotten.
"Davis."
Ken dropped his suitcase.
"Don't freak out," Davis said.
Ken freaked out.